chapter Fifteen
Tammy’s son couldn’t stop crying.
Silent tears. They tracked down his pale face as he huddled small and terrified in his mother’s arms, and even though his too-thin shoulders shook with each sob, he didn’t make a noise. He cried like someone who knew how to make himself invisible, like someone used to hiding from the monsters.
Eden didn’t know how to soothe him when his own mother’s whispers didn’t help, when the walls weren’t thick enough to hide the sound of battle. It surrounded the house now, which was why they’d crowded into the empty bedroom at the top of the stairs. One window, one door, no balcony.
No space. It wasn’t a large room, and agitated werewolves seemed to take up more than just physical space. Tammy and her son were tucked in the corner with the two weaker males from Memphis. Mae leaned against the wall with her eyes closed, drawing in breaths too slow and uniform to be anything but a conscious effort to stay calm.
Eden stood next to Lorelei and lowered her voice, though Mae would be able to hear a whisper. “Is she going to be okay?”
Lorelei watched the door. “When it’s over. She’ll be fine when it’s over.”
“Soon,” Eden promised, though it felt like a lie. So many howls. Could Jay keep them all from breaking through their lines? Even if fighting that many wasn’t impossible, keeping track of them might be.
It would only take one. Shivering, Eden bent to remove her shoes and socks. Better to be ready, which meant stripping naked so she could change at a moment’s notice.
She had her shirt off and was reaching for the hooks on her bra when something thumped lightly in the hallway. “Lorelei, get back in the corner with the others.”
“I don’t think so.” She stood beside Eden, her hands at her sides. “You need a beta, right?”
Someone who could stand at her side, the way Colin stood next to Jay. Eden grabbed Lorelei’s hand and squeezed it once. “I need you to keep the others out of my way. If someone comes through that door, I’m giving in to the wolf. And I don’t know if she’ll know how to stop fighting once she starts.”
“No one else is running into this fight,” Lorelei murmured. “No one else could. Just you.”
Footsteps whispered on the other side of the door. Eden released Lorelei, inhaled deeply and caught the scent of wolf and something sharp, almost metallic. No, not a scent, a taste—like chewing tin foil. It raised the hair on her arms and curled her lips back into a snarl as the doorknob twisted slowly.
In the corner, Tammy whimpered, high and terrified, and Eden knew who was coming for them, even if she didn’t recognize the tall, coolly handsome man who pushed open the door.
Lorelei snatched a pistol out of the back of her waistband. “Get out, Christian. Now.”
Talking, not shooting. If Eden were any good with firearms, she’d have snatched the thing out of Lorelei’s grasp and shot the bastard herself, but distraction now could prove fatal. “Shoot him,” she whispered, dragging power up from the depths of her being.
Christian laughed. “Shoot me? Lorelei doesn’t shoot people. Lorelei rolls over like a good bitch and does whatever it takes to keep a man distracted. Don’t you, pretty pet?”
Her jaw clenched, and she gripped the butt of the gun so hard her knuckles turned white. “I’ll find a way to do it this time,” she whispered. “For them.” Her thumb eased the safety button off with an audible click.
Christian laughed again, a sound full of grating disdain riding dominant power. It shredded through Lorelei and smashed into Eden, and for the first time she recognized the true difference between them. Lorelei swayed as if the power had snuffed out her will.
Eden felt nothing but rage. Clean, sweet fury.
The gun slipped from Lorelei’s limp fingers, and Eden caught it in midair. Time constricted as the wolf flooded her, turning an awkward grasp into a smooth spin. Grab the gun. Push Lorelei back toward the others. Eden swooped up to face Christian as she squeezed the trigger.
Unfortunately, she wasn’t the only one who was fast. Her two bullets sank into the doorframe as Christian disappeared into the hallway. She lunged after him, still firing, aware of only one thing. She had to drive him away from her people, away from trembling Lorelei and terrified Mae and Tammy’s little boy, who had seen so many monsters already.
