Page 88 of Sinister Hearts
“Midnight margaritas, anyone?” she asked, holding the ribbed glasses up.
The girls ran off inside to enjoy their refreshments. My mother always kept those tucked away in the kitchen. There was no need to ever replace them. A small smile spread across my face, as the night wind picked up and her scent briefly enveloped me. I could feel mymóðir’spresence on the desert wind. I breathed in the brisk wind, embracing this moment andletting it linger. Something tells me she’s here having midnight margaritas, too.
“So, tell me, brother, when did it happen?” I stood up from Mother’s rocking chair and walked next to Creed on the porch where he rested on the wooden fence.
“What are you talking about?” Creed acted oblivious to what was obvious to the rest of us. Although, maybe not to himself as of yet.
“Oh come on, you and Rocky?” I asked him, glancing back at the girls and then him, waving my eyebrows at him teasingly.
Creed shrugged it off. “Nothing’s happened. I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, refusing to look me in the eyes.
“Not yet, you mean?” I eyed my brother suspiciously.
“We’re working together to try and figure out who these heretics are, that’s it.” Creed tried to seem aloof about the subject.
“Uh huh, there was a look,” I remarked from the wooden porch.
His face began to flush. “What look?” He looked back to the kitchen, the way Rocky went.
“You’re imagining things, Jaxon.” Creed shook his head, trying to shake me off.
“Don’t waste time fighting what your heart already knows, brother. I wasted six years and I’ll never stop regretting not reuniting with Faye sooner,” I confessed, hoping he heard my wise words enough to take them into account.
“It’s too soon. How could I trust again, after Avi?” Creed's face went dark then blank.
“If Avi didn’t use a charm, would you have loved her?” I asked, curiously.
I watched as the question hung from my brother’s very thoughts. “That’s the thing… I’ll never know. I don’t trust anything anymore,” he replied, broken.
It pained me to see him lost in confusion, and with questions he still didn’t have the answers to.
“Why are you helping the shifter find these heretics? Faye and Birdie are protected, so what is your motive?” I glanced at him, awaiting his reply.
“I found a sigil carved into Avi’s thigh.” Creed gripped the wooden fence, cracking it with his futile anger that was building rapidly.
“You think Avi was being targeted by these heretics as well?” I was aware of that possibility; the posing threat, something I couldn’t erase in my gut.
Creed’s eyes went dark, the wrath of vengeance swirling in his green irises. “My morbid gut tells me yes, brother.” Creed looked down, still full of grief.
“She is a shifter, Creed. You know what this means.” I glanced at him sternly. Creed peered at Rocky in the kitchen with the girls. “Once she takes her initiation…”
Ryker barged in excitingly. “Waffles, anyone?” The smell of syrup swarmed the air, interrupting us. I could sense Creed was thankful that this conversation was cut short.
“What the fuck? Is this a bed and breakfast? It’s nearly one a.m!” I hooked my arm around his neck, between my forearm and bicep, and rubbed Ryker’s dark locks with my knuckles.
“Get off me, bastard!” he retorted, Ryker and I were play fighting on the wraparound porch. My little big brother stood inches over me.
“How did hunting go with Penny?” I asked him, my voice quiet, making sure the girls were still preoccupied with their drinks in the kitchen.
“It was fine until she tried to eat me. But you know, the thing is, I was kind of into it.” Ryker rubbed the back of his neck in admission. My gods. Why did I have a feeling he was being serious?
“Hey, cowboy.” I sat on Jax’s lap and tilted his hat playfully. “I feel like we haven’t been alone in days.” I kissed his lips. There was a look of concern in his expression, his hazel eyes begging me for my attention. “What is it?” I could sense his hesitation.
Jax swallowed before speaking. “The Council, they saved you, sparing you Odin’s wrath, and I fear the reason why.” His eyes looked back and forth between my own. “They know you’realive. They know you’re here. And, they know you’ve made your initiation, siphoning from both dark and light sources.”
The wind picked up and the trees and bushes began to sway. “They saved you, because they want something from you, Faye. Maybe not today, or even tomorrow, but whatever they want, it will come,” Jax sighed, caressing my thigh with his thumb, squeezing it in anxiousness.
“I am not afraid,” I contested. Jax refused to look at me with my admission. He was terrified I could see the trepidation in his eyes, the fear, reflecting back at me. “Hey,” I touched his bearded chin to face me. “I won’t spend my life running anymore.” I intertwined his cold tattooed fingers with my warm infused ones. Jax squeezed my hands and brought them to his lips, his mustache rubbing against my knuckles.
