I stepped closer and lowered my voice so only she could hear me. “I know.”
“No, you don’t. I look like I got jumped by a disgruntled Sin Binner, I’m being relocated against my will, and now you’re about to carry me through a hockey house like some damsel in distress giving Renaissance era.”
My mouth twitched despite the rage still sitting under my skin. “That was specific.”
“You are specific.”
“I’m carrying you, Pip.”
Her lips pressed together, trembling once before she covered it with attitude because that was what she did. That was how she stayed standing even when she could barely breathe. “If you drop me, I’m haunting you.”
“I won’t drop you.”
“That’s what men say before ruining lives.”
“I’m not men.”
Her eyes lifted to mine.
The joke faded for half a second because no, I wasn’t. I was different to her and not part of the male branding she was so proud of.
I slid one arm behind her back and the other beneath her knees, moving as carefully as I could. Even then, pain flashed across her face when I lifted her, and it took everything in me not to turn around, walk out of that house, and start hunting. She buried her face against my shoulder for one second, just one, while the room stayed painfully quiet around us.
Then she whispered, “This is humiliating.”
I carried her toward the stairs. “You’re handling it with grace.”
“I’m handling it with narcotics and rage.”
“What do you think I meant by grace?”
Charm sniffed behind us. Aura muttered something under her breath that sounded threatening enough to make Easton straighten like he wanted to volunteer to commit the crime for her. Ryan said nothing, but when I glanced down, he was already at the foot of the stairs watching the front door instead of us.
Good.
Everyone had started looking in the right directions.
I got Bliss upstairs and into my room without jostling her more than necessary. Charm and Aura followed with bags, blankets, medication, water bottles, chargers, skincare, and enough supplies to survive a minor apocalypse if the apocalypse had a strong preference for lip gloss and soft pajamas. Easton lingered in the hallway because Aura had not invited him in, which meant he would rather die than cross the threshold without permission. Ryan stayed downstairs. Briggs and Rider posted themselves near the main floor like they had beenassigned positions, which they had, even if nobody had officially said it.
Bliss sat on the edge of my bed looking too small in my room and too pissed off about it to be treated like glass.
“It’s so you in here,” she said as Charm tucked another pillow behind her back.
I glanced around. “What does that mean?”
“Unnecessarily expensive. Emotionally private. Smells good in a suspicious way.”
“It smells suspicious?”
“Like a man with a trust fund and body wash he didn’t buy from a grocery store.”
Charm nodded. “Accurate.”
Aura set Bliss’s medication on the nightstand. “Deeply accurate.”
“You’re all enjoying this too much,” I said.
Bliss lifted one shoulder carefully. “You brought me here. This is your consequence.”