Silence in the hallway, not even footsteps. And then Christian’s voice rang out from nowhere. “You might as well put it down, sweetheart.”
Eden edged into the doorway and peeked in both directions. The short hallway leading to the front bedrooms stood empty, all of the doors still shut. To the right, the craft and sitting room was a cluttered mess, stuffed with Mae’s sewing and stacks of unpacked boxes, but no wolf. Not unless he was hunched in the blind corner opposite the sliding door.
Lifting the gun, she took one careful step forward. “I won’t have any problem shooting you.”
“Won’t you?”
The disembodied whisper shivered past her. Eden spun toward the front of the house again, but no one was there.
The metallic taste had returned, sharp and bitter in her mouth. Magic. “You’re such a f*cking coward you need to hide from a bunch of women and a crying kid?” she demanded, straining to listen for the reply. It had to have a direction.
A low, husky laugh. “Do those mind games work on the shitheads around here?”
She swung in the direction of the sound and fired, but the bullet dug uselessly into the far wall. “I’m not the one playing hide and seek.”
“No.” A door slammed across the hall—Zack’s door. “How many bullets will that little gun hold? How many have you fired?”
Eden groped behind her for the doorknob and hauled the door shut behind her. With her back against the solid wood, Christian couldn’t get into the room without going through her.
She almost hoped he’d try. Right now she thought she could gladly rip out his throat without shifting forms first. “Almost enough bullets to bring backup. Want me to fire a few more out the window to bring the men running?”
“You could try.” A force slammed into her hand, knocking the gun free. It landed with a thump and skittered down the hall.
Human instinct screamed for her to lunge after it. Her muscles tensed in anticipation of a move, but her wolf flowed up and snatched control, flooding her with steely resolve.
The weakest members of her pack were behind the door at her back. She wasn’t budging until the threat against them was dying or already dead.
Human sight was only a distraction. She closed her eyes and reached out with that part of her that could slide down the bond connecting her to Jay. He’d closed his emotions off from her, undoubtedly to keep her from worrying, but she wasn’t grasping for him. She was reaching out, out, out, feeling beyond herself with a new awareness.
Instinct.
She felt Lorelei. Mae. The shattered pieces of a woman that must be Tammy, and the terror of her son. Two males, tired and hopeless, reeking of defeat and resigned to death.
And metal. Stinging cold and deadly. Not a wolf—a spell meant to hide one. It flowed toward her in a rush, and she jerked aside just before a force crashed into the door directly where her head had been.
Eden flung her hand toward the sick pulse of magic and closed her fingers around empty air. Except it wasn’t empty—it was a tangible force that singed her palm, a warning jolt that raised every hair on her body as if lightning was about to obliterate her. Screaming her defiance, she tightened her grip and jerked hard, tearing the spell from its anchor.
The wooden disc burned in her hand, and Christian Peters appeared in front of her, his mouth already curling into a sneer.
Then he punched her in the face. It knocked her wits sideways, and that was his fatal mistake.
Eden’s mind skittered in a thousand panicked directions, and instinct took over. Her wolf knew nothing about fighting in human skin, but she knew plenty about vulnerable spots and pressing an advantage.
An opponent who laughed smugly instead of swinging again was an advantage. While Christian was still congratulating himself for planting his fist in Eden’s face, she whipped around, caught him by the shirt and slammed him face first into the wall with all the werewolf strength she still couldn’t control.
He didn’t make that mistake again. He shook off the blow with a growl and kicked at her knee. Fast, but not faster than her. She wrenched to the side and lunged past him, raking her fingers down his face. She left bloody furrows in her wake, marks that would sting but not slow him down.
That was all right. Hurt his body, sting his pride. Awkward and ineffective fighting was a trap that could lure him away from the people she needed to protect. She backed down the hall and scrambled for the gun. He’d have to follow her, if only to keep her from shooting him in the back.
