by G. Bailey
Am I really that insecure, that I don’t want Silas helping her with something as mundane as washing clothes? What am I afraid is going to happen, exactly? We’re all adults here, and the guys can do what they want. I don’t have a claim to them; hell, it’s pretty damn hypocritical of me to be getting possessive when I’m more or less juggling four different guys at once. It makes me feel shitty, and the guilt only darkens my mood further.
At least the orgasm has me feeling better, the pain in my side having dulled to a distant ache. The fact that Shade and Silas were willing to have a threesome isn’t lost on me, either. Who would have thought the two guys who butted heads the most at the beginning would end up in sync when it comes to my place in the group? It’s enough to give me tentative hope about the future of my relationship with the rest of them. Maybe I won’t have to choose. At this point, I don’t know if I even could. Shit, I think as I walk across the common area. I’m in deep.
Landon is sprawled on the couch, fast asleep and snoring softly, looking as gorgeous as ever in the beam of sunlight shining through the back window. I tiptoe around him, listening to Hazel and Xander’s muffled voices coming from the other room, and make my way to the laundry room, where Edith is already sorting our clothes. “Hey,” I say, hugging myself self-consciously as I come to stand next to her. “Sorry again about earlier.”
“Don’t apologise,” Edith replies, giving me a smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “I should have knocked. Thanks for offering to help.” She nods to the pile of clothes on the bench. “I’m doing brights first.”
“Got it,” I say, gamely beginning to paw through the damp clothes. “I’m a little surprised you’re not using magic to clean these,” I remark. “You did a bang-up job with the glyphs earlier.”
“Oh, please.” Edith laughs, flapping a hand. “That was child’s play.”
“Wouldn’t be for me,” I murmur glumly.
“Well, it’s not like I can turn into a dragon or a wolf,” she reasons. “We all have our gifts.” Her green eyes flicker up to me, her expression unreadable. “Funny how these things work out.”
“Yeah,” I echo quietly. “Funny.”
For a moment we continue to work in silence. “You and the guys are close,” Edith observes finally.
I swallow hard. “I, uh… Yeah. I guess we are.”
“Is your… relationship like that with all of them?” she asks, sounding almost deliberately nonchalant. “Like with Silas and Shade, I mean.”
I close my eyes for a moment, feeling put on the spot. “I mean… not exactly, no,” I admit. “That is, I think they all care about me, if that’s what you mean. We’ve… been through a lot together.”
“I have to say, I feel a little left out,” the witch shifter says with a half-smile. “You guys have known each other longer than I have. It’s going to take me some time to catch up.”
I balk at that and then kick myself for the knee-jerk reaction. “Well, we’ve got nothing but time while we’re here,” I reply. “I’m sure we’ll all be too close for comfort by the time this is all over.”
“Guess I’d better get started, then,” she says indulgently. “That Landon sure is gorgeous, even if he is a bit of a goofball. Hunter, though…” She makes a low, appreciative sound in her throat, her face lighting up. “I love the broody, sullen types. Call me a glutton for punishment. I’ve got a thing for gingers, too,” she adds with a wink. I’m stuck wrestling between panic and anger, so I settle on staying silent. Edith seems to pick up on this, inclining her head slightly. “Unless… That’s not a problem for you, is it?”
“Of course not,” I reply hastily, not meeting her eyes. “They’re their own people.”
“Sure, but you seem to be the one calling the shots here.”
I just shrug, forcing myself to keep my voice level. “It’s really none of my business,” I tell her.
So why am I so bothered, then?
Chapter 11
Edith doesn't say much more to me, seemingly lost in her own thoughts as she continues doing our chores. Part of me wants to stick around, at least try to get to know her better, but the other balks at the thought of hearing her opinions on any more of my companions. Feeling surly and frustrated that I don't know why, I excuse myself as she starts the washing machine, wandering into the common area at a loss for what to do with myself.
