“Yeah,” he whispers, his eyes roving my face.
“If they know any witches, maybe we should ask them to bring him back over and over so we can take turns killing him in the most torturous way possible.”
He scoffs while using his thumbs to dash the tears away from my cheeks. “It’s crossed my mind. He spoke of witches often. I know he knew some. He took me with him when he went to see an old witch sometimes. I waited outside always. I don’t know what he talked to her about.”
“Hm.”
“Her eyes were very strange on me. Like she knew me.” He shivers. “Anyway, you sure you feel like going back to this party?” he asks.
“Yeah. If you do. It’d be nice.”
“Okay. Let’s go.”
We step outside and it’s dark now, and the moon is up high. And it’s pinkish red.
I’m almost about to tell him about me having to go tomorrow, feeling like it might be a good time to bring it up, but I chicken out.
I’ll talk to him about it when we get back.
37
Tyson
It’s been an enlightening evening in some ways and a baffling one in others.
I didn’t think about having other family before, beyond Cornelius. I had no idea my uncle Atticus existed before Bailey told me about him and no clue I would feel an immediate connection with him. He looks like Cornelius, but stronger. Bigger. And his eyes are different. It’s only now I realize how manic Cornelius’s eyes were. And the kindness in Atticus’s eyes when our eyes met had an immediate effect.
Having all of these people around me with my Ivy here too instantly brought me a feeling of peace and completeness that I’ve never had before.
Until Mason Quinn.
The sensations I got from him immediately put me on alert. I did not fucking like what I felt from him as he approached my woman. It’s as if his mind is wrong. His thoughts about her are wrong. The way his eyes touch her is fucking wrong.
Riley asked me to let it go and told me he’d talk to me later to explain. I need to have that conversation with him now, because my immediate instinct tells me that Mason wants Ivy. My Ivy.
Just the barest notion of anyone wanting her makes me want to let the angry red haze wash over me so that I can erase them. Rip them to shreds. This wasn’t a bare notion. At all.
“Talk to me now,” I ordered.
Riley asked me to trust him. Looked into my eyes when he did, and I read truth. He told me he’d talk to me later and said that something wasn’t right with Mason, they knew this for a few days and based on that reaction and what all the alphas in the pack felt from him, he was going to be seen to by healers and elders to figure out what was going on with his mind. That’s all he told me. I need to know more.
The reason I have had the life I’ve had is because nobody stopped the man whose mind was wrong in time to prevent him from killing my father, from hurting my mother, from ripping me from my life.
Ivy giggles at something one of the women has said and my focus moves to her. Seeing my woman happy in this space, interacting with these people who are my people, who feel like they’re my people? I like it. Where I thought just days ago that I’d like nothing more than to have her all to myself and that I’d be content to live with only her and any children we made alone… now I feel vastly different. I feel like I want to care for all of them and give everything to them, and especially give them to her, so that she has a community around her.
Catrina Savage, Lucy Savage, Riley, the grandparents, Riley’s father Atticus Savage – these people feel like they’re mine, too, even more than the pack is mine.
They. Feel. Like. Mine.
This feels right.
And that house? The waterfall? The smell in the air around there? It also feels right.
Is everything in my life about to come together? Do I have a pack, a family, a mate? Am I where I’ll belong? With purpose?
I look at her as we head inside the barn to rejoin the party and she’s smiling and chatting happily with Bailey Blackwood, looking completely at ease.
We step across the threshold and drinks are put into hers and Bailey’s hands by a younger woman who looks me over from head to toe and then lazily sizes me back up from toe to head again.
I recognize her type. The same as those female predators at the bar I used to go to. They were on the hunt. They wanted their drinks bought. They wanted men to lust after them. They wanted cock. She’s a shifter woman, full-blooded shifter, and she was introduced to me earlier as Sherry Creed.