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Caelan crossed his arms. “That ain’t true.”
“No?” she hissed, hand on her hip. “He recruited my brother at a motorcycle convention, fed him all this bullshit about the benefits of the Otherworld joining the human world. People like him want to expose us to discrimination, violence and experiments. They want Aiden and Mila to live in a world where they'll be persecuted and hunted for what they are, where they'll be thrown on the first line of combat and tortured as monsters, because humans don't care if monsters die. Stephen might have died protecting you, we don’t know, but he did it because his head was filled with nonsense.” She uncorked a bottle as if to emphasis her point. “Pack protects pack. He didn’t think of us when he acted. If he had, he’d be here today. No offense, sugar. To have my brother, I’d have sacrificed you in a heartbeat.”
“I know,” I said quietly.
“According to you, Marcy is a blood relation,” Caelan pointed out. “Stephen protected the person who needed it at that moment. And I’ll remind you that you sleep easy knowing the Otherworld loans my kind out to governments as soldiers and lab rats, and humans are dying to keep your secret.”
“Fewer humans die than the number of us will.” She snorted. “You think our lives are gonna change for the better? People don't care. Humans already make movies about us, write stories, parade about in costumes on Halloween. They'll be screaming to chain us to every dangerous job on the planet and sentence the monsters to war instead of their sons and daughters.”
Calico's hand constricted my wrist. I pulled free. “How did you and Stephen get along so well?”
Her pretty eyes narrowed. “He was my brother. He knew where I stood.” She flipped her hand at Caelan. "I might engage a spot of sabotage, but I would never hurt him, even if I disagreed with his philosophy. He never agreed with how I worked, but he ate the bread and bacon I put on the table.”
“So why do you insist Caelan's to blame?” I asked.
“Before he disappeared, Stephen was headed out to a vote. The sheriff here was the last person to make contact with my brother, until you.”
“Except he failed to show.”
“Sure he did.”
A feminine cough broke through the tense kitchen. Rhetta stood in the doorway, rolling a small luggage bag. Exhaustion ate at my sister’s posture, slumping her shoulders, discoloring her already shadowed blue eyes. She’d gone makeup free, damp silver hair pulled into a bun.
Joy pumped through my heart at the sight of her. When I was younger, and still kept faith, I had prayed time and again for the chance to hug my sister one more time, and now she stood before me, not as a werewolf, but as my flesh and blood human sister, and the emotions overwhelmed. Sobbing, I flung myself off the barstool to hug her. “Rhetta!”
To speak her name aloud, in public, that alone was happiness.
She lifted an ashen hand before I could wrap my arms around her. “Don't. And it's Mina to you.”
Feeling sheepish, I clasped my hands together and retreated a step. “Oh, sorry.”
“Whatever. I was told to stop by before we took off.” Wheeling her bag, she strode over to my vacated barstool and pulled it out further to accommodate her baby bump. Her blue eyes were hard and unforgiving as she glanced from Calico to Caelan. “Clear out. This is between me and her.”
“You’re having a night, hun.” Calico kept her voice level and steady as she braced her arms on the counter. “We staying for you both.”
“I'm not going to kill her.” Rhetta—no, Mina—raised an eyebrow and poured herself a shot. “She's wedged between a necromancer and the King of Graves. Good going, Marcy.”
I edged between Caelan and her and set my hand over the glass. “You're pregnant.”
She flung my hand aside and downed the shot. “Who cares? I’ll kill him before I let a wendigo get my baby.”
She reached for the bottle. I snatched it away and let her glower. “Zakar, the wendigo, whatever he is, I won’t let him get either of you. I swear it, Rhetta.”
“You got laid up a week from a scratch!” She smacked the counter. “I've swallowed poison, cut off my arm, been hit and bitten and beat and buckshot more times than a crash test dummy. Haven't died yet. And you have the gall to believe you can protect our baby better than I can, better than Jaz?”
“Of course not.” I glanced at the navy suitcase. "I'm a good distraction, the best chance you've got to jet off to Europe or Argentina or anywhere safer than Pippin Lane right now.” Without taking my eyes off Rhetta, I reached back and took Caelan’s hand. “You saved my life once, Rhetta. I don’t care if you hate my guts. These guts are going to protect you the best I can. Even if I fail, just remember that, alright? I tried. That counts for something.”
Rhetta was quiet.
“Before you walk out that door, answer me this: what happened to you that night at the cabin that made you turn out like this?”
Mina rolled her shoulders back, chin held high. “The only thing I remember from that night is you letting go of my hand.”
“Rhetta, I didn’t!” I gasped. “I couldn’t hold on, Rhetta.”
She turned her head. “You let me go.”
“Rhetta, please—”
