Page 10 of Midnight Hunt

“It’s the middle of the night, Mom,” Vi gently said to the older female whose face and sleep t-shirt were streaked with flour. “You should be sleeping.”

“I know, honey,” Charlotte Rivers distractedly replied as she finished placing another batch of chocolate chip cookies on the cooling rack. “I was feeling restless, and you know how baking helps settle me.”

“I understand, but I’d feel better if you were upstairs in bed. How about I get you a glass of milk and finish cleaning up here?”

Her mother paused to glance up at her eldest daughter. They looked so much alike. Same straight dark hair and deep olive skin. Same dark amber eyes, even though I rarely saw Vi’s on account of her purple contacts. Tucking a premature white streak of hair behind her ear, Charlotte considered her daughter’s words before saying, “Sure, honey. A glass of milk would be nice. But you should get some sleep too. You look tired.”

Vi waved her mom’s concern away with a small laugh. “I’m okay. It’s just a long drive from Boston.”

Charlotte set down her spatula with a slow blink. “Oh.”

Vi didn’t seem affected by the sudden blank look on her mother’s face, but I knew better. It had been five months since Charlotte had come home, five months of slowly incorporating her back into society. We still hadn’t reintroduced her to the entire pack, but they all knew she was alive, that Kolton and Vi had hidden her away after she’d succumbed to heartbreak over her husband’s death.

Some of the members felt betrayed by the secrecy, but no one could really blame them for what they did. Their mother wouldn’t be alive right now if they’d told the pack of her broken state. She was still recovering, still drifting off inside her mind, but she was lucid most days, thanks to Nora’s healing magic.

Her short-term memory had suffered the most from the mental break, though. Sometimes, she forgot that she had a seven-year-old daughter. That she was no longer the alpha female of Midnight Pack. Keeping track of the household’s comings and goings was also hard for her. She probably hadn’t even realized that Vi had been gone all week. What’s more, she constantly forgot about Reid. In fact, she thought Vi and I were—

“Oh, Griff!” she suddenly exclaimed, her eyes brightening in recognition as she spotted me in the doorway. “I should have known it was you keeping my daughter up so late. Not getting her into trouble, I hope.”

At the adoring, slightly scolding look she gave me, my face split into an impish grin. “I promise I’m not getting your daughter into trouble, Mrs. R.”

“Please, Griffin, I insist you call me Charlotte. I’m not blind, you know. I see what a strapping young man you’ve become. You’re not that towheaded little boy anymore who used to pull on Violet’s pigtails.”

At the mental image the memory gave me, I burst out laughing. Vi rolled her eyes, but when she huffed a laugh of her own, my chest warmed.

“If I recall, Mrs—Charlotte,” I teasingly drawled, “your daughter got her revenge for all that hair pulling by giving me my first black eye.”

“Why, Violet Jane,” Charlotte gasped in mock dismay.

“He deserved it,” Vi muttered, throwing me a glare that promised retribution for outing her.

Ooh, tell another story, Whiskey purred, clearly enjoying the slightly dangerous banter. Dangerous, because Vi was probably going to beat me up after this.

My mouth curved into a wicked grin. Seeing what I was about to do, she opened her mouth to stop me. Before she could, I blurted, “She also stole a bottle of vodka from your liquor cabinet once and dared me to drink the whole thing. I was only fifteen.”

“Hey, I didn’tforceyou to drink it,” Vi protested, her eyes practically shooting lasers at me. “I was twelve years old. I didn’t know it would make you throw up like that.”

“Yeah, and my mom’s warned me of the dangers of alcohol ever since. Every Christmas, she gives me the stink eye before letting me touch even a drop of wine.”

Vi snorted in amusement. “Really? I didn’t know that. Serves you right, though. I still can’t believe you drank thewholebottle.”

“You dared me,” I said with a shrug.

Shaking her head, she moved toward the cabinet where the glasses were kept. As she lifted an arm to grab one, her purple shirt rode up, exposing a sliver of smooth olive skin just above her favorite designer jeans. I’d seen that strip of taut flesh more times than I could remember, but my body reacted to it all the same.

Your screwdriver is showin’, mate, Whiskey casually remarked, this time in an Australian accent.Might wanna put him away before the lady sees.

She won’t notice, I replied.

I was talking about her mum.

Well, in that case, he had a point. Most evenings when her brain was tired, Charlotte’s mind got stuck in the past. Seven years ago, to be exact, when she was still pregnant with Melanie and her husband Anthony was still alive. When things were happiest for her. When her son was in college and her eldest daughter had just been freed from a toxic relationship.

The calm before the storm. Before everything had changed. Forallof us.

Charlotte was stuck in that happy place now, blissfully unaware of the seven hard years that had passed, years that had shaped us into different beings. Right now, all she saw was her nearly sixteen-year-old daughter, her son’s oldest best friend, and the exciting possibility of a budding relationship. Not just lifelong friendship but something more, something deeper.

Apparently, deflowering her precious baby girl equaled wedding bells. Didn’t matter that the intimate moment had happened while Vi was in heat at the tender age of fifteen. Charlotte was clearly waiting for me to make my intentions known—and reminding her about Reid didn’t help. Whenever her brain was stuck like this, she only had one goal in mind . . .

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