“Pancakes?” he offered. It was Percy’s solution to every emotional crisis.
I laughed. Wet and shaky, but real. “Pancakes.”
An hour later, I stood at the kitchen counter drinking coffee, watching Percy attempt to flip a pancake that was roughly the size of a dinner plate. Him and his stupid obsession with pancakes never failed to amuse me.
Solomon sat at the table with a newspaper he wasn’t reading, his eyes obviously tracking my movements instead. Lucian leaned against the doorframe with his arms crossed, watching the pancake situation with the particular brand of skepticism he reserved for Percy’s cooking.
The claiming mark on my throat throbbed in calmness.
I guess this is really my life now.
Supernatural mates, a bookshop under renovation, an investigation into a magical threat, and pancakes the size of hubcaps.
And I was absurdly, terrifyingly happy.
But of course, what’s my life without the drama?
The knock came at 11:14 AM. Measured knocks echoed at the front door.
My mates reacted before I did. Lucian straightened from the doorframe, every line of his body shifting from relaxed to alert.Solomon set down his newspaper and stood. Percy abandoned the pancake without a second glance, which was how I knew it was serious.
“Stay here,” Lucian said.
“I live here too.”
“Mira.”
“Lucian.”
He gave me the look. I gave him one back. The standoff lasted two seconds before he turned and walked to the front door with Solomon flanking his right side and Percival falling in behind.
I followed anyway. Obviously.
Lucian opened the door.
The man on the porch was in his sixties. Gray threaded through dark hair at his temples, lines carved into a face that might have been handsome thirty years ago. He wore a tailored coat over a button-down shirt. His posture was straight, his hands clasped in front of him.
His eyes were blue. The same shade of ocean blue as my left eye, the one I’d hidden behind a brown contact for years.
My heart stopped.
“I’m looking for my daughter,” he said. His voice was calm, measured, with a tremor beneath it that could have been genuine emotion or expertly performed vulnerability.
Lucian didn’t move. He filled the doorway, one arm braced against the frame, his body a wall between the stranger and the interior of the cabin.
“Who are you?”
“Thiago Maxwell.”
The man’s eyes moved past Lucian’s shoulder, scanning the hallway behind him.
“I’m Mira’s father. Is she here?”
The coffee mug trembled in my fingers. A drop sloshed over the rim and burned my knuckle. I barely registered the pain because my brain was too busy short-circuiting over the fact that the man who’d walked out of my life years ago was standing on my porch.
I pushed past Lucian before anyone could stop me.
His hand caught my arm. Not restraining, just a point of contact, a reminder that he was there. I pulled free gently and stepped into the doorway.
