Lifting the lid, I selected the document, opened, it, and turned the laptop so he could see the screen.
Zachary snatched the laptop, pulling it closer to him. “That… that… I’m going to fucking kill that piece of shit whore.” Drawing a deep breath, he looked up at me. “Sorry, but I’ll do it, I swear to God.”
I buried my face in my hands. “It gets worse.”
“How is that even possible?” Zachary made a noise that reminded me of a wolf’s growl. “I’ll help you find your baby—and deal with that slut.”
Yesterday, I would have been angry over his calling Suzanne a whore or a slut, but I couldn’t bring myself to feel anything other than anguish. “She’s dead, Zachary. She was three.” My eyes burned, and I swallowed to keep my tears contained. I couldn’t force myself to tell him that I could still feel her clinging to me, a little spot of living warmth within me, when I was otherwise cold.
“Oh my God, Dante. What about Suzanne?”
When I had the courage to look over at him, he was biting one of his knuckles. I couldn’t tell if he was on the verge of tears because of rage or grief.
“She’s dead too. Where had I gone wrong, Zach?” I asked, my voice broken.
He lifted his head, glaring at me. Jabbing me in the chest with a finger, he leaned towards me and snapped, “It was never you. It was Suzanne. She didn’t deserve you, and she sure as hell didn’t deserve anything you had done for her. Goddamn it all.” My friend’s breathing hitched, and he drew several deep and long breaths. “We didn’t want to tell you this because we knew how much it would hurt you, but I guess there’s no point in hiding it now. She left a note, sent to your brother of all people. We’d thought all along it hadn’t been an accident, but a suicide. It was never your fault, Dante. She hated the Inquisition more than she loved you. You hadn’t done anything wrong, not a single damned thing. How did you find out about this?”
“I was looking into something else and stumbled onto her birth certificate,” I replied, wondering if he’d know I wasn’t telling him the complete truth. Zachary didn’t need to be burdened with the nature of my witchcraft or what was lurking in the depths of the crimson stone he had in his quarters. I sighed.
Zachary bowed his head. There was something horribly wrong about watching my friend cry when I couldn’t. The feelings were there, but I felt like a dried out well. My throat ached and my eyes burned, but something kept my eyes dry.
I wanted my little girl, but she was gone, nothing left of her but the lingering memory of a ghost determined to haunt me. I’d never know what it would feel like to have her thump against my legs, as I often saw little girls do when their fathers returned home from work. I’d never feel her weight in my arms as I acquiesced to her demands to be held. There wouldn’t be any bedtime stories. I’d known that five years ago.
Then, however, I hadn’t known I would miss her growing up and learning how to walk and talk. I had missed tucking her in as she clutched her favorite stuffed animal. All that was left for me was a spirit who would never know how badly I had wanted her in my life.
~~*~~
Zachary and I sat together in silence, the minutes stretching into an hour. When someone knocked at the door, Zachary reached over, closed the laptop, and crossed the room. He answered in silence, letting Richard in, who was followed by my twin. They halted several steps in, gawking at me. Zachary reclaimed his seat on the couch, moving the laptop into its bag.
As warned, Elliot looked like a raccoon with his matched pair of black eyes. While I hurt and didn’t want the company, I pushed my anguish aside and said, “Good morning, Raccoon. Good morning, Richard. By the way, the only one allowed to blacken my brother’s eye is me.”
“Sorry,” Richard replied with a faint smile. “He needed someone to put him in his place and you were napping. Where’s Evelyn?”
I pointed over my shoulder in direction of the bedroom. “Sleeping.”
“No, I’m awake,” the Fenerec murmured behind me before draping her arms over my shoulders, nestling her cheek against my throat. “Come back to bed.”
When she relaxed against me, her breath slow and even, I was able to smile, reaching up to ruffle her hair. “You can’t sleep there,” I informed her, trying to extract my fingers from her tangled locks. “Go bring a me a brush and I’ll get those knots out.”
“I can stay here if I want to,” she protested, securing her grip on my bathrobe.
I wanted to make certain she stayed, preventing her from ever wanting to leave my side. Some of my tension eased as she snuggled as close to me as she could. “Go get the brush and sit here,” I said, turning my head to kiss her cheek.
