Page 55 of Snag
“It’ll be cold,” Cay grumbles.
“They aren’t following us.” Doc Z shifts, facing forward again.
I laugh. “They know where I live.”
Neither of the shifters finds me amusing.
I remember to send a text back to Rought, recognizing that checking in, that communication, is something regular people do when in a relationship. As new as all of this is for me, if not for him.
Heading back to the estate.
Then I text Coda.Bellamy?
Coda sends me a series of icons that I can’t decipher except that I think it might be the hacker’s version of,I’m on it, fuck the fuck off.
Cay glances down at my phone, then up at the road, worrying her lip. “So … it’s not a thing?” she asks tentatively. “That I used to fuck Reck? On occasion.”
“It’s not a thing,” I say, ignoring a pinch of something in my gut. I’m probably just hungry. Breakfast might have turned into early lunch, but getting antsy partway through meant I missed out on most of it.
“But all three of the brothers …” Doc Z murmurs quietly. “All three are your mates?”
I let that question linger between us for a moment, but not because I’m uncomfortable or upset. I’m not certain what claims might be pending or what expectations come with—
“Because …” Doc Z rushes to fill the silence. “I’m … I’ve fucked Rath. And I thought … I thought …”
“Okay.” My stomach really sours now. I’m an adult. I’m not possessive. Or jealous. Though I’ve never had a committed relationship, or any sort of relationship, for that matter. “That’s not my business either.”
“So … you’re not claiming them?” Cay asks. “You’d be fine with Rath fucking Zephyr?”
“Hey,” Doc Z huffs. “Don’t put yourself outside of this, Cay.”
The kitsune shifter shrugs. “I didn’t follow Reck across the continent, then pledge the Outcast when I could have become a snooty, rich-as-fuck surgeon —”
“None of this is my business,” I say sharply. Both Cay and Doc Z flinch away from me. “I’ve had something stolen from me, stripped from me. And I didn’t even know it. All four of us have. I don’t … I don’t judge anything that has happened in the in-between. And I can’t predict what will happen moving forward.”
Cay shares a glance with Doc Z over my head. Then they let the subject drop.
We drive in silence for easily ten minutes, until the edge of the estate comes into view. I finally turn toward Doc Z, facing the confrontation I’ve managed to avoid all day.
Coward that I am, I never have to deal with the aftermath of my actions. Other than occasionally dying, of course.
“I’m sorry about Kris,” I say, steady and firm. “I should have … I made a choice, and it ended with her death.”
“I got your note,” Doc Z says, swallowing whatever emotion — sadness, anger, grief, disbelief — seems as if it wants to clog her throat. “I didn’t understand it until a few hours ago.”
It takes me a moment to remember the note I left Doc in the motel. A thank you for the mage energy brews she’d given me, which twisted into aknowing, channeled through me but not for me to necessarily understand.
“Choice, not fate, not love or devotion, twists the path,”Doc murmurs as she tugs a crumpled piece of paper from her jacket pocket and smooths it over her knee. “And not always in the way intended.”Head bowed, she takes a deep, shaky breath. “You tried to take Kris with you, when you ran with Precious and DeVille. I knew then. I could feel it, instantly. A heavy doom weighted in my heart. I tried to twist the path back, by bringing her to you … but Kris made her own choices.”
“Bellamy made those choices,” I say.
Doc Z nods, then carefully folds the note and tucks it back in her pocket.
Cay pulls onto the estate drive.
We remain quiet all the way into the house, stuck in our own heads. And I don’t think about the oddity, the weird synergy, of being flanked by these two women, and of the three brothers we’re all linked to.
One for each of us … that would be the more generally acceptable sexual pairing.
