Page 65 of The Magic of Betrayal
I followed Fischer as he made the smooth turn into the driveway of the cottage, my stomach full of dread and regret.
Golden light spilled onto the grass from the large kitchen window and I figured that meant someone was home, and since it wasn't my baby, it could only be Bette. She was probably making dinner for everyone. She gave us our privacy but she often ate with us most nights.
We all parked and dismounted our bikes, Kai and Fischer standing on either side of me as they stared at the cottage.
"I grabbed the necklace on my way out… This is going to be brutal, man," Kai said softly.
"Yep. But we're doing this. No more secrets," I replied, gearing myself up to go in there and break an old woman's heart.
"Let's do this," Fischer's detached voice had me looking over at him, and when his eyes met mine, I swallowed the lump in my throat at the darkened unhinged look in them. We can't have a repeat performance from the last time he went off the rails.
"Are you good, brother?" I questioned, studying his expression. The corner of his mouth kicked up in a disturbing kind of way, a way that was inappropriate for the situation we were in, and without Sloane here to do whatever it was he did to bring Fischer back from the darkness, I wasn't sure what the fuck we were going to do.
"I'm great."
He pushed away from us, opening the screen door and disappearing into the house. I knew that I should probably be more concerned that he wouldn't have a way to work through the darkness quickly with Sloane out of the picture. However, the distant thunder and lightning strikes across the landscape around us were a harrowing reminder that I, too, had issues that were going to have to be my focus. Plus figuring out a solution of how we were going to get Saige back.
We were a fucking mess.Kai had a mate bond that was about to rip him apart, so Fischer was going to have to fight his own demons.
"Cam..." Kai warned, worry in his voice.
"I know. He'll be okay. He just needs some time to come back to normal, just... keep an eye on him, okay?" I clapped Kai on the back and we headed into the house. Something smelled delicious and my stomach growled in appreciation, but it made me feel like a fuck to be thinking about eating at a time like this. Would they feed Saige? Was she a prisoner?
Bette was in the kitchen, as I'd suspected. Fuck, the way we moved into the room made me feel like some kind of harbinger of destruction, which I supposed was fitting, but I didn't want to destroy this woman. She'd stopped her movements and watched us closely.
"I made eggplant parmesan tonight," she explained, pointing to the casserole dish that was on the stove.
"Bette," I began, but she waved me off, spinning to remove plates from the cupboard. She wouldn’t look at me when usually she had trouble keeping her eyes off me.She knows. She knows something terrible has happened.
"If you boys could just set the table? Is Saige still outside? I caught up on all of the gardening earlier today so she doesn't need to mess with anything out there right now. Can you get her, Kai?" She stepped around the island with the plates and beelined for the table.
"Bette," I said more firmly this time and she froze in place, "we need to talk, okay? Can you sit down, please?"
"Where is she?" she breathed, setting the plates on the table and dropping into a chair.
"Taken. She was taken tonight," I confirmed and we all watched as her face paled.
Creaking above us had our heads tilting up and I strained my ears, listening to see if it was just the old house settling. Then the unmistakable sounds of someone walking around upstairs had our training kicking in. Kai immediately moved toward the stairs, no doubt using his senses to see what he could figure out.
"Who is upstairs, Bette?" I asked softly.
"A guest. The three of you better sit down and get to talking before I have a WF."
"What's a WF?" Fischer asked, confused, but also intrigued as he dropped into a seat at the table.
"Witch fit. And trust me, you don't want to see that," she cautioned, but I felt a little more at ease knowing that she knew whoever it was upstairs and some of the tension in my chest abated.
I called out to Kai, telling him to join us at the table. Once we were all sitting, Bette didn't waste a second.
"Someone better start talking or I'm going to start busting some asses," she threatened and I had no doubt she meant business.
Kai caught my eye, his pain evident. Fischer was suddenly incredibly interested in his fingernails, so I took the lead and began telling her everything. It was brutal. Watching as she processed how deeply we'd hurt her granddaughter. How badly we'd fucked up.How I failed at keeping her safe. Another one I let down.
We were just getting to the part where Khol had revealed he was Saige's father when whoever was upstairs began coming down the steps, the creaks and groans from the old wooden steps so loud that they'd give away a spider moving on them. The three of us looked to see who this guest was and I nearly toppled my chair with how fast I pushed out of my seat.
"What in the name of Neptune's nipples are you doing?" Gran barked as the three of us created a wall of muscle and magic between her and the woman who had caused this entire fucking situation.
"You," I growled and the windows shook violently with the thunderous boom I unleashed from the heavens.
