“You can’t give me any clues about what your gift is telling you?”
She shakes her head. “Not because I’m holding back, because I don’t know.”
“What about your sisters? Can you tell me what their gifts are? Could those gifts be put together with yours to figure this out?”
“Sometimes it does work that way, but it isn’t right now. Veronica’s is psychometry, though, so we could have her spend time with your pack to see if she can pick up on anything, but she’s on assignment right now. Jess is a medium and she was already here and couldn’t pick up on anything. Dani is a healer, so her strengths often come in after a trauma instead of proactively.”
“You’re thinking we’re about to have some trauma?”
“Maybe. I don’t know.”
“Erica? What’s her gift?”
“Spell-writing.”
I scoff. Figures. “Can she undo spells too?”
Vivica shakes her head with determination in her expression. “She won’t play with black magic – you need not be concerned with that. Listen, I can’t tell you what’s coming, but beyond the issues with Erica and Riley Savage, something is coming, and if you need help, call. If Greyson Blackwood wants to know us, we’re also open to that. We’d like that very much, in fact.”
“I’ll tell him.” I spin to head out the way I came.
She doesn’t follow.
Once out back, I walk up the running boards sticking out of the back of the truck and find Cade waiting, holding the side of a large dresser. I grab the other side. His eyes are on me.
“All good?”
“Think so.”
When I don’t offer further information, he starts moving and we walk the furniture down the walking board, then inside the building and make our way up the steep staircase, me heading backwards, Cade forward-facing.
“These stairs are a bitch,” Amie says from behind me at the top of the staircase. “You okay down there, Doggo?”
“I’m good,” I say, smiling over my shoulder at her.
I don’t like the look in her eyes. It feels like she’s tweaked about something.
“How ‘bout you, there, Guns?”
Guns? I quirk an eyebrow up at what she’s just called Cade.
He grins. “Absolutely fine.”
There’s a beat of silence, but then his grin slips when she drawls, “You sure are.”
I look over my shoulder again, but she’s disappeared out of view.
Cade’s eyes hit mine and there’s alarm in them.
My girl is pissed off at me and she’s just thrown down the gauntlet.
I grind my molars and we take the dresser the rest of the way up.
“Where does this go, pretty lady?” Cade asks Kathleen, who is standing at the kitchen counter, stirring the contents of a coffee mug. Lorenzo has a shoulder leaned against the fridge, smiling while giving her his attention with a donut in his hand.
Kathleen’s eyes dart to us and she points. “Just the master bedroom would be perfect, thanks so much. And come get a drink. And a donut.” She gestures to a bakery box.
We deposit the dresser in the large bedroom and head back to the kitchen.
“I’d love a coffee,” Cade says, “What kinds of donuts you got there?”
“Help yourself. An assortment.” She lifts the box lid so Cade can peer inside. “Mason?”
“No thanks.”
“If you change your mind, help yourself. Thanks for coming by to help.”
“You need help with anything at all, don’t hesitate to ask. That’s what family is for. Where’s your daughter?” I ask, though my nose senses where my mate is.
“I think she went to powder her nose.” She gestures toward a closed door.
I stalk that way and then open the door and step inside, finding Amie in front of the mirror, applying lipstick. She shoots me a look of surprise as she caps it and puts it back into her bag, which sits on the vanity.
She then spins to face me with sharpness in her eyes. I close the door, then lift her up by her hips and sit her on the vanity, moving in close until our noses are touching.
“You want me to teach you a lesson?” I grind out, gripping her hips with intention.
Her eyes widen. “What?”
“If you think for a second that flirting with another man to get back at me is a weapon you’ll get the chance to call on again, I’m telling you right now, don’t do it or you’ll get punished. And it’ll be the kind of punishment you won’t forget.”
“Excuse me?”
“You’ll be reminded of who you belong to, baby, because I will fucking show you.”
She chokes out, “Oh, really?”
She’s about to throw some sass.
“You want me to spell it out?” I offer.
“I think you’d better,” she answers a bit breathlessly.
“You flirt with a man like that again, I’ll fuck you in front of him.”
Her mouth drops open in shock.
“Don’t fuck around, Amie. You doing something like that, if I were someone else, I might beat the living shit out of him for it and it wouldn’t be his fault. It’d be yours. So don’t pull that bullshit again. Understand me? You’re new to my world so here’s your warning. Shit like that could send me into The Rut and a super-alpha’s biology means I won’t give a fuck who’s around to see it.”