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After a few moments, where my thoughts are far too fucking loud, I hear Alaric talking to Ever and telling her what he’s just told me, and I block it out. I don’t need to hear it again. I’m still trying to deal with hearing it the first time.

It goes quiet, and Ever moves my hands away from my face. She straddles me, and my head buries into her neck as our arms wrap around each other and she holds me tightly.

She doesn’t talk. She doesn’t try to make me talk either, she just holds me.

It’s exactly what I need, and I am so grateful that we found her.

After a while, I pull back, and she looks at me closely, her gaze worried.

“It makes sense,” I surprise myself by saying. I clear my throat. “For some reason, Alaric’s words triggered memories that I had clearly suppressed. It was always my mom and Blake.”

“She died when you were quite young, right?” She asks.

I nod. “She did. Blake carried it on. The things that I’m remembering now are horrible, but every single time Liam stepped in between us. He stopped it. He hated her, I always knew that, but I never really understood why. Now I guess I do.”

“It’s a lot to wrap your head around, and no one is asking you to do it right now. This is something that you can take as much time as you need to deal with,” she tells me.

I nod, “I’m glad that Alaric told me. Although the timing could have been a little better, I am glad that he didn’t wait. Plus I get to go and do one of the things that I do best now, so there’s that.”

“Whenever you are ready to talk, I am here. If you want to talk with Liam at any point and want me there, let me know,” Ever offers.

I nod. “I will. Could you fill the others in? I’m not sure I want to rehash everything right now, but I want them to know in case I seem a bit off.”

“Alaric is filling them in already,” Ever replies with a soft smile. “He figured that you would want them to know, and double-checked with me whether he should tell them now or not, and I said now would probably be best. Zemi and the guys are waiting with Liam outside, so they haven’t overheard anything.”

I smile. “Thank you, Princess.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Atlas

“Are you okay?” She asks me after a moment of silence. “I mean, as well as you can be.”

I pause, checking in with myself before I answer, “I am, I think. It was a shock, and it's going to take me a while to wrap my head around it properly and probably even longer to talk to Liam about it. Right now, I just want to get on with the job.”

She smiles, leans forward, and kisses me.

By the time she pulls back, I’ve forgotten my own damn name and what I was worrying about in the first place.

“Come on,” she says as she gets off of my lap and I reluctantly let her go. I want to lose myself in her, but we definitely do not have the time for that.

Right? I glance at my watch and sigh. No, we really don’t have time for that.

Ever smirks, “Checking to see if you have time to do me?”

My eyebrows hit my hairline. “How the fuck did you know that I was doing that?”

She chuckles and leans forward to kiss me, “Because that’s what I was trying to work out too.”

I chuckle. “And that is one of the many reasons why I love you.”

“I love you too,” she replies as she stands back up. She gets a wicked glint in her eye as she lifts up her shirt and flashes me.

I groan and sit on my hands to stop myself from reaching for her. “If I touch you right now, we won’t be leaving this room, and then we’re going to be the ones responsible for missing our opportunity to take Hunt down.”

She shrugs, her smile widening, “I know, but boobs help everything.”

I nod enthusiastically, “Yes, they fucking do.”