Page 37 of Snag
“It was not your fault!” Presh snaps, hands clenched ather sides. “I listened. I listened … to Kris. And you … you tried to protect … me.”
They stare at each other for a moment, DeVille towering over the tiny awry, both of them presumably reliving the events of last night, replaying the terror and confusion in their heads.
“Why the beach, Zaya?” Presh asks with a croak, pulling her gaze from DeVille to look at me. “Was that one of the things you just know?”
“Yes.”
“Because … you can see the future?” DeVille asks.
“No.”
“Fate,” Rought interjects, though he doesn’t look up from texting on his phone. “Zaya just told you. She can see, or feel, the threads of fate.”
That’s the easiest answer, so I don’t elaborate further. Especially because this is about focusing Presh’s power, whatever that power might turn out to be. She almost self-combusted last night through the terror and pain of losing Kris, during which I got a look at the depths of the essence she will eventually wield. That much access to essence, paired with the multistrand, multicolored threads of fate that surround Precious, needs focus.
For any number of reasons.
Many awry don’t survive the full manifestation of their power, and one awry can take a lot of people with them if they implode.
“Fate,” DeVille scoffs, shaking his head. “There’s always a reason. Something tangible.”
“In the aftermath,” I say, incapable of fully disguising the smirk his doubt evokes. Because I’ve seen his threads and who he is undoubtedly fated to already. “There’s usually a reason, yes.”
“So the beach?” Presh prompts. “What reason would there be to send us there?”
I think about that for a moment. “Logically … depending on the dire mage’s skill set, there’s a good chance that salt and water would have interfered with their castings. Maybe even stopped the mage from …”
I realize what I’m saying, too late.
Presh visibly deflates.
DeVille grimaces, then scrubs a hand over his face. “So if I had gotten Kris to the beach, the mage might not have been able to …” His gaze flicks to Presh, taking in the anguished look on her face. He doesn’t finish his thought either.
Not at all certain whether I’m even capable of bringing comfort to anyone, I pull Presh against me in a one-armed hug, even while reaching for DeVille and laying my hand across the back of his neck. He instantly tucks next to Presh, bowing his head so I can reach him easier.
I never reached for my aunt like that. Never sought physical comfort from her. She offered all her knowledge and all her support, but hugs just weren’t a thing. She’d been the Conduit for over seventy-five years by the time I was born. There are very few people comfortable coming into any contact with that level of energy, even with the necklace currently hanging around my neck to help mitigate it.
Still holding the teens, I meet Rought’s gaze. His phone is forgotten in his hand, his expression tender but not sad.
He looks at the three of us as if we’re everything he’s ever wanted.
My chest floods with that internal sunshine, that steadying warmth, that Rought seems to lend me effortlessly. Presh relaxes against me. DeVille closes his eyes withan inaudible sigh, curling his fingers around Precious’s wrist. She doesn’t brush him away.
A familiar green pickup truck pulls up to the curb, parking alongside us. Rought tears his gaze away from our huddle. DeVille steps back from the loose embrace as well, pivoting to straighten to his full height.
Not because the massive, grizzled, dark-skinned shifter who steps out of the truck’s cab is a threat, but because he’s a lieutenant in the Outcast MC. By his own admission, he’s ranked even higher than Rought, and DeVille is only a club prospect.
Grinder, wearing his full cut with his beard neatly trimmed, claps his hand on Rought’s shoulder hard enough that the gryphon shifter stumbles slightly. They’re a similar height — both of them giants compared to Presh — but Grinder carries the weight of age in his broad shoulders and massive chest.
“Glad to see you all unscathed with my own eyes,” he says in his deep, gravelly tone. His gaze flicks to me still cuddling Presh as he crosses to us, ignoring DeVille in that shifter hierarchy way. Meaning he likely knows everything he needs to know about the young shifter’s health and welfare without a single word or glance exchanged between them.
Presh peeks up at Grinder with a sad smile as he pauses before us. Then he levels his gaze on me and deliberately taps his chest with the first three fingers of his left hand, over his heart.
“As the weaver wills,” he says reverently.
He means me. Never mind that in my opinion, it’s the universe doing the actual weaving, generally before each soul is reborn into this plane of existence. I— which is tosay, the Conduit— just mess around with the individual threads while on the earthly plane.
I huff belligerently. “I wish.”
