Page 6

“You can’t leave until you’re healed,” I insist, crossing my own arms, mirroring her without realizing it.

When Veva turns and looks at me, I wonder if it’s possible for casters to weave their spells without speaking, because it feels like she could melt me down with just the murderous glint in her gaze.

Even as I say it, even as the conversation moves away from the subject of Sarina, my body is still reeling with that information. She’s eight years old, which means Veva was already gone two years before she was born. No overlap.

Sarina looks just like me—or maybe she doesn’t.

Maybe that was just my wishful thinking, my intuition leading me wrong.

It could have just been the desperation, the hope that there was something tying the two of us together, that the little girl might be a tiny piece of leverage to bring Veva back into my life.

That I might have, even with the loss of the beginning, a family like what Dorian and Kira share.

Veva has been with other men. And not only that, but she’s had another man’s child.

Because of me, because I was stupid enough to get caught up in my family’s status game, because I was stupid enough to push those feelings aside and deny to myself that Veva was my mate, even though I knew deep down that it was true.

When Veva speaks, it draws me out of my thoughts, returning me to this healing room, the smell of the herbs and salves, the sharp sting of the antiseptic in my nose. The wet spot on the bed that’s damp now, starting to dry in the arid breeze from the open window.

Outside, a sparse tree blows in the wind, kicking up some dust from the hard, rocky ground. An aloe vera plant stretches up outside the window, one of its massive leaves resting against the glass and grating against it slightly with each gust of air.

“Are you keeping me here against my will?” Veva asks, and the sharp edge to her voice tells me that it would take a whole lot of us to accomplish that.

I’m no expert when it comes to magic, but I just watched her—broken and battered, still trying to heal—cast a pretty fucking strong spell over her daughter in fifteen seconds.

I’ve been around when Claire and the other casters work on imbuing the Amanzite. I’ve escorted them to the borders, watched the hours-long process to strengthen the lines, magic that shimmers in the sun and makes it harder for enemies to cross over into our territory.

So I have some idea about just how powerful Veva is. And if she has that kind of power when she looks like this—broken nose, bruises coloring her face and a pale countenance giving away her exhaustion—I don’t even want to know what she can do at full health.

“No,” I finally say, deciding that’s the smartest answer. “But it’s not going to do you and Sarina any favors if you leave now. You’d be putting both of you at risk.”

“Forgive me,” Veva bristles visibly, scowling at me, “if I have no interest in your parenting advice. How many do you have, Emin?”

I know the purpose of the question is to discredit me, but there’s something under there, too. The question of whether I ever managed to move on from her. If I got rid of her as easily as it seemed.

Of course not.

I’ve been with other women, sure. But it always felt muffled, like a play version of the real thing. Wrapped up in cellophane, no real connection. The best nights were the ones when I could pretend it was Veva Marone in my arms.

I admit, “None.”

The look on her face only barely manages to hide her relief as she says, “Exactly. So it would be best to keep your stupid opinions to yourself, don’t you think?”

Even though I expect the venom, it still stings. Veva has always had something about her—a fighter buried deep inside—but in high school, that’s still where it was. Deep inside.

Now, it’s right there on the outside, teeth bared, claws raised.

“You didn’t used to talk like this,” I say, stupidly, wishing I’d thought of a different way to say what I mean—that I miss her, that I want her back, that I want to find a way to cross this ravine between us.

That I haven’t stopped thinking about her since the day she disappeared, since the morning after I told her to get out of my room, and I showed up at her mother’s house, only for Opal to tell me, half-drunk and giddy, that her daughter wasn’t there.

“Probably off sleeping around somewhere,” were Opal’s exact words, and I’d had to bite my lip to keep from knocking her on her ass for talking about Veva like that. I’d never hit a woman—never would—but Opal made me want to.

Veva lets out a dry, short laugh that actually reminds me somewhat of her mother, then says, “Yeah, well, I didn’t used to do a lot of things. But life changes, and we change with it.” Then, after a withering glare that sweeps the length of my body, she says, “At least, some of us do.”

“Look, Veva,” I say, pinching the bridge of my nose. “I know after what happened—it was—”

“Emin,” she hisses, and I realize it’s the first time she’s said my name. “You have no idea what life has been like for me. We were together as teenagers. It doesn’t matter. We don’t even know each other anymore.”

Maybe we don’t, but that doesn’t stop my body from tugging me toward her, insisting there’s something more to us than just a teenage fling. The gut-deep, bone-sure feeling that she’s not just another woman in this world.

She’s my woman. And I was stupid enough as a teenager to deny that fact to myself, but I’ve grown since then. Realized that my father—my parents—were misguided in their constant quest toward status.

Nothing is worth letting your mate go. I realize that now, but maybe it’s too late.

“Veva—” I start, though I’m not sure if there’s anything I could possibly say to make her listen, to get her to understand that I’m not the same person I once was. The boy that pushed her through that window, told her to leave—he had no idea what real life is like.

After seeing Dorian and Kira make it work—watching her bloom into herself, seeing what life has been like for them both—I have this steady, sure feeling that Veva and I can do it, too. We just have to talk about this.

“Emin, I don’t know how to make this clear enough to you,” she snaps, the slightest waver of uncertainty in her voice. “I am not interested in anything you have to say. Is that clear?”

I’m just opening my mouth to respond to that when there’s a knock at the door, and Veva and I both look to it. Whatever spell she cast must tell her that Sarina is okay, because she hasn’t leapt from the bed yet, hasn’t started threatening.

Our gazes catch, and I nod at her—it’s her healing room, not mine. Her decision whether to tell them to come in or not. I can already smell, from here, that it’s Kira again, with someone else. She probably called him the second she stepped into the hallway with that little girl.

“Come in,” Veva croaks, and I wish she had taken that first water from me. She probably needs more—if I was her, I probably would have sucked down a gallon already.

The door opens, and this time, it’s Dorian and Kira who come in together, Sarina right behind them.

At once, she goes back to Veva’s bedside.

Dorian shoots me a look much like his wife did, and I bite my tongue, already resenting the questions I’m going to have to answer about my connection to Veva Marone.

I did a great job of hiding it in high school. So much so that even Dorian—my best friend and soon to be alpha leader of the pack—had no idea I was hooking up with her.

“Hi, Veva, right?”

“Yes, Dorian,” Veva rolls her eyes at him, and the feeling in the room shifts. An omega talking like that to an alpha—the alpha leader , no less—makes the air feel thick with discomfort. I shift my weight from one foot to the other, but Kira smiles, and Dorian even lets out a low chuckle.

“So, you remember me?”

Veva cuts her eyes to Kira, then says, “Sure. And I remember you treating Kira like shit in high school.”

Instantly, I’m embarrassed. Veva may not belong to me, in any concrete way, but it still feels like she’s speaking for me, too.

Kira’s eyebrows shoot up, and Dorian nods, running a hand over his chin, his mouth. “That’s fair. Trust me when I say I’m making up for that every day. As much fun as it is for me to talk about the mistakes of my youth, I wanted to talk to you about something else.”

Veva shifts in her bed, her arm snaking around Sarina again. Then, her eyes move to me.

“You want to talk to me?” she asks, not tearing her eyes from mine. “Make him go away.”

Silence falls over the room. I can practically feel Kira and Dorian burning with curiosity, wanting to know what this is all about. Finally, after a long moment, Dorian sighs and says, “Emin?”

I bite my tongue, turn on my heel, and push out of the room.