“Vehicles are all safely tucked away," Max reports while yawning. "I did a three-mile loop. The wind is picking up, but I didn’t scent anything untoward. Nothing but deer and coyotes. How’s Lu?”
“I’ll find out.”
As I walk into the kitchen, it’s obvious the 'surgery' is winding down.
Ludo is still on the table, unconscious, but his breathing deep and steady, and his face has lost that gray, deathly pallor.
Opal and Theo both look thoroughly drained. “He'll be better by the morning,” Opal tells me. “The bullet nicked an artery, and with that amount of blood loss…he was lucky.”
She turns to Theo. “And I don’t know what your story is, missy, but whatever you were channeling into him saved his life. He was slipping away for a moment.”
Theo gives the woman a tired smile. “I’ll never be able to thank you enough.”
“Shall I lay him out on the sofa?” That’s got to be better than the hard table.
“Please,” Opal replies. “And then I want us all to sit and talk. I’ve been able to pick up snippets, but Gareth and I are owed a full explanation.”
“Max, Cosmo, come move Ludo.” I’m going to let those two do the heavy lifting, but Opal stops me. “You!’ She points at Drakeward. “You’re also injured.”
“It’s nothing, just my ribs,” he mutters. Willow’s aunt shakes her head and tells him to pull up his shirt.
His right side is mottled with purple and black.
“Cosmo!”
“I’m fine, Theodora.”
As Opal insists on applying balm to his ribs, I pull Theo into my arms. She leans against me, body shaking with fatigue.
I look at the clock on the wall, five in the morning. Soon the sun will be up.
Gareth settles at the table, with a groan. “Any more hot water in that kettle?”
Willow comes in at that moment and starts brewing more tea. “Kids are all asleep,” she tells us.
“Thankfully,” Donovan adds, “because I am completely out of stories.” He slumps down onto a wooden stool. “They got my entire catalogue.”
A comforting smell of herbs rises from the steaming mugs Willow hands out.
Once everyone is settled, Opal fixes me with a beady eye.
“So, Mr. Mystery Man, what in Hades have you got my niece involved with?”
38
I’ve never been in a home like this; shabby, worn, and filled with warmth.
And I’ve never spent time with people like the Bevans.
I’m extremely uncomfortable.
So I keep to the edge of the room, staying silent and just watching.
Feniks explains how the kids are used like storage cells for the dark energy, and where we rescued them from. He mostly glosses over the fact we can shift into wild beasts, and the Bevans don’t push it. Like they don’t want to know.
They have one priority.
“We need to find these children’s families,” Opal says, her voice is weary but urgent.
