Eden ignored them both and stabbed Christian again. The scissors grew slick with blood, and she shifted her grip, weaving her fingers through the handhold as she sank the blades deep and twisted until he dropped her.
Air rushed into her lungs, sparking pain and a dizzy sense of giddiness. She wanted to bend over and gasp in deep breaths until she was drunk on oxygen, but the wolf wouldn’t rest with an unfallen adversary behind her. Spinning around, she met Christian’s dark, shocked gaze and sank the blood-slicked scissors into his throat.
She followed him down, and she didn’t let go until Lorelei covered her bloodied hands and tugged. “He’s dead, Eden. Gone.”
Christian was still under her. Silent. His blood covered Eden’s body, soaked through her bra and jeans and slicked over her skin. So much blood, and he wasn’t bleeding anymore. He was dead. Not breathing, not moving, not bleeding dead.
She still couldn’t ease her grip on the scissors. “Are they fighting in the front yard? Can you see through the window?”
“They’re coming in,” Mae called down the hallway, even as footsteps pounded up the stairs.
Jay stumbled onto the top landing, his bare feet sliding in the blood that slicked the floor. His throat worked, and he gripped the edge of the open doorway, his voice low and full of dread. “Eden—”
She found every mark on him. Scratches that were all but healed, deeper wounds that knit together even as she watched. She cataloged them because it was the only thing she could do, because her fingers still weren’t unclenching and God, he was alive. “I can’t let go.”
He was by her side in an instant, his body wrapped half around hers even as he knelt beside her. “It’s okay.” He closed his hand around hers and pressed his lips to her temple. “Just breathe.”
Breathing brought the sharp scent of blood, metallic and overwhelming. Eden squeezed her eyes shut and fought to block out everything but his touch. “I’m okay. I promise. I’m just…”
Jay trembled. “How the hell did he get in here?”
“He had a—a thing…”
“A charm,” Mae supplied, holding up a bit of leather strung through a wooden disc.
“A charm.” Taking in another slow breath, Eden released the scissors and turned her hand palm up. Under the blood, just below her middle finger, an angry burn mark marred her skin. “I couldn’t see him, but I could feel the magic.”
Jay hissed in a breath, his questing fingers hovering just over her palm. “Fletcher and Colin are handling things outside. Mae, go tell Stella to make a sweep, check for more magic like that.” He touched Eden’s hand finally, a light brush across her wrist. “Let’s get you cleaned up, okay?”
Looking down was a mistake. She was straddling Christian, her knees in a pool of blood that seemed to go on for miles. It covered everything, soaking into her jeans, clinging to her bare skin, covering her in tangible proof of what she’d done.
Easy to say she wanted to rip the bastard’s throat out. Facing the gruesome, bloody truth of it—
She jerked her gaze away and found Lorelei hovering there, eyes worried, ready to step forward and help. Ready to take care of Eden.
She shouldn’t have to, and that stiffened Eden’s spine just enough. Somehow she kept her voice even as she let Jay help her to her feet. “Can you go check on Tammy and the others? And close the door. I don’t want her son to see me when we walk by.”
“Don’t worry about that right now.” He slipped his arm around her waist, supporting her when her knees might have buckled.
Worrying about it was silly, but it kept her together as Jay half-carried her down the hallway and into the upstairs bathroom. Mae and Kaley’s soap and toiletries cluttered half of the double sink, with only Zack’s razor and toothbrush as proof he existed at all.
“Zack,” she whispered, stumbling toward the tub. “Are Zack and Kaley all right?”
“Fletcher found them.” Jay turned her around and tugged at the hooks fastening her bra. “They had to fight a handful of the Memphis wolves, but they made out okay.”
He peeled the sticky fabric from her chest, and Eden shuddered and closed her eyes. “I need to learn how to fight. Teach me. Promise.”
“We all need to learn a lot of things.” He unbuttoned her jeans. “I’ll get the water running.”
He bent toward the faucet as she struggled with her jeans, shoving the fabric down her legs in jerky stages, as if she could only concentrate on one tiny task at a time. Details. Little details, like the bite mark on Jay’s shoulder, or the linoleum peeling up in the corner, or the way her zipper felt cold under her feet when she stumbled free. If she focused on the details, then the world didn’t have to be real.