I'm halfway across the living room when Landon's smoky voice makes my head snap back around: "You know I'm a sucker for wet hair, Boots." I duck my head, swiping a strand of still-damp hair out of my face. I didn't realise he had woken up.
I snicker, rolling my eyes. "You're incorrigible, Landon."
"Hey, don't blame me," he protests, holding up his hands. "It's in my nature."
I stare at him for a moment. "Because you're a… right. Well, I guess I'll just have to remember to never dry my hair, then."
"Oh, perish the thought!" the siren shifter exclaims, his voice taking on that melodramatic tone that always makes my heart flutter even as I roll my eyes. "Your comfort is, and always has been, my top priority, Boots. And speaking of which…" He leans forward on the couch, the humour vanishing from his tone. "You seem a little… bothered, if I'm telling the truth. Are you all right?"
"Me? I -- of course," I reply, a little too quickly, avoiding his eyes. "I'm just… It's just the let down, you know? We barely made it out of Boston alive. It's weird being somewhere safe again." If this could really be called safe, I think grimly.
"You sure that's all it is?" Landon asks, scooting to the side to make room for me on the couch and patting the space beside him.
"I mean, yeah," I reply, not very convincingly, as I move to sit next to the siren shifter.
Landon's black eyes bore into me. "Come on, Boots. We both know you have the world's lousiest poker face."
"That's not…" I protest indignantly. "Hunter has a worse poker face than I do!"
Landon laughs. "This is the part where you make jokes to avoid the subject, right? You've learned well."
"God, you're such a smartass," I complain, elbowing him good-naturedly. To my surprise, Landon catches hold of my elbow and pulls me against his side, slinging an arm around my shoulders as if it's the most natural thing in the world. My breathing hitches for a moment, my train of thought slipping away under the electricity of his touch. He's so cavalier, I muse wonderingly. Some wicked part of my mind wonders whether he's this self-assured in other, more salacious contexts… only prompting me to blush traitorously.
If Landon notices my nervousness, he doesn't remark on it, making me feel a little better. It's astounding how comfortable I feel around him, like we've known each other for years. "So what is it really, Boots?" the shifter asks me gently, his eyes studiously fixed forward. "You're pretty good at ramping down your feelings for the good of the group, but you have to lighten up on yourself. No one should have to shoulder all these emotions by themselves."
I sigh, and then steal a glance over my shoulder, towards the laundry room. The racket of the washing machine muffles the sound around the flat, and Edith is still in there with the door closed. "I wish I could explain it," I admit. "That's the worst part. It's totally irrational. There's no rhyme or reason to it. Something feels wrong."
"About this place?" asks Landon. "About Mollie?"
I shake my head. "Not about Mollie, specifically. I know she is who she says she is, I feel it in my bones. I never, ever thought I would see her again." I can feel myself getting emotional all of a sudden, the combination of the relief of escaping the U.S. and my mounting unease making tears spring, unbidden, to my eyes. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Landon watching me, and his hold on me tightens comfortingly, almost imperceptibly. I take a moment to gather my thoughts before continuing, my voice barely louder than a whisper, "It's her. Edith." I'm not in full control of my emotions. I feel raw, exposed, and right now, the Academy is just the tip of the iceberg.
"You're shaking," Landon observes quietly, con
cern on his face. "That teleportation spell really did a number on you, huh?"
I nod weakly, surprised to see that he's right: I'm trembling. Landon makes a small sound of distress, pulling me gently into his lap before I can protest and folding his lean form around my own. He rests his chin on my head. "What about her?" he murmurs into my hair, and I immediately understand that he brought me so close so he could speak quietly.
"I don't know," I reply quietly. "She's powerful, that much is obvious. More powerful than me."
"You're being too hard on yourself, Boots," Landon tells me. "She's been at this longer than you have."
"Has she, though?" I reply. " We don't know anything about her, other than that she's a witch shifter, and she was the one who gave me those powers." I shake my head miserably, hating myself for how insecure I sound. "I don't like the way she looked at me when we first met her," I whisper. "I don't like the way she looked at the others."
