Page 13 of The Baby Hex (Mori’s Mementos #2)
Crilus
I waited until everyone else was asleep before I gently wiggled out of Pierce’s hold and tiptoed out of the room.
I didn’t mind being held hostage in a room with a connected bathroom and a secret mini fridge behind one of the wall panels, but I needed to grab some blood pouches from the fridge.
If Medwin had prepared as well as he normally did, there would be at least a few on hand for Pierce.
If not, I’d call him and tell him to feed his guard.
Part of me longed for him to throw me on the bed and sink his fangs into my neck or maybe my thigh. Anywhere he wanted really.
“Stop!” my crow warned. “We cannot risk getting aroused right now. He will smell it, wake up, and think we’ve flown the coop. Do not make him panic. This truce is fragile.”
He was right. Whatever white flag that waved between Pierce and I was easily stained. I couldn’t leave but I also refused to be his downfall. Sometimes love and kindness meant knowing when to stay away.
“I told you I wasn’t going to see you again,” Preston’s voice wafted through the house.
“This really isn’t a good time. I’m on vacation----” A pause.
“That’s none of your business. No, I don’t need you to --- No, if you come here, you’re wasting your time.
---There’s nothing left to talk about. --- He told you he didn’t want to be involved either. ”
I stopped and ducked behind the corner before my cousin saw me.
As far as I knew, it’d been a while since Preston dated anyone but then I didn’t live in the Nightshade Bear Territory and only knew as much about his life as he or Mori told me.
Maybe he hadn’t even told his twin. Everyone needs to keep some secrets tucked inside their sleeve.
“No, I mean it,” Preston said a second later. “Don’t call me back. You’re wasting your time and mine. I’m on vacation.” Another pause. Preston’s scent grew more irritated by the second. “No! That has nothing to do with me! I wasn’t even there when the windows exploded!”
A lie!
“I don’t care what the news is reporting!
Not all journalists tell the truth!” Another pause.
I strained my ears in vain but couldn’t hear the other side of the conversation.
“I’m not explaining myself to you! We never were anything!
Do you know what that means?” Preston hung up the phone and stalked off into the kitchen smelling like a bear prodded awake violently from his cold season hibernation.
I counted to two hundred before padding into the kitchen.
Preston probably had his reasons for lying to what sounded like an ex and I didn’t have the mental energy to ask him what was up.
If he wanted to talk to me about it, he’d bring it up.
I wasn’t his daddy, and I had my own relationship problems to solve.
“Hey,” I said softly as I stepped into the kitchen, doing my best not to startle him.
“Shi--! Oh, hi, Crilus. Did you escape?” he said, but the joking tone didn’t quite fill out his voice.
“Only for a minute. Wanted to grab my blood and a snack for Pierce. Have you seen any blood in the fridge?”
“Plenty,” he said, pointing to a mini fridge that was meant for chest milk but currently there wasn’t a baby in the house. “Medwin must have planned on him spending eternity here.”
“What? You gonna off him and make blood offerings to his ghost?” I huffed and crossed the kitchen.
“Why are you in a bad mood? I’m the one who assaulted a Moonscale Guard because I thought he grabbed your crotch or something,” Preston said, turning to me, holding a sandwich in either hand.
Both had a big bite taken out of the center of them.
“Some people would just be glad they met their true-mate.”
“I already apologized for that – outside – earlier,” I said. “I’m sorry you got wrapped up in all of it.”
“I know you are. I just wish you’d cheer the hell up. Do you know what some of us would give to meet our true-mates? Mori can echo Dern and say it’d just be a headache as much as he wants to but you and I both know he’s on that list. Maybe even more so than me.”
I opened my mouth to say something trite about whoever he was arguing with on the phone but stopped short because I didn’t want to have that conversation. Instead, I loaded my arms up with the blood pouches and started to walk out of the kitchen.
“Ask him who blew up the bar,” my crow cawed into my thoughts from inside his inner sanctum.
“Yeah!” my wolf chimed in. “He’s the one who ran to check things out even before the guards could get there!”
I opened my mouth and shut it again. If Preston was involved, he’d lie about it.
He’d always been the one who never got into trouble.
And if he wasn’t involved, I’d never forgive myself for falsely accusing him.
We all had secrets. That didn’t mean we were entangled with the criminal element who blew up bars that didn’t even belong to us.
“What?” he asked in between bites of his sandwiches.
“Nothing. Just—I’m sorry I’m not more cheerful about this. I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop.”
“Then get an umbrella so that it bounces off,” Preston said.
“Hey, if you were in trouble and needed help, you’d let me know, right?” I asked when I was almost out of the kitchen.
