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“If you have to ask, then you haven’t been practicing the last three years.”
The thought of her practicing has me almost growling. My jaw ticks and I fight to unclench it. It’s best that I focus on her grimoire and not the sudden jealousy I have no right to feel. “You want me to help you get that to the House of Furies?”
“Can your wolf sprout wings and fly? That’s the only way you’d get into our House, and that’s if you make it past our defenses. We don’t let shifters near the House other than mates.”
Other than mates. Someday she’ll invite me there, and I’ll have to figure out a way to sweet-talk a Fury into leaving Syn City. That should be easy enough if I can ever trust her with my secret. Shit. This mating dance is complicated. Why can’t we just go back to the nearly impossible task of capturing a serial killer that seemed so simple next to this? How did Lowell ever survive getting Hazel to say yes?
He didn’t.
The thought sobers me, long enough that I notice Sadie hasn’t looked inside to make sure I’m not a liar who pretended to return her grimoire. Would serve me right after being a dick about it yesterday. “You okay?” I ask her. “Need some privacy?” Of course she would. She’s grieving her whole damn family, and I’m still the asshole.
“More like I need some courage.”
“That is one thing you’ve never lacked. You might not have said much back then, but you were too fearless for your own good.”
“Was not.”
“Remember that summer you spent in a cast because you fell out of a tree?”
“I was healing it back to health,” she says. “The poor thing got struck by lightning. It gave us acorns every year to use in spell work. I couldn’t let it die.”
“You climbed nearly forty feet up. Could’ve broken your neck.”
“Saved it though.” The pride in her voice has me grinning.
“Yeah you did.” That damn tree had been taller than the house the last time I was there. My grin falls. At the murder scene. Terrified I would find my mate’s body. “What’re you scared of, Sadie? There’s nothing in there that you haven’t already seen.”
She won’t meet my gaze. “Running to the grimoire is the last memory I have from that life. Knowing I didn’t make it in time to save them is my first memory from this one. What if I don’t deserve having it back?” Her question comes out on a whisper I can barely make out even with my shifter hearing.
“You did everything you could to protect your family. I don’t know how you made it up those stairs bleeding out the way you were.” The memory of her blood dripping down the stairs, smeared on the door, puddled on the attic floor, sprayed across the walls—it makes me sick.
“I didn’t…” She can’t seem to finish her thought.
“They cut you down where you stood. You had no chance. I wouldn’t be surprised if you didn’t fight back. Isn’t that who the Furies pick to turn? Warriors set on vengeance?” I might’ve investigated more than shifter victims today. The local townspeople love to gossip about their deity daughter neighbors.
She shakes her head. “I don’t remember bleeding. It must’ve been the killer’s blood.”
“It was yours. It smelled like you.”
“No, it couldn’t have been mine. I ran—” Panic buzzes green around her in a way that sends mirroring fear through me and has my wolf raising his hackles. We can’t stand to see our mate frightened. She might talk tough, but when it comes to strong emotions, the mating bond doesn’t lie.
“Sadie, I would know your scent anywhere. That was your blood, same as it’s yours spotting the pages of the grimoire.” I tormented myself looking at those stains for hours knowing that she’d suffered.
“Show me.” The green pulsing around her fades the slightest.
“All right.” I would do whatever she asked to soothe that fear. Moving beside her, I risk a brush of my fingers against the back of her hand. The slight contact soothes the beast inside me. Her skin’s so damn soft and warm. “We’ll open it together.”
Flipping the latch on the wooden box, I lift the top, gently resting it against the hinges. The thing’s handcrafted and seems sturdy yet I’ve treated it as though it’s fragile since the moment I hustled it out of the Tucker house.
“See,” I say. “Nothing scary except memories.”
She looks inside. “You rescued my sisters’ books of shadows?” Her hands stroke the two small notebooks, one spiral and decorated with glittery stickers.
“I rescued whatever I could grab before the authorities got there.”
“Why?”
“The marshals would’ve tossed everything or locked it in an evidence box never to see daylight again. The humans might’ve destroyed it.”