His hand slammed into her shoulder, and she pitched forward into the wall. Christian loomed over her, snarling, and grabbed her by the hair. The movement lifted his arm, and she drove her elbow back into his ribs hard enough to crack bone. His fingers tightened reflexively, ripping at her hair, but she ignored the pain. Instead, she used those scant seconds to tear free of his grip with so much pain she wondered faintly how much of her scalp she’d left behind.
Footsteps sounded too loudly behind her, Christian already recovered and advancing again. She crashed into the table where Mae did her sewing and, whispering a silent apology, snatched up the fancy new sewing machine and whirled, swinging it at his injured side.
Too slow. He slid to the side and the machine crashed through the sliding glass door and slammed against the porch railing.
“That wasn’t smart.” He locked his arm around her throat and squeezed—hard.
She fought to twist away, but he had almost as much werewolf strength and far more human bulk. This time he was braced against her elbows. Trying to kick him only resulted in him hefting his arm up until her toes barely dragged against the ground.
No air. She couldn’t draw in breath, and werewolves needed it. They must need it. If she rolled her eyes to the right, she could see the door to Quinn’s room. The memory of his body flashed through her mind unbidden, dangling from a rope, discolored and lifeless—
No. Eden groped for the table again, fingers scrambling over fabric and fringed tassels—the curtains Mae had been sewing. Then her fingertips brushed something hard.
With the edges of the room already graying in her vision, she fumbled the curtains aside and closed her hand around the long metal fabric scissors. She remembered purchasing them with Fletcher’s money, remembered him urging her to get the large expensive set that would last instead of something cheap and plastic.
God bless him.
Gripping the handle, she whipped the pointy end of those massive, shiny shears around to sink into Christian’s gut.
He screamed, a sound full of as much rage as pain, and footsteps thundered down the hall. Lorelei and Mae, though it was hard to make out their faces with the room swimming. Mae turned toward the head of the stairs but stopped and threw open the second-floor window with a cry for help.
Eden ignored them both and stabbed Christian again. The scissors grew slick with blood, and she shifted her grip, weaving her fingers through the handhold as she sank the blades deep and twisted until he dropped her.
Air rushed into her lungs, sparking pain and a dizzy sense of giddiness. She wanted to bend over and gasp in deep breaths until she was drunk on oxygen, but the wolf wouldn’t rest with an unfallen adversary behind her. Spinning around, she met Christian’s dark, shocked gaze and sank the blood-slicked scissors into his throat.
She followed him down, and she didn’t let go until Lorelei covered her bloodied hands and tugged. “He’s dead, Eden. Gone.”
Christian was still under her. Silent. His blood covered Eden’s body, soaked through her bra and jeans and slicked over her skin. So much blood, and he wasn’t bleeding anymore. He was dead. Not breathing, not moving, not bleeding dead.
She still couldn’t ease her grip on the scissors. “Are they fighting in the front yard? Can you see through the window?”
“They’re coming in,” Mae called down the hallway, even as footsteps pounded up the stairs.
Jay stumbled onto the top landing, his bare feet sliding in the blood that slicked the floor. His throat worked, and he gripped the edge of the open doorway, his voice low and full of dread. “Eden—”
She found every mark on him. Scratches that were all but healed, deeper wounds that knit together even as she watched. She cataloged them because it was the only thing she could do, because her fingers still weren’t unclenching and God, he was alive. “I can’t let go.”
He was by her side in an instant, his body wrapped half around hers even as he knelt beside her. “It’s okay.” He closed his hand around hers and pressed his lips to her temple. “Just breathe.”
Breathing brought the sharp scent of blood, metallic and overwhelming. Eden squeezed her eyes shut and fought to block out everything but his touch. “I’m okay. I promise. I’m just…”
Jay trembled. “How the hell did he get in here?”
“He had a—a thing…”
“A charm,” Mae supplied, holding up a bit of leather strung through a wooden disc.
“A charm.” Taking in another slow breath, Eden released the scissors and turned her hand palm up. Under the blood, just below her middle finger, an angry burn mark marred her skin. “I couldn’t see him, but I could feel the magic.”