“I guarded you against the cheating cheetah, didn’t I? You’d be the first one I told,” Preston grinned.
“Good. Don’t get into trouble right now if you can help it. I’m up to my ears in trouble. Someone tried to murder my bar,” I said and walked out of the kitchen before he had a chance to answer.
I tiptoed up the stairs, silently praying that Pierce was still asleep.
I was exhausted but my brain needed some quiet time to decompress and work all this bullshit out.
Maybe I was overreacting about Preston’s phone call.
Maybe he just had an overprotective ex who freaked out when he saw what happened at the Raven’s Perch on the news.
Though, I’d like to beat whoever decided it was okay to report that at all while it was still under investigation.
I turned the knob slowly, doing my best to not make a single noise, but when I pulled the door open, I was nose-to-chest with Pierce.
“I---” I started but he pulled me into him so hard and fast that the armful of blood pouches I carried tumbled onto the floor making wet plopping sounds around our feet.
His lips hovered so close to mine that for a second, I thought I’d have to headbutt him to keep him from kissing me.
Only he didn’t. The fucker didn’t kiss me.
He just licked his lips and tossed me over his shoulder.
A second later I bounced on the bed and the door locked and closed behind me.
“I was getting you blood pouches!”
“I see that. Thank you,” he said, pacing at the end of the bed like a caged lion.
“Why are you pacing? Should I run?” I asked, my heart skipping over itself half in longing and half in confused fear.
“I need to do a sweep of the cabin,” he said, picking up the blood pouches and tossing them onto the bed one at a time.
“Another one?” I sat up, leaning back on the heels of my hands.
“Just a feeling,” he said and cocked his head to the side.
“Are you talking to your parents or something?” I scooched to the edge of the bed.
“You don’t hear it?” he blinked at me.
“Hear what?”
Preston’s phone rang in the distance. I opened my mouth to tell him that it was just Preston about to argue with his ex again.
Only shattering glass gobbled up my words before they ever reached his ears.
Pierce tackled me onto the bed, his body shielding mine from shards and slivers of glass that never fell upon us.
It wasn’t the bedroom window that shattered. The noise had come from downstairs.
“Let me up!” I pressed against him. “I need to check on them!”
Pierce was up and to the door before I managed to sit up.
“And he thought he couldn’t catch us?” my wolf barked into my thoughts.
Ignoring both of my inner beasts, I sprinted out of the room and followed Pierce’s scent trail down the steps. He was already in the kitchen where Preston stood surrounded by broken window pieces by the time I arrived.
“What---” I didn’t get to finish the question before Pierce turned to me and picked me up. He mumbled something about how I had to start wearing shoes and he’d pay for whatever cute ones I wanted if that was the problem.
“Put me down!” I protested. “I’m not some toddler you can haul around all willy-nilly because we’re mates!”
Anger seared through my insides, but Pierce ignored it.
He crossed the kitchen, glass crunching under the boots he never seemed to take off, even when he was asleep.
He ran one hand over the kitchen table, checking for glass before sitting me down on it.
I expected him to tell me to stay put as if I were a dog or something, but he kissed my forehead before turning back to Preston.
I might have broken into a fit of laughter at the look on my cousin’s face when Pierce lifted him by the hips if the situation wasn’t so eerily similar to what happened at the bar.
Preston was still blinking in bemusement when Pierce sat him down next to me on the kitchen table.
“What the hell happened, Preston?!” I demanded, snatching what was left of a sandwich out of his hand.
“Hey! I was eating that!”
“It has glass in it now!” I sighed and laid it down on my other side. “What happened?”
“I was eating when something flew through the window. Glass went everywhere! It was freaking loud and---”
“I want you to both stay away from the windows,” Pierce said and then corrected himself to “all of you,” when Mori and Dad joined us in the kitchen.
“What happened? Mori glanced around.
“Careful!” Pierce and I warned at the same time before he took another step forward.
“Glass,” Dad said, wrapping an arm around Mori and taking a big step back.
“I see that but why?” Mori asked, his eyes half-closed from exhaustion.
“When will it be safe to go back to bed, Pierce?” Dad asked.
“You can take him to the living room. Actually, maybe everyone should go to the living room. I’ll do a sweep of the grounds.”
“What came through the window?” Mori yawned.
It was a good question, but Dad was already waving the three of us into the living room.
Pierce slid Dad something before turning back toward the window.
I opened my mouth to ask what it was, but Mori nearly tripped over an end table and Preston and I ran over to help him to the sofa.
Whatever the dead man had done to him had left its mark.
All magic had a cost, but this one seemed to have taken all his energy up.