“Well, that’s good, honey. Momma doesn’t take kindly to insults. Last time someone tried to mess with me, he ended up in pieces.”
Her gaze seemed to stick to his hand at her elbow, as if she wasn’t sure why it was there before she lifted her eyes to his. “The shifter genes came from your mother then, I take it?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Who tried to mess with you?”
Well, shit, he thought. Why was he traveling down this road? It never led anywhere happy. And yet he still heard himself tell her, “My father.”
She nodded as if that wasn’t shocking at all. He wasn’t sure if that was a sad commentary on his life, or on hers.
“Female wolves are very purposeful,” she said. “They rarely act violently without clear reason, and usually that reason involves protecting young. I’m sure he deserved it.”
Saying a man who’d tried to kill a baby by throwing a sack over his head and tossing him the river—all because he was a shifter and dear old dad was human—deserved getting torn limb from limb by a pissed-off momma wolf was probably an understatement.
“Yeah, I guess he did,” he said quietly, his voice sounding like he’d gargled with hot coals. Shit, the fact that what that bastard had done so many years ago could still affect him pissed him off to no end.
Seven glanced up at him nervously. “You don’t need comfort, do you? I don’t have any experience with offering comfort.”
He snorted. “No, honey, I don’t need comfort. But thanks for asking.”
She looked so relieved he almost laughed out loud. He glanced over at Vi, who was biting her lower lip in what he assumed was an attempt to stifle her own laugh.
Lucas gestured toward the overstuffed loveseat in the lobby area. “Why don’t you ladies wait here while I have a quick word with Harper?”
Vi nodded her agreement and took a seat, but Seven’s eyes narrowed on him. She’d obviously heard something in his words she didn’t like. “What’s the matter?” he asked her.
She shrugged. “You tell me.”
He put his hands on her shoulders and bent his knees a little so he could look her right in the eyes as he said, “It’s going to be OK, Seven. I promise you that. Everyone’s going to love you.”
She returned his gaze with an intensity that almost unnerved him, like she was mentally peeling away the layers of his skin and bone to look directly into his brain. He didn’t know what she was looking for, but he assumed she found it because she eventually sat down next to Vi and stopped glaring at him.
He took a deep breath and turned to the elevator before he screwed up with her again.
Seemed like he just couldn’t stop himself from fucking everything up with the women in his life.
Lucas’s relationship with Harper Hall was complicated on a good day.
And sadly, today wasn’t a good day.
Lucas had known Harper for about a year before he ever worked up the nerve to ask her out, and when he finally did, it was already too late. She fell for Noah Riddick almost the moment she set eyes on him. That’s just how Harper was. She threw her full heart into everything she did. She knew what she wanted and she went after it. Hard.
It was just his shit luck she hadn’t wanted him.
He paused to take a deep breath before letting himself into her office and shutting the door behind him.
Harper’s scarred mahogany desk sat in the middle of the room, backlit by the late-afternoon sunlight streaming in through the giant, leaded-glass window that was probably twenty years older than the desk, which was most likely old enough to be considered an antique.
She was standing behind her desk with her back to him, looking out the window. Thank God Riddick wasn’t with her. What a relief. Having him here would be the cherry on top of the shit sundae of this situation.
But then she turned around, a smile on her lips, the sunlight playing on her hair, picking out strands of sunny blonde mixed in among brown curls that always looked like they were moving even when they weren’t, and he didn’t feel relieved anymore.
His gaze fell from her vibrant green eyes to the chubby baby she was cuddling to her chest, and he felt gut-punched by the sight of the two of them together.
So. Fucking. Beautiful.
Harper had the baby sitting upright, facing out, leaning back against her chest. She had one arm wrapped around the baby’s chest, and one arm under her butt. The kid’s chubby little legs were kicking as if she was on a swing at the park.
Little Haven Hall was only six months old, but she already had an intelligent, mischievous sparkle in her eyes that told Lucas she’d be hard to manage as she got older. Just like her momma.