Jay hissed in a breath, his questing fingers hovering just over her palm. “Fletcher and Colin are handling things outside. Mae, go tell Stella to make a sweep, check for more magic like that.” He touched Eden’s hand finally, a light brush across her wrist. “Let’s get you cleaned up, okay?”
Looking down was a mistake. She was straddling Christian, her knees in a pool of blood that seemed to go on for miles. It covered everything, soaking into her jeans, clinging to her bare skin, covering her in tangible proof of what she’d done.
Easy to say she wanted to rip the bastard’s throat out. Facing the gruesome, bloody truth of it—
She jerked her gaze away and found Lorelei hovering there, eyes worried, ready to step forward and help. Ready to take care of Eden.
She shouldn’t have to, and that stiffened Eden’s spine just enough. Somehow she kept her voice even as she let Jay help her to her feet. “Can you go check on Tammy and the others? And close the door. I don’t want her son to see me when we walk by.”
“Don’t worry about that right now.” He slipped his arm around her waist, supporting her when her knees might have buckled.
Worrying about it was silly, but it kept her together as Jay half-carried her down the hallway and into the upstairs bathroom. Mae and Kaley’s soap and toiletries cluttered half of the double sink, with only Zack’s razor and toothbrush as proof he existed at all.
“Zack,” she whispered, stumbling toward the tub. “Are Zack and Kaley all right?”
“Fletcher found them.” Jay turned her around and tugged at the hooks fastening her bra. “They had to fight a handful of the Memphis wolves, but they made out okay.”
He peeled the sticky fabric from her chest, and Eden shuddered and closed her eyes. “I need to learn how to fight. Teach me. Promise.”
“We all need to learn a lot of things.” He unbuttoned her jeans. “I’ll get the water running.”
He bent toward the faucet as she struggled with her jeans, shoving the fabric down her legs in jerky stages, as if she could only concentrate on one tiny task at a time. Details. Little details, like the bite mark on Jay’s shoulder, or the linoleum peeling up in the corner, or the way her zipper felt cold under her feet when she stumbled free. If she focused on the details, then the world didn’t have to be real.
Jay’s quiet voice broke through the haze. “I’m sorry I didn’t—that I wasn’t in here with you.”
“No. No, Jay…” The numbness shattered when she touched him, and she clung to his shoulders and buried her face against his throat. “I can be strong for them, as long as I get to be freaked out with you.”
He locked his arms around her waist as steam began to billow up around them. “I knew this wouldn’t be an easy fight. I never wanted you to have to deal with this, but not because I thought you couldn’t. I didn’t have any doubts about that.”
Truth. It had a scent, a feeling, like the words took up more space. They echoed in her bones and she turned her ear to his chest, savoring the strong, steady beat of his heart. With him she was utterly safe, and no one should have to wait until they were thirty-two to know how that felt.
Her father had tried, but he’d made mistakes. The only way to be whole was to admit it. “I’m sorry I got defensive about my dad and Zack. I think I’m afraid to be mad at them.”
“No, hey. Come on.” He lifted her into the shower and climbed in after her. His hands moved with an efficiency that spoke of experience, of the fact that this was far from the first time he’d washed blood from flesh. “You don’t need to be thinking about that right now.”
“I do.” She tilted her head back and wiped beads of water from his cheeks. “I lie to myself about how I grew up. I pretend none of it hurt me because I wasn’t as bad off as Zack, and I tell myself my dad was great because he wasn’t Albus. I couldn’t let myself get angry about it, because it wouldn’t be fair to people like you and Zack, people who were hurt by their parents. Really, actually hurt.”
Jay stroked some of the tangles from her hair. “There’s more than one way to be hurt, Eden. And hurting for someone else can be just as bad.”
“I need to stop lying to myself.” Her tears mingled with the water, but it wouldn’t matter. She didn’t need to hide. “It makes me weak. Just promise you’ll be patient while I learn how.”
He tilted her head under the spray and soaped her hair before answering quietly, “It gets easier.”
