Page 6 of Snag (Conduit #2)

Though I’m not certain of my welcome, I open my arms to Presh.

The young awry rushes the last few steps to me, grabbing me as hard as she can through the layer of blankets she’s swathed herself in, and pressing her face to my chest. Her pastel-rainbow hair is damp from a shower, the colors muted when wet.

Presh sobs, just once, then attempts to burrow into me further.

Holding back the emotion suddenly clogging my own throat, I meet Gigi’s worried gaze over the young awry’s head. “The kitchen is down the end of the hall,” I say, pleased that I sound sure and steady. “Just beyond the bathroom on the right. Will you put another log on the fire?”

“Already done,” Rath says, though not unkindly.

Gigi steps into the house without further invitation, giving us a moment.

I hold Presh tightly, angling my head enough to gaze up at Rath.

He stiffens as if expecting a chastisement.

And I should give him one, for being on the property uninvited.

But the revelations among Mack’s photographs press into my mind, as if the memories contained within them, printed in black and white, are slowly overwriting everything else that has occurred between adult Zaya and adult Rath. For the moment.

He’s larger and way harder hewn than the teen in the photos, though, presumably going through his last growth spurt when his celestial dragon manifested.

I have so many questions. Those at the top of the list are nebulous, and the rest … overwhelming.

Why didn’t Rath tell me he knew me?

Would I have believed him if he did?

“Have you seen Mack’s photographs?” I ask him quietly.

He tilts his head, glower deepening.

That’s obviously a no.

“Of us.”

His expression softens, just slightly. “Us?”

“Yes. All four of us. They’re in the second bedroom of the caretaker’s suite off the workshop.” I inhale unsteadily, tightening my hold on Presh. The young awry squeezes me back just as fiercely, angling her head to peek at her brother from within my embrace.

“All four of us …” Rath echoes a little hollowly.

“I’d like to bring them into the house so Coda and Gigi can feel free to claim the space.”

Rath nods stiffly. “I’ll get them for you.” He steps close enough to touch me, opening his palm to reveal a pair of my sunglasses.

Keeping my hold on Presh, I take the offered glasses. “Thank you.”

Rath palms the back of Presh’s head, towering over the both of us for a moment and holding my gaze.

I don’t put on the glasses, though the daylight is still too bright for me, even under the layer of cloud and the roof of the front patio .

Tilting his head thoughtfully, tension shifts through Rath’s jaw as if he wants to speak. But he simply shakes his head, then steps past us, shoulder lightly brushing against mine.

A gentle energy shifts between us under that point of contact. I don’t shove it away.

All is not okay between us, but now isn’t the time to go over any of that. I understand Rought’s reaction to my return a little better, but not Rath’s. Not at all.

Presh and I watch the dragon shifter cross through the misty rain toward the barn.

“We can argue after breakfast,” Presh says resolutely.

“You and me?”

She scoffs, pulling away just enough to thread one of her blanket-wrapped arms through mine and pull me toward the house. “No! Them. My three asshole brothers!”

I let her tug me into the house, welcoming the warmth as it closes around us. I narrow my eyes. “When have they been assholes to you? Recently?”

“To you, Zaya!” Presh declares with another huff. “I’m not stupid! They all know you, right? That’s what you mean by photographs ‘of us.’ ”

I blink at her for a moment. “You’re right. They are all assholes!”

She cackles, delighted by my vehement agreement. “But first, breakfast?”

“Yes. First, breakfast.”

Just beyond the front entranceway, where I pause to remove my boots and jacket, DeVille is sprawled across the lower stairs leading up to the second floor, as if he slipped on the dark wood and broke his neck on the way down.

Otherwise naked and barefoot, the medium-brown-skinned, unmanifested shifter is wearing light-gray sweatpants that bunch above the splint still encasing his lower left leg.

He has a light-blue T-shirt clutched in one hand, as if he expended all his energy just to get down the stairs, then decided to take an impromptu nap before pulling the shirt on.

Presh huffs, hands instantly falling to her blanket-swathed hips as she widens her stance to glower down at DeVille. “Doc Z told you to stay in bed!”

DeVille jolts awake — confirming that he’s just sleeping, not moments away from slipping into the After — then instantly glowers at the young awry.

His dark-gray hair falls around his face, longer than it was even a day before and shadowing his green eyes.

It’s that same shade even at the roots, making it likely that it isn’t dyed.

The hair growth is presumably due to whatever healing potions Doc Z has been pumping into his system. Either that or he’s only weeks away— maybe even days away— from taking the form of his beast for the first time. He’s the perfect age for it, late teens.

DeVille tilts his head back, eyeing Presh as he runs a hand down his bare torso, then pats his stomach. “I’m hungry.”

“I could have brought you up something.”

“Would you have?”