Haven’s eyes were a perfect duplicate of her mother’s, but her hair was stick-straight and so black it almost looked blue with the sunlight hitting it. Mom’s eyes and dad’s hair, he decided. And a little button nose and Cupid’s bow mouth that were purely her own. The kid looked like she belonged in a baby food commercial; she was that adorable.
Harper jerked her chin toward his face. “What the hell happened to you?”
He touched two fingers to his eye, which was probably swollen from where he’d caught Seven’s elbow, and smiled ruefully. “It was…a misunderstanding.”
Her nose wrinkled as she took in the rest of his appearance. “You kind of look like Lester right now.”
Since Lester was the guy who lived in a refrigerator box behind her building, he didn’t take that as a compliment. “Thanks,” he said dryly. “You look pretty, too.”
She looked way better than pretty, actually.
Motherhood suited her, he decided. She looked…happy. Serene. Settled in a way he was pretty sure he’d never experienced.
And probably never would.
He sat down in one of the chairs in front of her desk and crossed his arms over his chest. “It was her, Harper. She’s here.”
Harper’s eyes widened. “Holy shit! It was really her? Grace? Tell me everything.”
Lucas gave her a brief rundown of everything that had happened that day, including the altercation with Daniels, and how Violet had suggested calling her Seven, at least for now. When he was done, Harper looked shell-shocked.
“Jesus,” she muttered. “How the hell am I going to keep Riddick from storming that place and ripping Daniels’s arms off?”
Lucas wasn’t sure, since he’d pretty much used every ounce of strength he had not to do the same thing to the guy. And Riddick? Well, self-control wasn’t exactly one of his virtues.
“I don’t think he’ll have to do anything to Daniels,” Lucas said. “Violet already called Mischa. The Council is probably at the prison right now, collecting all of Dr. Frankenstein’s notes and shutting down his ward. And if I know Mischa, she’ll have his medical license pulled, and will most likely press charges against him for his treatment of the patients.”
Harper’s answering smile was as beautiful as it was terrifying. “Oh, I’m sure she won’t stop at just that. Mischa’s a pit bull. She won’t let go of the bastard’s balls until they fall off in her hand.” In her best Mr. Burns voice, she added, “Excellent.”
Mental note: do not get on Harper and Mischa’s bad side.
Lucas shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “Well, as lovely as that mental image is—and thanks ever so much for that—I just wanted to prepare you before meeting her. Didn’t want you to be too surprised.”
Harper frowned. “Why? What’s wrong with her?”
“Nothing. She’s just…unique.” He couldn’t help but smile a little at that understatement. “And she’s not used to being around people. You and your crew should probably dial back your natural...exuberance when you’re first meeting her.”
Harper cocked her head to one side and gave him a speculative smile that made him no less uncomfortable than her bloodthirsty smile. “You like her,” she said.
This was obviously a trap. If he said no, he was lying and Harper would realize it, then read too much i
nto it. If he said he did like Seven, Harper would read too much into it. Talk about a fucking double-edged blade.
“Whatever,” he mumbled. “I just don’t want you freaking her out. She’s been through a lot.”
He was spared whatever smartass comment Harper was sure to make by Riddick, who let himself into the office, and without a word or so much as a glance in Lucas’s direction, stalked up to his wife and planted a kiss on her that visibly weakened her knees.
When he pulled back, he smiled down at her and said, “Missed you today, Sunshine.”
She licked her lips and blinked up at him a few times before saying, “I guess so.”
Haven started making little grunting noises, actively protesting not being the center of her father’s attention. She started waving her little arms at him, making grabby motions with her hands, all while scrunching her face up to clearly convey her annoyance. Lucas couldn’t help but smile. For a little person who hadn’t yet mastered verbal communication, Haven certainly had no trouble expressing herself.
“I know, I know,” Riddick said, easing Haven out of her mother’s arms and cuddling her against his chest. “I missed you too, pretty girl.”
