“We should be going, dear.” Arthur laid his hand against his wife’s shoulder with a gentle pat. “Let Terran and Orrin see if they can talk any sense into her.” He turned then as Cullen entered the room and held his hand out; the dark blue silk suit he wore, despite its tailoring, made him appear more gaunt than he would have if he’d taken the jacket off. “Maybe we’ll see each other again before we head home.”
“Arthur.” Cullen nodded and accepted the handshake. “It was good to see you again.”
No, it wasn’t. She could see the subtle signs of Cullen’s discomfort, which she was certain mirrored hers. She had a good excuse, though; she’d never been comfortable around them.
Turning back to her, Arthur watched her silently for a long moment before he bent his knees and hunched next to her. She watched him warily, barely able to stifle a wince as he picked up her hand and patted it in what she was certain was meant to be a fatherly manner.
“Take it easy, Chelsea. It’s a terrible thing when a father is forced to lose a child,” he told her, but the arrogant superiority in his tone grated on her nerves.
“No danger.” She slid her hand from his and pushed it through her hair to dispel the feel of his touch. “I’m sure they’ve already reserved a padded cell for me.” She grinned over Arthur’s shoulder at her father’s frowning countenance. “That or chains.”
Arthur chuckled at the comment, rose to his feet, then nodded to the rest of the family. “We’ll be going now. Let me know if you need anything.”
Placing his hand low on his wife’s back, he led her to the door and out of the house. As the door closed, Chelsea noticed the air didn’t feel nearly as tense as it had while he was there.
“Cullen,” Malachi stated long seconds later. “No offense, but there’s not a chance in hell I’d turn my back on that man.”
That observation struck Chelsea as a perfect description of the undercurrents of tension she herself had felt.
Orrin shook his gray head, his expression saddened. “He’s a man tormented by loss,” he said somberly. “And by his own inability to prevent it.”
Malachi merely glanced at the other man, obviously not agreeing with him. “As I said.” He shrugged. “I wouldn’t turn my back on him. He was attempting to put everyone at ease, but I could smell his hatred. It was there, despite the attempts to appear differently. And it was centered on Cullen.”
Chelsea looked up at Cullen. His expression was closed, his gaze cool as he met her father’s long look. He wasn’t commenting, but she sensed he agreed with Malachi. She knew his Breed senses were coming alive with the mating; he would have caught the scent of hatred coming from Arthur if it was there. And if Malachi said it was there, then it was.
“Arthur never approved of Cullen,” Terran stated then, surprising Chelsea with the lack of compassion in his tone. “He and Marsha along with Ray pushed her to him, though.” He turned to Cullen with a harsh look. “I’m not a fool and I’ve been around Breeds long enough to know that the stories about the matings aren’t complete falsehoods. And they knew it too.” He nodded to the door Arthur and Marsha had used. “They never confirmed it, but I saw the knowledge in their eyes when Lauren was screaming at you from her deathbed.”
Cullen flinched. The muscle at his jaw bunched, tightening with the fierce clenching of his teeth before he cursed under his breath.
“Dad, we need to leave.” It was Isabelle who hurriedly made the suggestion. Moving to their father, she placed her hand on his shoulder and gave him a warning look. “Come on, now isn’t the time for this. Chelsea needs to rest. We know she’s okay, and Cullen will watch out for her far better than we can.”
“Come, son.” Orrin joined Isabelle at his son’s side. “Wish your youngest well and we’ll see if we can’t find a drink to ease the tension of the matter.” He patted Terran’s shoulder and headed for the door. “Hurry yourselves. It’s time we leave.”
Chelsea forced herself to her feet.
“I stopped and packed a bag for you before heading here,” Isabelle told her. “Malachi put it in the kitchen while I was tending your boo-boos.” She shot Chelsea a teasing grin. “Call me and let me know when you need company.”
“I will,” Chelsea promised, her gaze moving to her father once again as he stepped to her.
“If either you or Isabelle were taken from me, I wouldn’t survive my grief,” he whispered at her ear as he gave a quick, fierce hug. “Remember that when you’re being so damned reckless.”
He turned quickly away then and stalked from the house, the door closing heavily behind him.
While she was being so reckless. Tears threatened to fill her eyes at her father’s words. Reckless, foolhardy, senseless. Those were his descriptions of her need to fight the injustices she saw in their world.
“He’s scared, Chelsea,” Malachi told her, compassion filling his expression as his arm curved around Isabelle’s waist and pulled her to him. “You’re his daughter, his far-too-courageous child. He was watching the report of the attack as it happened. The nightmares he’s having aren’t even waiting for him to go to sleep. They’re flashing through his mind as we speak.”
Chelsea blinked back the tears, the knowledge of her father’s pain as well as her own tearing at her. “I know that, Malachi,” she retorted painfully as she looked away from him, hating that both he and Cullen no doubt could sense every emotion tearing through her now. “But asking me to be anyone besides who I am is the same as killing me anyway.” She shoved her hands into the pockets of her jeans and shook her head, her lips trembling in a flood of emotion she fought to control. “And what hurts the most is that every one of you would change me if you could.”
“Wrong,” Malachi assured her, his tone firm, though no less gentle. “I wouldn’t change you, and neither would your sister, but it won’t stop any of us from worrying.”
“Or from aching in grief if we lost you,” Isabelle told her, her voice thick with the tears she was holding back. Moving to her, her sister gave her a quick hug before taking her husband’s hand and leaving the house.
Her grandfather patted her shoulder, his dark gaze as fathomless as the oceans.
“Your courage terrifies your father, just as his sister’s once did. It isn’t your courage he would change, but the dangers that would harm you.” He sighed heavily, patted her back consolingly and smiled with loving strength. “The winds have always called your name, whispering across the lands as they called you to defend those others would harm. Now, allow those you would fight for to do the sam
e.”