“If I must,” she complained, wandering to the bathroom. When she returned, she held a brush in her hand, which she held out to me. Instead of sitting down on the couch like I expected, she flopped down, her legs stretched over Zachary’s lap while the rest of her was sprawled over me. She pillowed her chin on her arms.
I was grateful that the bathrobe she was wearing covered her right down to her ankles. While I’d let Zachary function as a leg rest, I didn’t want him getting a single peek at her legs or at her charming splattering of freckles.
I went to work on her hair, brushing my way from the ends towards her scalp, careful not to pull too hard as I defeated tangle after tangle. “Elliot, why do you have two black eyes? While I’m aware you had a disagreement with Richard’s fist, I was under the impression he only hit you once.”
There were some things an older brother simply had to do, and teasing neared the top of the list. It also let me act like there was nothing wrong.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” he grumbled, collapsing onto one of the armchairs.
“But I want you to talk about it. Maybe I should go ask Vicky what you two were doing—”
“Don’t you dare,” my twin hissed.
I paused in my brushing of Evelyn’s hair to arch a brow at my brother. “I trust I will be invited to the wedding.”
Elliot’s face turned scarlet. “Jackson!”
“You know what, Richard? If he doesn’t get around to proposing to her sometime in the near future, you have my permission to beat sense into him.”
“You’re so mean,” Evelyn said, straining to poke me in the side. I caught her hand and gave it a squeeze before returning to my brushing duties.
My brother scowled at me. “That’s not funny. He hits hard.”
“She’s pretty, she’s smart, she’s capable of keeping you in line, and she makes more money than you do. What’s the problem?”
“You’re being rude,” Evelyn chided.
While it was tempting to give her a playful pinch, I settled with a discreet flicking of her ear under the guise of gathering her hair. “I am not. It’s my sacred duty as the older brother to tease him.”
“Listen to her,” Elliot pleaded. “What did I do to you?”
With a chuckle, Richard sat on arm of the couch near me. “I solemnly swear to beat your brother, should he fail to propose to his Fenerec girlfriend. Furthermore, I solemnly swear to beat you if you fail to do the same.”
“That’s not necessary,” Evelyn replied, jabbing at the Alpha Fenerec, poking him in the side with a finger. “I can beat him myself, if needed. Which it won’t be, thank you very much.”
“It won’t be necessary,” I muttered. My hand had mostly healed from her bite, and while she had left a bruise on my shoulder, I had every intention of never giving her a reason to want to leave—and every reason to say yes when I did propose to her. I believed in her promise to let me hunt her to my heart’s content. When I was done, she’d have a ring as beautiful as she was, and I’d give her the wedding she deserved.
A proposal wasn’t needed; she had my promise already, and I had hers.
I was determined to make Suzanne a fading shadow, insubstantial and powerless to separate me from Evelyn.
My brother sighed. “You are all aware that there are restrictions on who I can marry, aren’t you?”
“Change the rules,” I snapped, my annoyance spiking at the thought of our blood family once again ruining our lives. “Go tell them to fuck themselves and make new rules.”
I sucked in a breath, dropping the brush to cover my mouth when I realized what I had blurted. Everyone stared at me with wide eyes. My brother’s mouth hung open, although he didn’t say a word.
Evelyn broke the silence, kicking her legs and howling her laughter. She rolled over on my lap, grabbing hold of my neck to pull herself upright. Once situated to her liking across my legs, she kissed my cheek. “You’re so adorable.” Still chuckling, she grabbed the brush, hopped off of me, and retreated to the bathroom. “I need a shower.”
“Well, if you had any doubts of your brother’s opinion, Mr. Anderson, you can lay them to rest,” Richard said, his voice rumbling from his amusement.
“I can’t believe I said that,” I mumbled into my hands, feeling my face burn.
Through the closed bathroom door, I heard Evelyn laugh again.
“I will take your suggestion under consideration. What, pray tell, should I tell them to use when following your non-biased opinion?”
I bit my lip in my effort to contain my growing need to laugh. When I could control myself, I said, “I have a set of golf clubs I would happily donate to the cause.”
My brother cracked his knuckles. “Why don’t I come over there and blacken your eyes so we’re better matched.”
“Children,” Zachary chided. “Play nice. There is a lady present.”
“If you blacken Jackson’s eye, Elliot, I’m breaking your arm,” Evelyn called out. “No one will be beating my mate, thank you very much.”
My brother’s eyebrows rose. “Mate?”