When Riddick kissed her on the top of her head, she laid her cheek on his shoulder, stuck her finger in her mouth, and let out a happy sigh. It was the first time Lucas had ever seen her not fidgeting and squirming and kicking.
Harper shook her head at her husband, hands on her hips in annoyance. “How do you do that? She’s never that still for me.”
He shrugged and smiled down at her until she smiled back, her annoyance all but forgotten.
Lucas waited for the pain to level him. After all, here he was with a front-row seat to the kind of love and happiness and contentment he’d always wanted, watching the woman he’d thought was the one gaze up at a man who wasn’t him. A few months ago, the sight would’ve driven him right into a bottle of Glenlivet to drown his sorrows. He kept waiting for the negativity and bitterness to drag him under. And waiting. And waiting…
But seeing the way they looked at each other at that moment? As if they needed each other more than they needed oxygen? Lucas realized he couldn’t hate Riddick anymore for grabbing hold of Harper with both hands and never letting go. Together they were this perfect team, two halves of a whole.
And it wasn’t like he’d never had his shot. Shit, he’d known Harper first. He could’ve asked her out long before Riddick ever showed up on the scene. But something had held him back. Something had always held him back in all of his relationships. Kept him from fully committing.
Vi had asked him something when she dumped him that always stuck with him.
Am I the last person you think about before you go to bed at night, and the first you think of in the morning, Lucas? Do you wonder what I’m doing or thinking when we’re not together?
Feeling like the biggest dick in the world, he’d had to tell her no. But in true Vi fashion, she’d simply nodded and admitted she didn’t feel that way about him, either. It’d been the most mature breakup of his life. No tears, no muss, no fuss. At the time, he’d assumed he didn’t feel that way about Vi because he was in love with Harper. But now he was starting to think…
“Holy shit,” he blurted. “I don’t love you! I never did.”
Harper and Riddick both swiveled in his direction, heads cocked in confusion. Harper eventually said, in a tone dryer than Sahara sand, “Well, that bordered on rude, Lucas. I guess that’s payback for saying you looked like Lester?”
Lucas face-palmed when he realized how that must have sounded. “No, that’s not what I meant. Of course I love you. I mean, you’re you,” he said, gesturing to, well, all of her. “Everyone loves you. I’m just not in love with you.” He groaned. “Jesus, now I sound like a teenage girl in one of those fucking Twilight movies.”
Riddick shifted Haven higher on his shoulder and frowned at Lucas before glancing down at Harper. “I’m not sure how I should be taking this. Logically, I think I should be happy. But for some reason, my gut’s telling me I should be beating the shit out of him.” He shrugged. “I don’t know, babe. Just tell me what you want me to do and I’ll do it.”
Harper tapped on her lower lip with her index finger like she was thinking about it before saying, “Well, his knowledge of the Twilight movies does seem like a beatable offense.” Her eyes practically glittered with mischief. “But I think we can leave him un-maimed this time.”
Since Riddick still looked like he could go either way on beating the shit out of him, Lucas decided to keep his mouth shut while his brain processed the fact that he’d never actually been in love with Harper. He’d been attracted to her, of course, but what he really wanted was what she had with Riddick. That partnership, the closeness. Family.
Goddammit, he’d wasted a lot of time buried in a bottle, feeling sorry for himself for no good reason.
Which for some reason brought his thoughts immediately back to Seven.
“Shit, Riddick, did you come up here from the lobby?”
“No. Fire escape.”
Lucas couldn’t help but raise a brow at that one. Harper rolled her eyes and said, “Sometimes there’re clients in the lobby. Riddick dealt with some clients when I was on bedrest.” She gave her husband a stern look. “Let’s just say they aren’t clients anymore. We’ve decided it’s best for Riddick to avoid direct client contact whenever possible.”
“It’s not my fault some people don’t want to hear the truth,” he grumbled.
