“Don’t know. Don’t care.” Those heartless witches had cast them aside and left them without protection. “And I don’t know how she and Garret got together. She never talked about him. Couldn’t blame her.” Garret was a terrible father, so it wouldn’t be too far off if he was an abusive partner. Unfortunately for the then-minor Eli, his name had been on the birth certificate and so CPS had no choice but to call him first to take custody.
“I’m so sorry,” Olivia said, her voice breaking. Moving closer to him, she crawled onto his lap and wrapped her arms around him. He closed his eyes, breathing in her scent as he nuzzled her hair.
Jacob cleared his throat. “We still gotta deal with whoever shot Olivia. Uncle Killian’s gonna lose his shit.”
“I’ll call it in.” Sloane unbuckled her seatbelt.
“I’ll come with?—”
“No.” Sloane’s words were as icy was the Arctic wind.
Jacob looked aback. “Baby?—”
But she was already scrambling out the SUV. The door slammed shut with such a force that it made the entire vehicle shake.
“Fuck!” Jacob punched the steering wheel and looked heavenwards.
Olivia lifted her head and looked over her shoulder. “You’re a jackass, you know. How could you not trust her?”
Trust, it seemed, was the word of the day.
“I just …” He let out a frustrated sound. “This whole damned thing caught me off guard. I swear to God, Blake?—”
“Don’t you blame him,” Olivia warned. “Go and apologize to your mate. Beg her and get down on your knees if you have to.”
Jacob nodded, then got out of the car.
“Should I get down my knees, too?”
Her head snapped back to his direction, her expression unreadable. “Do you want to?”
“I was ready to, the moment I realized what I jerk I was to you.” He reached out to tuck a lock of hair away from her face, but recoiled when he saw the sticky blood on her temple. His heart seized again, at the thought of what could have happened. “You could have died.”
“I can’t die, remember?” As if to prove her point, she brushed the hair away from her forehead to show him her bloodstained, but unmarred skin. “Bullet to the head. That’s a new one I bet. All the other True Mates are gonna be jealous.”
He cocked his head to the side. “Jealous?”
“Uh-huh. Apparently, there’s some kind of contest for the best way to almost die. Goes back to my mom’s generation. She was hit by a car, you know.”
“How could you even think that of me?”
Eli winced as Sloane’s muffled shout somehow penetrated the SUV’s soundproof windows. Outside, the other couple was seemingly locked in a screaming match, with Sloane waving herhands around and Jacob red-faced as he attempted to control his anger.
“I’m sorry you didn’t think I could trust you,” Eli began turning back to Olivia. “But I promised my mother I wouldn’t tell anyone.”
“I know that now.” She relaxed against him. “Thank you for helping me, even at the risk of exposing your secret.”
“Of course. I had to. You were in pain.” He would do anything for her, didn’t she know that?
“How much longer do we have to be here, do you think?”
Eli glanced back out the window. The screaming had stopped and now Sloane was sobbing in Jacob’s arms.
“Not much longer, probably.”
She snuggled deeper against him. “We can wait.”
Eli couldn’t agree more. He held her tighter, reveling in the weight and feel of her. Fuck, even if she couldn’t die, seeing her in so much pain had pushed him to the edge. He couldn’t let that happen again. His wolf growled in agreement.