It had to. The first step into truth was the scariest, plunging blindly off the ledge into free fall. But Jay would cushion her landing. And if it hurt too much, he’d help her put herself back together, just like he was doing now.
His hands were soothing as they smoothed away all external evidence of the fight. Eventually, the water swirling down the drain faded from red to pink. When it ran clear, they stood there under the spray, wrapped around one another. Eden pressed her lips to the healing scratch on Jay’s shoulder as the hot water pounded the tension from her shoulders, and wished the moment could last forever.
But it couldn’t. Too soon, the door rattled under a quick, efficient knock. “We need you guys outside,” Colin said, his tone almost apologetic. “Zack’s freaking out. I’m leaving clothes outside the door for you.”
Jay tensed and leaned out of the shower to snatch a towel from the rack beside the sink. “What’s wrong with him?”
“He says there’s a body missing. He’s trying to get Stella to cast more spells, find the one who’s left. Fletcher thinks one of you will have to talk him down.”
Eden switched off the water and steeled her shoulders. “We’ll be right there.”
Jay handed her a second towel as he retrieved the clothes. “Maybe he doesn’t know that Peters came in the house.”
“Maybe,” she agreed, but as dried off and pulled on her clothing, she couldn’t help the growing dread. It seemed like years had passed since their fight in the dining room, but the words were barely cold.
The alphas from Memphis were only the outward danger. Zack was still losing his mind, and Jay would still have to deal with it.
Colin had said Zack was freaking out.
Colin had a talent for understatement.
Jay edged in front of Eden as he pushed through the back door, where Zack circled the yard, dragging each dead wolf up by the scruff of the neck and inhaling sharply.
Sniffing. “I know what the f*cker looks like,” he snarled as he tossed a savaged white wolf aside with no regard for the blood left on his hands. “I’m telling you, he’s not here.”
The beads woven into Stella’s hair clicked as she shook her head. “And I told you, I believe you. But there’s no one else here, man. I got nada.”
Jay stepped between them. “Who’s missing?”
He might as well have remained silent. “Do it again,” Zack demanded, jabbing a finger at Stella. “Cast your spell again. He’d be here.”
“Who?” Jay asked again, louder this time.
“The f*cking bastard brother!” Zack roared, lifting another dead enemy. He sniffed again and growled. “Where the f*ck is he?”
“He isn’t here,” Kaley said, her voice thick with tears. “You’ve looked at all the bodies twice already, Zack. Jonas isn’t—”
He just growled and went to the next wolf. “Cast the spell, witch.”
Stella bristled. “Hey, I have a name.”
Jay pulled her aside. “Peters had a charm on him, something that masked his presence with magic. Can you take a look at it, see if you can get a feel for what kind of spell it used? Just in case.”
She relented with a shrug. “Yeah, sure. I’ll get on it.”
Zack stalked toward another wolf. Eden cast Jay a worried look and moved to intercept him. “Zack, hold on a second. Let Stella try her spell.”
He bared his teeth at her, this growl rising up from deep in his chest. He looked through Eden like he barely saw her, his words short and chopped. “Out of my way.”
Someone had to stop this before it spiraled out of control. Jay called on every ounce of alpha power he possessed before easing between Zack and Eden. “Calm down.” He lowered his voice. “You’re scaring the others.”
“Then they can be scared,” he muttered, gaze flicking to the side. It fixed on empty space for just a moment before he shoved past Jay. “Gotta find Jonas.”
Jay held up both hands. “Wait one minute, Zack, and let Stella do her thing.”
Zack jerked to the side, shoved both hands into his hair and paced back toward the first wolf. “He has to be here. He has to be. It isn’t over until he’s dead.”
“We’ll find him,” Jay murmured. “And then it’ll be over. I promise.”
The words skated right past Zack. He rolled the first wolf over with his boot and crouched down. “Must’ve missed something,” he muttered, staring at his blood-streaked fingers. “He wasn’t in the pieces. I looked.”