Landon takes a long time to respond. "It's awfully convenient," he says at last, his tone measured.
"What do you mean?" I ask.
He shrugs his lithe shoulders. "First Mollie shows up out of the blue and offers to take us in. And she just happens to have another shifter here, a shifter who claims to have been part of the experiment with us."
"You think she's lying?" I ask, craning my neck to get a better look at him.
"I don't know," Landon admits. "It just all feels like it's worked out too well. After everything going wrong for so long…" He sighs. "Or maybe I'm just being cynical."
"What do you think of her?" I ask cautiously, not sure if I really want to know the answer. "Edith, I mean."
Landon clears his throat. "She's… friendly," he says, choosing his words carefully. "She was certainly giving Hunter an eyeful earlier."
My heart sinks. "Yeah?"
"That doesn't mean much, though," Landon hastens to add, a half-grin spreading across his face. "She pales in comparison to your magnificence, Boots."
I groan in exasperation, shifting a little in his lap, and a small sound issues from him as he adjusts his grip on me. "That's enough of that, you… you wannabe Casanova."
He chuckles, but the noise sounds strained, and it's only then that I realise how closely nestled together we've become, my hips settled neatly against his, the only layers separating us the denim of his jeans and the thin fabric of my bathrobe… My eyes meet Landon's, and behind the teasing humour, I can see something more intense on his face, something primal, almost possessive…
But then there's the sound of knocking on the front door, and I scramble to separate myself from Landon and the rather incriminating position in which I've found myself.
"Who…?" Landon begins, but before he can even finish, Edith is breezing out of the laundry room, her skin already halfway between the porcelain of her natural complexion and the ruby red of a witch's. She's fully transformed by the time she reaches the door, just as there's another brisk rapping sound.
"I got it," she announces, pausing to peer through the peephole for a moment before her hands begin to glow with power. There's a low humming sound as the wards she put up dissolve seamlessly on the other side of the door which she then unceremoniously pulls open. "I was starting to wonder if you'd gotten lost," she teases as Mollie shuffles into the flat, her arms weighed down with overflowing grocery bags.
"Yes, yes, yes," my former foster mum says dismissively. "You'll thank me for going to three different shops. It gets boring being trapped in here, let me tell you."
"Do you need help?" I offer, already halfway to my feet.
"Don't bother," Edith assures me, her tone overly saccharine. Shifting back into human form, she takes a couple of bags from Mollie and together they make their way to the kitchen area, leaving me to stand there watching them awkwardly. The way they banter is easy, like mother and daughter, as they toss various groceries to each other and laugh about this or that. A twinge of envy blossoms in my stomach, and I want to kick myself; is this all just me being jealous of the bond they have?
It's only after a few minutes of this that Mollie even seems to realise I'm standing there staring. "Millie," she exclaims. "Good lord, here I am blabbing away while you're standing there in a robe! Did you get that from the bathroom?" I nod. "Well, I'm glad you're making yourself comfortable, at least. There are some extra clothes in my bedroom, in the bottom dresser drawer. Sheltering this many runaway shifters, you start to accumulate a decent number of hand-me-downs. I'm sure there's something in there that will fit you until your clothes are dry. Edith…"
Edith moves to approach me, but I hurriedly reply, "That's all right, I can find them on my own. You stay here and just… you stay." Stiffly, I turn on my heel and bolt for the hallway, only to hear Edith clear her throat behind me. "Other hallway, Millie."
Flushing angrily, I mutter, "Right, sorry," and make a beeline in the opposite direction.
