Page 87 of Snag
“No, Tempest,” Rath whispers mournfully. “Whatever else our uncle has done, he didn’t take you from us.”
“Is that what happened that night?” The Outcast’s voice rasps with barely contained emotion. “He used the knife?”
“No,” Rath says definitively— but with no elaboration.
But I know now, just from voicing those simple questions …
I know what my mates are trying to … not keep from me, but spare me from. Until I’m ready to know the truth of my first death. The death that cost me all of them.
I focus on the current secret I’m trying to untangle. I’m tired of getting constantly sidetracked by outside influences. “Oso killed Ward, and Disa banished both of you for it.”
“There was no definitive proof,” the Outcast insists. Sounding like someone who just can’t believe that his brother killed his other soul-bonded brother.
“You think,” I say almost gently, “that the Conduit didn’t know who killed her own soul-bound mate? Youthink she didn’t feel a section of her soul rip asunder? And if Oso would murder his own brother … for what? Jealousy? Or did he think that would consolidate the power shared between you three?”
“That’s not how it works …” Rath murmurs.
“I cannot speak to my brother’s mind,” the Outcast says, getting testy again. I doubt anyone ever challenges him, at least not in public. “I can only —”
“You think living without your three universe-gifted mates is easy?” I really don’t want to hear his justifications. “You think she didn’t spend every day feeling disjointed? As if every time she died, parts of her weren’t put back in place properly? That she didn’t constantly feel as if she was walking the earth on a slightly different level than everyone else, destined to see all, but never to truly connect with anything, anyone?”
I’m shaking now, tears rolling down my cheeks.
And I know. I know I’m not talking about my aunt anymore. The parallels between us are too much to ignore.
The Outcast takes a shuddering breath. “Disa took Ingrid as her chosen within a month. Mack within six months. She even took Grinder for a spin a few years later.”
I laugh, so harshly that it physically hurts. “And that makes her the villain in your story? That she needed the support? She couldn’t trust either of you, could she? Who else would have had the power to harm the soul-bound mate of the fucking Conduit except you or your brother? And that dire-wrought knife? You think those are just an easy purchase from any corner store? Ward’s murder was premeditated. You were likely next. And when Oso realized that the deaths of his soul-bound brothers didn’t come with a power boost? What then? Murder my aunt? Try to take her power, claim the intersection point?”
“I don’t know,” the Outcast says, anger and grief edging his words. “She banished me. But I stayed as close as I could. I built the Outcast MC to fortify her borders.”
“And that’s just sad,” I say, spite now pouring out from my sundered soul. “Pathetic, really. The Conduit doesn’t need protection, she needs —”
“I won’t have some child question decisions made before she was even fucking born!”
The Outcast slams his fist down on the table, standing in the same motion. Energy, his power, explodes through the room, shoving dishes, cutlery, chairs, and Rought and Rath all away. The two of them tumble back in a mess of limbs amid flying shards of wood and porcelain.
The table partially shatters under the blow, falling to pieces at the Outcast’s feet. The photo gets lost in the destruction.
The Outcast stares at me where I still sit, disbelief swiftly overtaking his anger.
Not a single iota of his power tantrum has touched me.
I stand, taking a step toward him, hearing Rought shifting behind me. Wood clatters to the floor as he moves, his chair seemingly torn apart, or perhaps crushed under his weight. Rath has taken out one of the carved support posts in the living room before crushing the nearest set of couches.
Hopefully, the second floor isn’t about to drop on top of us. That might actually hurt.
“Not only am I not a child,” I say quietly to the Outcast, icy calm now, “but that childhood was all but stripped from me. And I can’t help but think that you bear partial blame for those missing years. Whether due to your past actions or negligence or some direct interventionthirteen years ago … you carry the responsibility for the fact that my own bonds have been ripped from me.”
I’m close enough to touch him now. I raise my hand, hovering it over his chest.
He flinches even as he tries to cover that reaction, his fear of me. I doubt that the Outcast has been truly afraid in decades. At least not for himself. “I didn’t know.”
“You did,” I say. “Because even if the boys all thought I was dead and reported that to you, your territory surrounds my aunt’s. Like Rath said, someone, one of your scouts, would have seen me leave the property. There is no way, so fresh from being dead, that my aunt could have arranged to teleport me. She didn’t even know that I would survive that night. Even now, as the Conduit, the complications are too risky to even attempt to move me in such a way.”
Something flickers at the edge of my mind …
A sense of wind pressing me back, and rock underfoot. Then a dark, stormy night.
