Page 128 of Tempest’s Torment

I don't move the chair. Maybe one day I will, maybe I won't. It doesn't really matter anymore.

The Sunday barbecue isn't officially for anything.

According to Kai, this is just what happens when the weather is decent, someone buys too much food and enough of the brothers are around to turn lunch into an all-day thing. By the time we pull into the clubhouse, the parking lot is packed with bikes and a couple of cars, and there are kids everywhere.

Kai kills the engine; I climb off behind him and pull off my helmet as a little boy tears past us between two bikes.

"Should he be doing that?"

"Nope."

"Are you going to stop him?"

"Nope."

I look at Kai.

He takes my helmet from me and hooks it over the handlebar. "His dad'll get him eventually."

"Who's his dad?"

Kai glances across the lot. "That's the problem, not sure whose kid that is."

I laugh and follow him toward the clubhouse. Music spills through the open doors, and I can smell food before we even get inside, along with something that is definitely burning.

Kai sniffs the air. "Inferno."

"You can tell that from the smell?"

"Yeah."

"Should someone check on him?"

"No point."

We make it three steps inside before Natalia spots us. "There you are." She comes straight toward me, gives Kai a brief glance, and points across the room.

"Go away."

Kai looks at her. "Fuck off."

"I'm stealing Lilah."

"She's not yours to steal."

Natalia hooks her arm through mine. "She's ours now."

Kai looks at me as though he expects me to object. I don't. "Traitor," he mutters.

"Apparently."

Natalia starts pulling me toward the far end of the room where Willow and Evangeline are sitting. "Come on. We need another opinion."

"Don't get involved," Kai calls after me.

I look back over my shoulder. "You know that's not going to happen."

His mouth curves as he shakes his head and heads toward Ghost.