Presh just snorts at him, then dismissively saunters up the main hall toward the kitchen at the back of the house without replying .

DeVille’s face instantly falls, gaze now cast around my feet. “I think maybe Precious blames me. For Kris.”

“You did everything you could,” I say, my tone harsher than my sentiment.

Because when the cu-sith showed up, I was the one who defied the universe urging me to protect Precious, DeVille, and Kris.

I don’t usually question a push by the universe, because doing so always comes with consequences.

But I placed the lives of the dozens of shifters fighting in the streets first.

I made a choice. And Kris is dead.

She had likely been hovering on the moment of her death hours before, but none of us knew it.

DeVille hunkers forward, elbows on his bent knees now, head bowed. “You said the beach. You said straight to the beach …” His voice cracks. “I let … I knew something was wrong. Kris’s scent shifted. Then she darted away from me …”

“Kris wasn’t Kris anymore.” Movement draws my gaze down the hall.

Both Precious and a jeans-clad Doc Z — Zephyr, the medic for the Outcast MC— hover in the doorway to the kitchen area, listening to our conversation.

Precious might have been in love with Kris.

Doc Z was her sister. The golden-red-haired pegasus shifter brought Kris to me in the midst of the battle last night, trusting her to my protection.

“Exactly.” DeVille shakes his head. “I knew … I knew. I should have grabbed Precious and run. But she really never would have forgiven me.”

He looks up at me, eyes glassy with unspent tears.

I step forward to touch his shoulder. He shudders under that touch, under the press of all the power I hold. Uneasily. And I know … I know he’s looking for absolution .

Unfortunately, no matter the sects that worship the Conduit as such, I’m not that sort of divine being.

I can, however, offer him retribution.

“I will track down the dire mage,” I say, resolute and firm.

Unwavering. “I will get you definitive answers. But I’m already certain there was nothing you could have done in the moment.

Kris was compromised the instant the dire mage decided to take her.

Presumably hours before. Possession spells are …

complicated. They aren’t set or triggered in the spur of the moment.

And never without thoughtful — and malicious — foresight. ”

I look down the hall to meet Doc Z’s gaze, ready for her questions and condemnation. She blinks back tears, shakes her head, and drops her eyes.

Beside Doc, Precious rasps, “At the salon. The dire mage took Kris to get to me. Get me away from the pack house protections.”

Still seated at the base of the stairs, DeVille pivots to look over his shoulder down the hall. His spine stiffens, shoulders squaring.

Next to Presh, Doc Z’s face crumples. “At the salon? But … when Cay and I were there? But who … we would have scented dire essence … we should have …” She presses a shaking hand over her mouth, to contain a sob, maybe? To try to weather the realization that she could have intervened if —

“Maybe if you weren’t so worried about getting in my brother’s pants,” Precious spews viciously. “And gossiping about shit you shouldn’t be talking about in public, you would have!”

Doc Z actually stumbles back from the young awry, hitting her shoulder against the kitchen doorframe.

All of Precious’s sudden anger drains from her. She buries her face in her hands and sobs — the force of her grief racking her small, blanket-swathed form.

DeVille heaves to his feet, hobbling, then using the open edges of the stairwell risers and the walls to get to Presh.

Doc Z reaches the sobbing teen first, pulling Precious against her chest and holding onto her tightly. Tears silently roll down her own cheeks.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Precious whispers, voice muffled against her hands still covering her face.

Reaching the two of them, DeVille wraps himself around Presh from the other side. The trio hold each other for a moment, just navigating their combined grief.

When Precious finally drops her hands from her face, resting her head on Doc Z’s shoulder to look down the hall toward me, I meet her gaze steadily.

Unvoiced promises pass between her and me, threading through and along the tie that instantly bound us together in the bathroom of the Choices Cafe only three days ago. I had never felt a connection snap into place like that to anyone before.

And now I know the why , don’t I? I’ve seen the foundations of our soul-deep connection in black and white, in the photographs lining the walls of the suite’s second bedroom.

Precious is a blood sibling to the three people who were my soul-bound mates. Who are my soul-bound mates?

“Breakfast?” I ask, shoving away all the confusing thoughts and the ramifications of those revelations unfolding all around me. Food and more sleep will make navigating all of that, all of this, easier.

Presh nods, just once. “Breakfast.”

Doc Z releases the young awry, running her hands over her own face to brush away the streaks of tears. “I squeezed us some orange juice.” She heads back into the kitchen without another word, her back stiff, fingers curled.

“You’re suffocating me, Andy,” Presh grouses, complaining.

DeVille — who Presh insists on calling Andy just to piss him off — huffs and releases her as well.

But he doesn’t move more than a step away, still holding onto the wall, then the countertops, to support himself as I join them, and we cross into the kitchen together.