Urgency was understandable, but Zack’s obsessive insistence chilled Jay’s blood. “He may not be here at all. He may be back in Memphis. Hell, Peters might have killed him already for something we don’t even know about.”
A shudder rolled through Zack. “No. No. I have to finish it tonight, or I won’t—” He shot to his feet. “Where the hell is the damn spell?”
“It’s done.” Stella held up the charm Eden had snatched off Christian Peters. “There’s nothing with this signature anywhere around here. There’s just nothing.”
“F*ck.” He kicked the limp wolf aside and lunged to the next one, the one he’d been sniffing when Jay walked outside. Each movement seemed increasingly frantic as Zack ran his hands over reddened fur. “Gotta be here. Gotta be done. Tonight, damn it…”
A pained noise escaped Eden as she tangled her fingers in Jay’s shirt. “Zack, he’s one man. Stella’s wards will warn us if he comes here—”
“No!” Zack stumbled to his feet and whirled. “I can’t wait for him.”
Demanding an explanation felt like intrusion, as if it would only agitate the man further, but Jay knew with sudden certainty that the answer mattered. The answer was everything. “But why?”
“Because he’s here!” Zack raised his voice. “I know you are, motherf*cker. Show your cowardly ass so I can tear out your throat. You can die like your brother did.”
Jay kept his tone level, calm. The way he dealt with violent drunks and crazy bastards. “He’s not, Zack. There’s no one else.”
Zack jabbed a finger at him. “I’ll prove you wrong. I’ll f*cking find him if I have to turn over every rock and tear up every tree on this property.”
“No.”
Zack jerked to a halt, outrage and disbelief distorting his face into a furious, feral parody of the man he was. “No? No? Who the f*ck do you think you are? This is my home, my land.”
The others had begun to gather as Jay and Zack faced off. The confrontation drew them in spite of their better judgment, instinct trumping courtesy, though everyone kept a safe distance.
Everyone but Kaley, who finally broke her stillness as Zack vibrated with barely leashed anger. She reached for him, laid a hand on his arm, and he whipped around with a startled roar, striking out with his balled fist.
The blow caught her with enough force to snap her head hard to the left. Hard enough to kill a human, maybe, because even Kaley reeled and went down on her knees in the grass. Lorelei dove after her with a startled cry, already lifting the girl’s battered face to the moonlight by the time the realization of what he’d done washed over Zack’s features.
Eden shoved past Jay and skidded to the ground next to Kaley. Zack stumbled back, shaking his head faster and faster as one word fell from his lips in a silent chant that grew to a crescendo, a shrieked denial. “No, no, no. No!”
Something close to chaos erupted, with people crowding around Kaley, muttering or even crying. Under the din, another noise drew Jay’s attention, a sound that had him moving before he realized what was happening. The soft scratch of metal against rough fabric, a rustling whisper that equaled death.
He’d barely crossed half the space between them when Zack lifted the pistol he’d drawn to his own temple, his finger tight on the trigger. Jay hit him hard, bearing him to the ground, and the shot went wide as more screams erupted in the night.
The gun skittered across the grass, and Zack writhed under him, clawing after it. “Do it, Ancheta. F*cking do it, or let me.”
“No. I changed my mind.” He pulled Zack’s arm up behind him and pinned it there to still the man’s squirming. “I thought maybe you were too far gone. I even tried to prepare Eden for what we might have to do if you really lost it. But tonight? F*ck that, Zack. You’re still kicking, you still care, and you’re going to fight, damn it.”
Zack shuddered. “Caring isn’t enough. I’m hurting people. My people—your people. Protect them from me.”
Kaley started to sob, a sound even more heartbreaking because one glance told Jay she wasn’t crying out of physical pain or even fear. Her gaze was fixed on the gun, terrified and angry, as if it were a living, evil thing instead of a tool.
“I am protecting them,” Jay answered. “From losing you. It’s the only thing they can’t survive right now.”
