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“How do you figure?”
“They are still breathing, aren’t they?”
Maybe he truly loved her and losing her hurt. Maybe it was his ego talking: a proud alpha, left by a beautiful woman for a normal human, a wimp, pretty much disliked by every shapeshifter who met him. I wished I could make it better for him and for me. But the only way to do so lay through setting them free.
“Please let them go.”
He rose. “We’ll talk about it later.”
“Curran…”
“What?”
“You’ll feel better if you cut them loose.”
“What makes you think it bothers me?” He almost said something else, but changed his mind and left the room.
I felt very alone sitting on the bed by myself. The last time I had felt so alone was when I found out that Greg was murdered.
I untied my robe and laid down. The expedition to the bathroom followed by a tense conversation wore me out. I wanted Curran to let them marry, so I could be done with all of it.
Something moved outside the window. I raised my head. Nothing. Just a rectangular view of the sky, barely brightening before the sunrise. We were on the second or third floor. No trees nearby. I put my head back on my pillow. Wonderful. I’m hallucinating now.
Knock-knock-knock.
A reeve? Couldn’t be—those gals didn’t knock. I slid off the bed and walked to the window. No bars.
No alarm. I guess when you can smell a drop of blood in five quarts of water, you don’t bother with alarms. And only a total lunatic would risk breaking into a house full of monsters. I turned away.
Knock-knock-knock.
Alright, fine. I’ll play. The latch on the window was of the old variety, heavy and metal. I’d have to use both hands to get it open. I put Slayer on the windowsill.
Beyond the glass, an empty street stretched into gloom. I unlocked the latch and slid the window up.
Below me lay a small ledge, barely more that an ornamental row of bricks protruding from the wall.
Bran popped into existence on the ledge right in front of me. His hands clamped my hands, pinning them to the windowsill. “Hello, dove.” He grinned at me. “Look at that: you don’t have your pretty knife and I’ve got your hands. What are you gonna do now?”
I rammed my head into his nose.