I flushed and kept my mouth shut, knowing there was nothing I could say that wouldn’t offend someone—or leave me the butt end of a long-term joke.
Richard saved me by chuckling. “What exactly were you expecting, Mr. Anderson? He is an earth witch and she is a Fenerec, a rather lovely one at that. They’ll be good for each other.”
I considered if I could make a strategic retreat for the bedroom. Zachary clucked his tongue and said, “Interesting. So, when’s the wedding? Should I get out my dress uniform? I’m certain I could whip something together for this evening…”
Evelyn opened the bathroom door enough to poke her head out. “I deserve a proper proposal and engagement, if you please. Stop bothering him.” She slammed the door, and moments later, I heard her turn on the shower.
“Listen to her,” I pleaded.
“I claim the honor and privilege of helping him pick out the ring,” Zachary declared.
“No, I’m his brother. That’s my right.”
“This is not up for debate,” I cut in desperately, relieved when my glare managed to silence both of them.
“Listen, Dante. I already had to change the rules once for you,” my twin said, lifting his hands in exasperation. “You’re trying to kill us both, aren’t you?”
My resentment flared, and I straightened, narrowing my eyes at my brother. While I still couldn’t believe Evelyn wanted someone like me, I couldn’t sit and let my brother lose his chance. He had changed the rules so that I could marry Suzanne without fearing the Inquisition’s wrath.
If he could do it for me, he could do it for himself—and maybe even put an end to the necessity of a pure, null line ruling the Inquisition. If necessary, we had cousins—and a lot of them—who could pick up the mantle.
I trembled as my anger spiked. “No, I am not trying to get us both killed. You deserve to love who you want to love, be she Normal, witch, or Fenerec. Take it from me, you could do a lot worse than a Fenerec.” For a long moment, I clenched my teeth before snarling, “She won’t abandon you.”
My twin’s eyes widened and his color faded to a sickly gray. “Dante—”
“Don’t you Dante me. Change the rules, Elliot. For your sake and for hers. If she chooses you, she won’t change her mind—ever. She’ll wait for you until the day you die—or she dies. Don’t do that to her. Neither one of you deserves it, especially if you’re as committed to her as I think you are. Don’t be like me, left alone and regretting it for years.”
“Well, this is awkward,” Richard muttered. The Fenerec sighed. “Unfortunately, he’s correct. I didn’t want to mention this quite yet, but I guess now is as good of a time as any. The lady carries your scent, Mr. Anderson. Like it or not, it’s a problem you’re going to have to deal with. I hope you don’t have any Normal girlfriends in the wings, Your Eminence. Fenerec are all the jealous type, and for whatever reason, the mating bond has taken hold on the pair of you.”
For a moment, I thought my brother was going to topple over in a faint. I was halfway to my feet when Richard’s arm slapped against my chest and he shoved me back down. “Easy, Jackson. If he makes a fool out of himself, I’ll catch him so he doesn’t crack his head on anything.”
My brother closed his eyes and groaned. “She’s the one with the shaman boyfriend and two adopted kids, both of whom live with him, if you must know. You’re wrong.”
“My nose doesn’t lie. Sure, I have to work a little harder to tell you two apart, but you carry Miss Vicky’s scent and she carries yours. Any Fenerec who catches a sniff will know,” Richard warned.
I settled back on the couch, shoving Richard’s arm aside. “Welcome to my life, little brother.”
Richard rubbed his temples, making thoughtful noises. “If it makes you feel better, you didn’t smell like her when we first boarded. Maybe she felt threatened by Evelyn and chose to stake her claim then? Either way, the mating bond has taken hold. Perhaps that might have something to do with your second black eye? All it takes is a Fenerec committing to someone who is likewise committed. It isn’t an exact art, and you won’t be the first or last pair forged accidentally. Just ask my mate and wife, as we’re such a pair. It is, however, quite permanent, for better or for worse. You better get used to the idea. Take your brother’s advice. Change the rules while you can.”
“Why me?” Groaning, my brother bowed his head. “Don’t I have to agree to this?”
With a shake of his head, Richard rose and crouched next to my twin, patting his shoulder. “It doesn’t work that way, sorry. Maybe you didn’t say anything, but pack magic doesn’t need spoken agreement. If both parties are committed, the mating bond can take hold. Usually it takes intent and effort—and sex—but not necessarily.”