Harper snorted. “There’s a way to tell someone you won’t take their surveillance case without calling anyone a—,” she paused, making air quotes with her fingers, “’fucking pathetic stalker.’” Her brows flat lined. “Some people find that off-putting.”
He kissed Haven’s head again, looking completely unrepentant, before turning back to Lucas. “So why do you care if I came up through the lobby?”
Harper looped an arm through Riddick’s and smiled up at him. “Because we have a visitor. A very special one.”
Lucas held back a smirk. They had no fucking idea just how special. But they were about to find out.
Chapter Seven
The woman called Harper—her sister-in-law, Seven reminded herself—was a hugger. Violet had barely finished an introduction before Harper grabbed Seven and hugged her with a surprising amount of strength for a human woman who was only five-six and couldn’t weigh more than a hundred and thirty pounds.
Since she was fairly certain she’d never been hugged in her life, Seven wasn’t exactly sure what proper hug etiquette was. Was she supposed to hug Harper back? If so, where did her arms go? Around the neck? Around the waist? There were just too many variables. Ultimately, Seven decided it was safest to just stand there, arms at her sides, and wait for the hug to be over.
The vampire couple, Mischa and Hunter, weren’t huggers. But they did shake her hand and were polite enough to pretend to not notice the shiver that ran through her as their power washed over her in waves. If they’d been one of her Sentry assignments, she was pretty sure she wouldn’t be able to take one of them out, let alone both.
Hunter smirked at her, letting her know that a) she wasn’t wrong, and b) he could read her mind. Good to know. She immediately threw up her mental shields, just as Sentry had taught her so many years ago.
The two of them together was an odd sight. They were polar opposites—he was over six feet tall, she was barely five-two, he was obviously of Native American descent, she appeared to be Italian American—and yet somehow, they looked perfect for each other.
Seven eyed his features critically for a moment to determine which tribe he’d most likely belonged to before saying, “Háu.”
He jerked back in surprise. “You speak Lakota?”
She thought that was a strange question. Of course she spoke Lakota. Wasn’t that obvious? “Tóš,” she replied, completely unnecessarily, in her opinion.
Mischa cocked her head to one side. “Do
you speak other languages, too?”
“Yes.”
Mischa and Harper exchanged an odd glance before Harper asked, “How many?”
“All of them.”
That seemed to give everyone pause, so Seven didn’t offer any further explanation. She supposed it wasn’t relevant that as a cleaner, she’d been required to travel extensively and survive in any culture, anywhere. Her Lakota was rusty and limited, as she’d never had much opportunity to practice using it.
A small wererat/vampire hybrid named Benny lounged against Harper’s desk. He was a friend who also did some freelance work for the firm, Harper told her. He made no move to hug her or shake her hand, but his gaze widened when she jerked her chin in his direction to acknowledge his presence.
“Holy shit,” Benny said. “You’re the hottest woman I ever seen outside of porn movies.”
Seven had no idea how to respond to that, so she didn’t. Harper, however, had no problem slapping Benny on the back of the head with an open palm. “You really want to sexually harass Riddick’s sister? And besides, there are three other women in the room, Benny. It’s rude to point out that one is prettier than the others.”
Benny shook his head. “Nah, I never said she was prettier. But there are different kinds of hot, you know? See, you’re girl-next-door hot. Approachable hot.” He gestured to Mischa. “Hotness over there is exotic hot. The good doc over there,” he made a sweeping gesture in Violet’s direction, “is icy hot.”
Violet rolled her eyes. “Great,” she mumbled. “I’m the over-the-counter ointment of the group.”
Benny ignored her, gesturing instead to Seven. “And she, is scary hot. Like she could hurt me and I wouldn’t even care because she’s so hot. The only place you usually see scary hot chicks is in porn movies.”
“Well then, now that you’ve explained, it all makes perfect sense,” Harper said.
But her tone, Seven noticed, implied the direct opposite. She didn’t have much experience with sarcasm, but something told her Harper was a master of it.
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