“Scared and tired,” I tell her honestly with a wan smile. “We didn’t exactly uncover nice things at my uncle’s house.”
She presses her forehead to my temple and guides me after Ridge. “Well, just remember you’re not alone.”
Amora splits off to head into the kitchen as I step into the bedroom with the guys. We all dress quickly, throwing on whatever we can find. I glance longingly at the bed as we all troop out of the room again.
Ridge grabs a bottle of amber liquid off the top of the fridge as we enter his small but serviceable kitchen. I catch sight of a familiar black label—a popular but cheap brand of whiskey my uncle liked. I help Ridge gather glasses, one for everybody, as the rest of our group chooses seats at the table.
I hold out my glass as Ridge tips the bottle over it, whiskey sloshing into the cup and casting yellow shards of light on the table beneath the overhead lamp. As he moves on to serve the rest of the group, I sniff experimentally at the glass. I’ve never had whiskey before—never even wanted to try it. But it smells strong, and I could use a little fortifying after the night’s events, so I take a sip. It burns on the way down and makes my eyes water, but I don’t hate the taste.
I just hate the memories it calls to my mind. All the nights my uncle got whiskey drunk and hurt me or made messes he expected me to clean up. The scent and taste recall each memory so vividly that it makes my heart hurt and my pulse race. I drink more, ignoring both the memories and the way it burns. Maybe a couple more glasses will help chase away the ghosts.
Ridge finally collapses into a chair and takes a swig of whiskey before he looks at Amora and says, “Are you really here because you were worried about us, or because you have more intel?”
She makes a face and sets her glass down on the tabletop. “Both. You know how fast rumors spread among wolves. I have it on good authority that word of your unique… situation has spread to the other packs.”
“Sable’s condition too?” Archer asks.
Condition.
The word stings, even though I know he didn’t mean anything hurtful by it. But it makes me feel like I’ve got some kind of terminal illness, the kind of thing you want to hide from strangers so they won’t treat you differently. I mask the rising nausea in my stomach with another, longer drink from my glass.
Amora nods. “Her powers. Your unorthodox mating bond. All of it.”
“Lawson’s flunkies,” Trystan snarls. “They told the other packs on purpose.”
I’m inclined to agree with him. Lawson, Ridge’s brother, attempted to incite a rebellion among the pack and take the alpha position from Ridge. But he lost that challenge and ended up languishing in a cell to wait for a trial by council. If anyone traveled to the other packs to spread the word, it was definitely one of Lawson’s followers.
Ridge sighs. “Fucking hell. I’ll be cleaning up the hate and unrest he sowed for months.”
Amora reaches out to touch his shoulder. “Hey. I’ve got your back. We all do. Lawson can be a smooth talker when he wants to be, and he convinced a few hotheads with too much fucking testosterone to join him, that’s all. None of them were on his side with any conviction, and now that he’s lost his challenge, they’ll calm down.”
I look at her long, elegant fingers resting on Ridge’s strong shoulder, and I expect to feel a surge of jealousy. That’s the normal reaction I’d imagine a woman might have when another strikingly beautiful girl is touching her man. Instead, I feel a strong surge of affection for Amora.
She operates like a second-in-command for Ridge, and their history means they work well together and carry a deep-seated love for one another. The kind of trust they share is something money can’t buy, and it’s definitely something every leader should have in a lieutenant.
Now that the mate bond between Ridge and myself is solidified, any trace of jealousy I might have felt before is gone. Amora and Ridge weren’t ever meant to be together in a romantic way. I was meant for him. Meant to be his mate, his lover, his confidant. Amora and he have a close connection, but I know it will never rival what he and I share.
The mate bond felt big and frightening before it finally happened. But now that it has, it’s a huge relief. I’m so sure of the bond between me and my men. More sure of it than anything I’ve ever known in my life.
“So what happened out there?” Amora asks, and I’m surprised to find she’s addressing me.
I glance around at the men, but Archer gives me a nod of encouragement. I launch into an explanation of how we went to the small town where I grew up and found that Uncle Clint wasn’t home. So we tracked him to a nearby bar and waited for him to emerge, then followed him as he walked toward his house. But once we turned off the main road and onto the long driveway that led through trees back to his house, he whirled around and launched an attack, trying to take us out by magic.
Unluckily for him, my mates aren’t so easily fooled. I tell Amora how they fought back and managed to subdue him, pinning him down so we could question him. But when it comes time to reveal what he said about me, I can’t form the words.
Archer takes over the narrative. “It turns out, Sable’s uncle isn’t really her blood relative. He somehow convinced or forced a witch and a shifter to mate, and Sable was the result.”
“Holy shit. So you really are half wolf, half witch. That’s crazy,” Amora says, shaking her head in amazement. “Did he say why he did it? Why he wanted to create you?”
I open my mouth and then immediately close it. Should I tell Amora he meant me to be a weapon against the shifters?
But Ridge cuts in before I have to make that choice. “We aren’t certain, though I’m fucking sure it wasn’t for anything good. He attacked us again, trying to break free, and was killed in the fight before we could get more information.”
That’s not a lie, really. It stands to reason any witch who experimented with a half-shifter, half-witch baby wasn’t doing it for benevolent reasons. But the way Ridge glossed over the truth sends a pang through me. Does he have the same worries I do? About my witch having a mind of her own?
What if I really am the enemy?
Archer speaks up. “He did mention that there’s someone out there who might cause problems for Sable, should she find her. I’m assuming he was talking about another witch, someone he might have worked with or known previously. He didn’t seem to be part of a coven, but that doesn’t mean he’s always been on his own.”