I shook my head, my cheeks heating, and I got up, unable to be in such close proximity to him. I now smelled like him, which was doing strange things to me, making me crave his scent. Tyson pulled me back down on the couch.
“Don’t feel embarrassed, Lucy,” he said, grabbing the blood bag from my fingers and chucking it on the coffee table before he pulled me closer, wrapping his arm around me and making me lean on him.
“I like that you smell of me. Don’t be embarrassed because you like it too. It's okay to want to be with us, Lucy,” he said, pressing his lips to my head.
“Don’t you find it weird, though? You watched me grow up. Saw all my awkward phases.”
“No. You got to see ours too. You’re mine. I like knowing everything about you. Why? Is it weird to you?”
“Not really, just everyone will think it’s odd,” I told him.
“No, they won’t. We don’t choose our mates, Lucy. And even if we did, I would still choose you. Have Ace and I not shown you, we have always loved you, Lucy? From the moment we found you, we have been attached to you,” he said.
“Yeah, but that was the bond. You just didn’t realize it,” I told him.
“Maybe. But before the bond kicked in, we still could have chosen to be away from you. We could have gone back to our mother. We stayed because we loved you, and your mother and our brother. I think I always knew you were going to be ours, even before we realized it. That is why I waited.”
“You were with Tara for a while, though,” I told him. She was actually a nice girl. I thought for sure they would have been mates.
“Yes, but it never felt right, so we never did anything. Ace was a dick for not waiting for his mate, but I am glad I did,” he told me.
Chapter thirty-one
Ace
I parked out the front of Avery and Aamon’s house, it was a cottage-style house. She had three houses, but this was the main one she lived in with Aamon. From the moment I found out Lucy had been on these pills since she was twelve, it had been eating at me. Now that I was standing out the front of the witch hybrid’s house, I couldn’t bring myself to knock on her door and ask her.
I didn’t want to be to blame for her depression, yet Atticus grew silent within me. He wholeheartedly believed we were at fault too. It was too much of a coincidence that we found out she was our mate when she was twelve, and she went on these pills at the same age.
“Do you plan to sit outside and admire the house, or are you casing the joint?” Aamon said, misting beside me and sitting in the passenger seat. I jumped when I heard his voice, the smell of burned almonds filling my nostrils.
“You know you could have just tapped on my window.”
“Hey, You are the one out here moping like the little lost pup you are. Avery has made tea. She has been expecting you,” Aamon said before disappearing again.
I sighed, tossing my door open before shutting it. The front porch light flickered on, and the gardens came into view. Avery had a green thumb. Being a witch, I suppose she would, but her gardens looked more like an exotic forest as I walked the stone path to the porch. The door was open already, and I walked inside. I could smell burning incense and salt across the entryway.
“Don’t break the salt line!” she called out from the kitchen. I stepped over it carefully, walking down the long hallway to the back of the house and passing the dining room and living room.
“Conjured up some bad voodoo the other day. Just a precaution till dad gets here to summon it back to hell for me,” she said as I stepped into her huge kitchen.
“Cookie?” she asked, setting them out on the stove. It was so weird seeing her baking. She looked like a normal woman, a housewife. Yet I knew she had the power to end the world if she wanted to. I sat at the island bench on a stool next to Aamon. He suddenly misted before returning with a hot cookie in his hands, Avery smacking him with her tongs.
“You impatient devil spawn!” she snapped at him, and he smiled at her, biting into the cookie. She raised an eyebrow at him, her eyes sparkling back at him before turning to me.
“You are here about Lucy’s pills and the teacher.” she said, grabbing some cups and making tea. She put some cookies on a plate before setting them down in front of Aamon and me. He instantly grabbed one.
“Share, Aamon.” she warned, and I smirked at the demon being scolded by her. He was putty in her hands. It was clear who wore the pants in their relationship. Yet, it was known he was her antidote for her craziness, he had a calming effect on her.
When he first met Avery, my father told me she was crazed with power. Absorbing everything and everyone she could touch until her father, Asmodeus, The Prince of Hell and a gatekeeper, told her she’d punished Aamon enough and brought him back to try to subdue her. It worked, and without Aamon Avalon City might have ceased to exist.
My father was introduced to her when he was a kid. His father came to see her about the hybrids that were hunting people down, then he died and my father took over the pack. He got back in touch with her through my grandfather, Abel, when he went looking for a cure to help Lily control her wolf. He took Ryker with him, and they have been best friends for years now.
“Go on. Ask your questions, Ace. I have known your family too long. Don’t be shy,” Avery said, placing the tea down in front of me. I picked it up and sipped it. I hated tea. I was more of a coffee drinker. But she made good tea, and I always felt buzzed leaving her place. Making me wonder what she’d put in it.
“Is Lucy on these pills because of me?”
“Not just because of you. She was raised in captivity, Ace. The blame isn’t all yours, but did you have a big impact? Yes. Yes, you did.”