Page 86 of Snag
“In which event?” I ask mockingly, not quite understanding my own mounting ire. But it cuts through all the overwhelming disconcertion, so I cling to it. “My aunt’s death or saving you from following her into the After?”
The Outcast’s fingers curl into a fist. His hand is still resting over the photograph on the table. His previous reverence was a ploy, maybe. To make me feel welcome? Or a hollow attempt to renew our association — the motorcycle club and the Conduit, living in such close proximity.
But I am not my aunt. I’m not the Outcast’s rejected mate.
Beside me, Rought shifts in his chair, firmly planting his feet and leaving space between him and the table.
Rath narrows his eyes at his uncle, shoulders angling toward him.
I don’t drop the Outcast’s gaze. I refuse to cede any ground, any energy to this male with all his fucking secrets. All his lies to his nephews, by omission or otherwise.
Or at least I won’t cede any more ground than I already have.
The Outcast huffs out a breath that’s not quite a laugh. Then he relaxes, just a little. “I forget,” he murmurs as ifspeaking to himself, his gaze once again on the photo partially hidden under his now-splayed fingers. “What it is like to sit across the table from …”
He catches himself before completing the thought.
I don’t let it go, though.
“I’m not my aunt,” I say. All the mysteries that aren’t my purview, all the places I should be focusing my attention, and I can’t let this go. There’s some connection in all of this, something to do with my aunt’s untimely demise and my still … disjointed … acceptance of the Conduit powers.
“You’ve got your mother’s charisma and the general shape of her face. But otherwise, you are so very much of your father’s bloodline,” the Outcast says.
Every word is a challenge, pressing me into, containing me within, the role he’s granting me and allowing nothing more. Especially the deliberate mention of my father’s bloodline. The suggestion that he knew, that he knows, either of my parents well enough to see them in me.
I lean slightly forward. “I’m not some child in pigtails playing on the beach anymore. I don’t even remember that girl. I’m the fucking Conduit. You will treat me accordingly.”
“Or what?” he asks almost gently, but with a mocking twist to his lips. “Do you think my nephews will allow you to strike at me?”
“What the fuck is happening here?” Rath slams his hand on the table before I can escalate the situation. The dishes and glasses all jump a half inch, sloshing my apple juice everywhere. “We need answers, not pissing contests.”
“I am not beholden to you,” the Outcast says, barely glancing at his nephew. “I owe you no answers. My past is not for your purview. For you to question, to tear apart.”
Rought jumps up from the table. “You’re bonded to my fucking mother! Does she know you were soul bound to Disa?”
“And you fucking lied to us about Zaya,” Rath says, quietly malevolent. “You knew, you had to fucking know. Even with the three of us in the fucking hospital, you always have eyes on the estate. You let us believe she was dead.”
Those repeated accusations fall around the Outcast, now stone faced. His hand on the table, over the photo, clenches again.
I let the silence linger, the sound of Rought’s and Rath’s breathing heavy within it, as I click together a few more of the clues. My sharpened ire is making it easier to focus.
“On top of bonding with anyone who’s not your crux, or having biological children outside that bond group, it should also be nearly impossible for soul-bound mates to murder each other,” I say. “That little complication must have been in the book you just read, right, Rath?”
Rath shakes his head, not in denial, but trying to focus on my words rather than giving in to his obvious need to lunge across the table and throttle his uncle.
The Outcast’s gaze — hard and rimmed with all the immense power at his command — flicks to me and holds there.
“It wasn’t my aunt,” I say, already knowing that truth, at least. “You said she rejected you. If she’d been the one to murder your brother Ward, whose ashes she secretly interred in the family mausoleum, then why not kill you and Oso as well? That would have severed her bond to you much more efficiently.”
Tension etches across the Outcast’s face.
I’m not sure that Rought or Rath are breathing anymore.
We’re all poised on the edge of these secrets, ready to slash and rend.
“Did you kill me as well?” I ask, even though I’m not at all certain I want that answer. “Did you take the dire-wrought sacrificial knife my aunt interred with Ward’s ashes and that picture …” I nod toward the photo still pressed under the Outcast’s fisted hand. “Did you steal my childhood and my soul-bound mates from me?”
Rought stifles a moan, abruptly settling back in the chair next to me. His hand falls gently on my thigh, only half hidden under the table.