The fight went out of Zack, from Jay’s words or Kaley’s sobs or simple exhaustion. He rested his forehead on the grass and whispered one final plea. “Keep me away from her.”
“Get off of him.” The words, calm but tremulous, came from Austin, who stood near the corner of the house, a shotgun in his hands. “People in town were talking about some kind of ruckus out here, so I figured I’d come see if there was fighting to be done. Looks like it’s over now.”
“Dad—” Eden’s voice broke. “Dad, it’s complicated.”
“Seems so,” he agreed. “Are you all right, Edie?”
“I’m fine. We’re all going to be okay. Right, Zack?”
A helpless, breathless laugh wheezed out of Zack as he turned his head to glare up at Jay. “You’re not going to let me tell her no, are you?”
As if not letting someone blow their brains out on your watch was tantamount to dictating their every word. Jay snarled as he rose. “Get up, Green.”
Zack made it to his knees before his gaze fell on the knot of people surrounding Kaley. Agony contorted his features, and he closed his eyes. “Is she—”
“Uh-uh.” Jay shook his head. “You want out of here that badly?”
“Not want. Need.”
It took a damn twisted sort of situation for a man to need escape from his friends and loved ones so badly. It took something far worse for a wolf to abandon his pack. “Austin?”
“Yeah?” The man’s eyes were guarded as he faced Jay.
He had to say it, even if it hurt, because Zack was part of his pack, no matter how much he needed time away. “Eden told me everything—about Kathy, about Zack. And about you.” Jay squared his shoulders. “One day, you and I, we’re going to have it out over what you left your boy to deal with. But not tonight.”
Austin swallowed hard, tears welling. “I reckon that’s better than I deserve.” He handed his gun off to Shane, brushed some grass from the front of Zack’s shirt and grasped his shoulders. “Chief Ancheta, it’s about time I took my son home.”
Eden rose with a soft noise and started toward them, trailing to a stop when Zack closed his eyes and shook his head. “You don’t need to do this, Austin,” he whispered. “It’s not—you don’t know that it’s true, that it’s even possible. And I’m a f*cking mess.”
“Maybe, but you’re my f*cking mess. I love you, and I’ve learned you don’t walk away from that, kid.”
“Go with him.” Eden circled her father to bracket Zack, standing at his left as Jay stood on his right. “If we need another fighter, you can be here plenty fast. And if we don’t, you can rest. Let him help you, Zack. He’s pretty good at the dad thing.”
“I can’t steal your damn dad.”
“It’s not stealing,” she snapped back, the words edged in a steely growl. “I’ve wanted to share him with you pretty much all my life. So wipe off your hands, thank him for the invitation and put your ass in his truck. Now.”
Zack opened his eyes and stared at Austin. “She sounds like her mother.”
“Her mother was a smart lady.”
“All right. I’ll go. But I need to go now. I can’t—I can’t do goodbyes.”
Eden shook her head. “It’s not goodbye. You’ll be a few miles down the road, not across the world. Go home with Dad, get some rest, and I’ll talk to you tomorrow, okay?”
He mumbled something bordering on assent and started for the driveway, stopping when he drew even with Kaley. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, soft words that carried through the night silence all too easily. “I’m so, so—”
“Don’t,” she cut in. “You didn’t mean to do that. Don’t leave because of it.”
“That’s exactly why I need to leave, Kaley. I get confused, I get wound up, and I do things I don’t mean to do.” His eyes were bleak. Tired. “You won’t be so quick to forgive next time if Mae’s the one I didn’t mean to hit.”
Her gaze flicked again to the fallen gun nestled in the grass. “You’re not going to end up like Quinn. Remember that you promised.”
“I promise.” He turned his back on her—turned his back on all of them.
Jay slipped his arm around Eden’s shoulders as her father and her brother walked away, out of sight around the front of the house. In the wild, an injured wolf might slink off alone to lick his wounds. Zack could do that, after a fashion, but with the support of his family and friends. Time—and space—to do a little healing. And then…
He could start over.