I damn near throw the door closed behind me, pinching the bridge of my nose and letting out a long sigh. Is this what fleeing the humans has done to me? Turned me into a suspicious, nervous wreck? And that's not even going into what happened with Landon on the couch just now. Was he… turned on? He was certainly starting to seem affected by me, and the worst is that I wasn't even aware of what I was doing. The feeling of being wrapped up in his embrace, allowing him to murmur against my hair in that gorgeous accent of his…
Clothes, I remind myself. Right. Smoothing my hands over my thighs, I turn to Millie's simple dresser and pull open the bottom drawer. Some of the clothes look older than others, things that would have been in style five or ten years ago, and I find myself struck again by how involved Mollie has clearly been in the fight for shifter freedom. A lot of them are too big from me -- my height is decidedly not one of my strong suits -- but eventually I settle on denim shorts and an oversized tee, tugging them on and bunching up the bathrobe before meandering back out of the room.
What I see in the kitchen is enough to make my thoughts grind to a halt. Millie's return must have drawn the others back out, as our ragtag group in its entirety is now gathered in the kitchen. That's not the problem.
Silas and Shade are still needling each other from the kitchen table, while Landon seems to be teasing a blushing Hazel about something. Mollie is already laying lunch ingredients out on the counter while Ruby and Xander speak to each other in low voices, in that way only twins can.
Edith is sitting on the kitchen counter, looking like the cat that ate the canary. Hunter is sitting next to her, closer than I would ever expect for people who have known each other all of one afternoon.
That's the problem.
Chapter 12
For a long moment I can only stand there, paralyzed, until Mollie's voice pulls me out of my stupor. "Millie? Are you all right?"
"Yes," I reply. "Sorry. I was just thinking." Once again kicking myself. I've stood up against powerful Academy representatives, classroom bullies, and human extremist terrorists. So why the hell does it take a coquettish mind like Edith to get me all turned around like this? Enough is enough. I'm not some kind of emotionally unstable little girl. I've dealt with worse than a little jealousy. I'm going to try to be reasonable about this. "What are you making?" I ask, creeping up to the stove to stare into the pot Mollie is stirring.
"Pasta," Mollie replies bluntly, although she frowns. The pot looks more like it's full of a congealed mess of tentacles than spaghetti, and the smell coming from the pan on the other burner doesn't exactly seem edible. "I know, I know," she says, seeing my expression. "It's supposed to be puttanesca, although I'm starting to wonder if takeout would have been the better option."
"I see your cooking skills haven't improved since I lived with you," I observe teasingly.
Mollie groans. "That's a low blow, Millie," she says, reaching out a hand to ruffle my hair affectionately. For a moment I'm transported back to my primary school days, all the precious moments like this that made me feel normal in the face of overwhelming abno
rmality, an abnormality that pales in comparison to what I'm experiencing right now.
Discomfort washes over me again when I notice that Edith has turned her gaze away from Hunter to watch me, a thin smile plastered on her face, but her green eyes are glowing with something I don't quite like. "Just like old times?" she asks, and although her tone is nonchalant, I can tell that it's masking discomfort. Maybe I'm not the only one with some insecurity about my relationship with Mollie.
"I sort of lost count of the number of times we had cereal for dinner," I reply, relishing the sound of Shade's surprised laughter.
"Wait, seriously?" he asks. "I was starting to think I was the only one who did that."
"Oh, you absolutely aren't," I inform him with mock haughtiness. "Frosted flakes were ninety percent of my diet."
"I like you more and more each day, Boots," the wolf shifter says, grinning and giving me a playful nudge on the shoulder. As if he and Silas weren't just sharing me not long ago.
"As interesting as it is to talk about breakfast foods," says Ruby, moving forward to fill up her water glass at the crowded sink, "we should probably figure out a game plan sooner or later."
"Agreed," says Mollie, "although let's hold off until lunch is ready. I find it's always easier to talk serious business on a full stomach."
"Not to look a gift horse in the mouth or anything," Landon says, turning to glance at Mollie, "but I think the pasta sauce might have been on the stove too long."
"Shite," Millie exclaims, rushing back to the saucepan and fanning at the acrid smoke with a dish towel. I take an inquisitive glance back at the pasta, attempting to stir it only to discover that it has completely solidified into a block of noodles.