“I don’t want to talk about this. Not again.” Stryke wheeled around.
“Stryke, listen. Please.” It killed him to beg his brother for anything, but this was important and long overdue. Stryke paused, but he didn’t turn around. “We’ve always wondered why. Why the demons attackedthatday. Why they were so driven to kill. Why they were even in the human realm. We know now.”
Stryke swung back to Blade, his features tight. Guarded. “Tell me.”
“Harvester figured it out. You know she’s back, right? She thinks it was Lilith’s doing.”
“Why would—?” Stryke snarled. “Logan. Lilith was after Logan.”
“Yeah.”
Stryke’s demeanor turned dark. Murky. Deadly. “Tell whoever needs to know that my company will provide any assistance necessary to find and end her.”
“I will.” Blade shoved his hands into his jeans pockets and shifted uncomfortably. So much more needed to be said. And yet, whatcouldbe said? They’d lost so many years to anger and bitterness, leaving a gulf of separation between them. Bridging it wouldn’t be easy. Maybe even impossible. At this point, words meant little. “Hey…I was thinking.”
“Trying something new?”
Had…had Stryke actually attempted to use humor? “Look at you, making a joke. Talk about trying something new.” He nearly fell over when Stryke smiled. Well, it was a smirk, but that was close enough.
“You’ll find that being mated comes with personality changes,” Stryke muttered, but there was an underlying affectionate note in his tone. “So, what were you thinking?”
“It’s about your offer to reconnect our brother link. Um…if it’s still good, I’m cool with it.”
A few moments passed, enough to make Blade feel like an idiot forbringing it up. But when Stryke finally spoke, his hesitation made sense.
His voice was thick with emotion.
“I’ll have Cyan do it today.” He reached out and gave Blade’s shoulder an affectionate squeeze.
In Stryke’s world, that was a hug.
Stryke took off before shit got weird, but Blade’s eyes still stung with almost two decades of pain being flushed from his system.
He skimmed his fingers over his sword glyph, truly understanding it now. There was still a lot of work to be done in his life, but like his sword, he was finally whole.
Chapter 34
They’d all agreed that Mace and Blade would be present when Scotty told her parents about their bond.
But for the boys’ safety, Scotty insisted they wait outside the manor. That way, if Ares took the news badly, the guys at least had room to maneuver. They wouldn’t run, but they might need to dodge.
Still, Scotty didn’t think her father would freak out, despite what Aleka said. He loved Mace and Blade, and he would want his daughter to be happy.
And she was.
As she stood in her parents’ great room, she could feel her mates, a comforting, faint awareness that they were alive and well. And maybe a little nervous.
No doubt they could sense her anxiety as she waited for her parents’ response to what she’d just told them.
“Congratulations, honey,” Cara said as she crossed the room to give Scotty a hug. “I don’t understand how it all works, but the three of you make sense.” Cara pulled back and turned to her husband. “Don’t you think so?”
Ares had yet to say a single word. Or have any expression besides an unreadable blank one.
“Darling?” There was a note of alarm in Cara’s voice, so subtle that anyone who didn’t know her well might miss it.
But it made Scotty’s hackles rise.
Crap.
