Page 42 of The Wayward Sons & The Vampires of Fortune (The Wayward Sons #4)

O kay… no, stop that.” Andrea slapped Gray’s hand. “Jesus fuck, you’re a terrible listener.”

“You just got to learn how to talk to me, darlin’,” Gray teased, giving her his best grin.

I held back a laugh as I watched her glare at him in response.

Gray was trying—I had to give him credit where it was due—but Andrea was an immovable force to be reckoned with.

Stubborn meet stubborner . Even Andrea’s husbands had a whole bet going about how long it was before she threw him.

She hadn’t yet, and I hoped she didn’t, but Gray hadn’t met a challenge yet that he’d back down from.

Getting that woman to like him was about to be his Mount Everest.

In the hour after killing the vampires, we were all relaxing in the hangar.

There was an active plan to leave, but before we could fly out, there were Hellhounds that needed tending to.

That was a sentence I never thought I’d say.

Gray had taken it upon himself to get a few tips and pointers from Andrea about using his power.

Thankfully, he’d conceded that he couldn’t handle flying but now had her teaching him how to throw air razors…

or spikes… or something. Honestly, I wasn’t sure how good of an idea it was to equip him like that, but it made him happy.

I stood off to the side alone, worn down and emotionally rubbed raw. The relief in the room was welcome, but I knew I’d be recovering from this for weeks. My emotional barriers were fractured and just waiting for an excuse to break.

“Well, she hasn’t killed him yet,” Sam announced as he wandered over to join me. He crossed his arms, standing next to me and staring at Gray and Andrea. “I think that’s as close as he’s going to get to her liking him.”

“She likes him enough,” I said. “Which honestly frustrates her more.”

“That sounds about right for her,” he chuckled, “Gray just has that effect on people. He always has.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. That wasn’t news to me. Gray was just sunshine wrapped up in a Twizzler-loving, Taylor Swift admiring, dangerous hunter package. He had his moments, but ultimately, it was hard for anyone not to like him—Andrea included.

Sam and I fell into a comfortable silence as we watched her teach Gray more about his power. While we did so, I glanced at Sam. Something had been nagging at me—a question about his past that I wanted more answers to if he was willing to give me them. Something that could help me.

“You know,” I began, hesitant to even bring up the conversation. At the very least, I knew it’d be an uncomfortable topic for him to talk about. “Gray told me about your parents.”

Sam made a small sound but said nothing else. His gaze remained on the interaction between Andrea and Gray. I could feel the spike of pain the topic incited for him and almost backed down. Almost.

“Is it true they were going to tie your power?” I asked.

I’d heard rumors about tying off powers.

Some parents did it with their children before they came into their hunter powers.

It was a painless, magical procedure that was done in infancy or early childhood, but I’d never heard anyone doing it on adult hunters.

It was damn near taboo, and the information out there was practically non-existent.

Sam was the first hunter I’d ever heard of who almost underwent it.

“Don’t go there, Ryder,” Sam whispered as if reading my mind. “What my parents wanted to put me through… it would’ve been fucking torture. It would’ve killed me. You wouldn’t survive it.”

“Children survive it,” I reminded him.

“Yeah, because their hunter blood is dormant. The procedure ties off their power at a molecular level before it has any impact on them. They feel nothing because being a hunter hasn’t taken over.

Doing so now… it’d burn off every single hunter molecule in your body while they gave you a blood transplant.

” He turned to face me, his eyebrows furrowing together as he considered me.

I looked away. He was the last person in the world I wanted to judge me about my desperate desire to get rid of my power.

Softly, he added, “No matter how awful your power is, Ryder, going through something like that… the pain would kill you.”

But I could handle pain. More so than most. I lived with the pain of the world every single moment of every single day.

“You don’t know what I live with.”

“What’s your primary emotion?” he asked. “Empaths usually have one emotion—”

“—that they feel more than the other, I know. Believe me, I know, ” I cut him off. I didn’t tell him anything else. I wasn’t about to divulge that information to him.

“I’m sorry, Ryder,” he replied as if he’d figured it out. I didn’t say a word. “Besides, there’s not a damn person in the world that would do it. No one wants that death on their hands.”

That tiny little what-if was bound to stay in the back of my head.

What if I could find someone to do it?

What if I could survive a spell like that?

What if I didn’t have to feel everything all the time?

What if Gray and I could have a normal life?

“You good?”

“Yeah, I’m good. It was just a thought.” One I knew I couldn’t let go anytime soon. I hated my power. The idea of being free? Well, that taunted me.

“Here.” Sam reached under his shirt and pulled off his necklace—a golden cross. “Take this.”

“I don’t want that.”

“It helps me—helped me control my powers,” he told me.

Grabbing my wrist, he dropped the trinket in my hand.

I felt the weight of it immediately. The magical weight.

“It’s technically calibrated to my power, but I’m sure it’ll help you a little bit.

It’s not a perfect solution, but believe me, it helps. ”

I couldn’t take it from him. Not when it was a tool he needed.

“But don’t you need it?” I stared at the trinket in my hand.

“I stopped being afraid of my power a long time ago,” he said. What was that like? “And don’t worry, you’re going to give it back to me. That thing means something to me. I’ll figure out how to get one made for you. Just take care of it for me in the meantime.”

“I can do that.” Guarding sentimental gifts for Sam wasn’t something I expected to do, but admittedly, I was curious if it’d work.

“I’ll find you the most douchey chain I can find,” Sam promised me with a grin. “Something that sparkles and weighs ten pounds around your neck. A real statement piece that’ll have everyone staring at you.”

“Asshole,” I retorted, making him laugh harder as he walked away.

I slipped the necklace over my head. The cross settled heavily on my chest, and I felt the way its magic drifted over my skin like a warm blanket.

The volume of emotions in the room deadened.

They didn’t disappear completely, but the intensity turned down significantly.

I took a deep breath, exhaling slowly and letting myself revel in the ability to just breathe without the weight of everything bearing down on me.