Jay’s quiet voice broke through the haze. “I’m sorry I didn’t—that I wasn’t in here with you.”
“No. No, Jay…” The numbness shattered when she touched him, and she clung to his shoulders and buried her face against his throat. “I can be strong for them, as long as I get to be freaked out with you.”
He locked his arms around her waist as steam began to billow up around them. “I knew this wouldn’t be an easy fight. I never wanted you to have to deal with this, but not because I thought you couldn’t. I didn’t have any doubts about that.”
Truth. It had a scent, a feeling, like the words took up more space. They echoed in her bones and she turned her ear to his chest, savoring the strong, steady beat of his heart. With him she was utterly safe, and no one should have to wait until they were thirty-two to know how that felt.
Her father had tried, but he’d made mistakes. The only way to be whole was to admit it. “I’m sorry I got defensive about my dad and Zack. I think I’m afraid to be mad at them.”
“No, hey. Come on.” He lifted her into the shower and climbed in after her. His hands moved with an efficiency that spoke of experience, of the fact that this was far from the first time he’d washed blood from flesh. “You don’t need to be thinking about that right now.”
“I do.” She tilted her head back and wiped beads of water from his cheeks. “I lie to myself about how I grew up. I pretend none of it hurt me because I wasn’t as bad off as Zack, and I tell myself my dad was great because he wasn’t Albus. I couldn’t let myself get angry about it, because it wouldn’t be fair to people like you and Zack, people who were hurt by their parents. Really, actually hurt.”
Jay stroked some of the tangles from her hair. “There’s more than one way to be hurt, Eden. And hurting for someone else can be just as bad.”
“I need to stop lying to myself.” Her tears mingled with the water, but it wouldn’t matter. She didn’t need to hide. “It makes me weak. Just promise you’ll be patient while I learn how.”
He tilted her head under the spray and soaped her hair before answering quietly, “It gets easier.”
It had to. The first step into truth was the scariest, plunging blindly off the ledge into free fall. But Jay would cushion her landing. And if it hurt too much, he’d help her put herself back together, just like he was doing now.
His hands were soothing as they smoothed away all external evidence of the fight. Eventually, the water swirling down the drain faded from red to pink. When it ran clear, they stood there under the spray, wrapped around one another. Eden pressed her lips to the healing scratch on Jay’s shoulder as the hot water pounded the tension from her shoulders, and wished the moment could last forever.
But it couldn’t. Too soon, the door rattled under a quick, efficient knock. “We need you guys outside,” Colin said, his tone almost apologetic. “Zack’s freaking out. I’m leaving clothes outside the door for you.”
Jay tensed and leaned out of the shower to snatch a towel from the rack beside the sink. “What’s wrong with him?”
“He says there’s a body missing. He’s trying to get Stella to cast more spells, find the one who’s left. Fletcher thinks one of you will have to talk him down.”
Eden switched off the water and steeled her shoulders. “We’ll be right there.”
Jay handed her a second towel as he retrieved the clothes. “Maybe he doesn’t know that Peters came in the house.”
“Maybe,” she agreed, but as dried off and pulled on her clothing, she couldn’t help the growing dread. It seemed like years had passed since their fight in the dining room, but the words were barely cold.
The alphas from Memphis were only the outward danger. Zack was still losing his mind, and Jay would still have to deal with it.
Colin had said Zack was freaking out.
Colin had a talent for understatement.
Jay edged in front of Eden as he pushed through the back door, where Zack circled the yard, dragging each dead wolf up by the scruff of the neck and inhaling sharply.
Sniffing. “I know what the f**ker looks like,” he snarled as he tossed a savaged white wolf aside with no regard for the blood left on his hands. “I’m telling you, he’s not here.”
The beads woven into Stella’s hair clicked as she shook her head. “And I told you, I believe you. But there’s no one else here, man. I got nada.”
Jay stepped between them. “Who’s missing?”
He might as well have remained silent. “Do it again,” Zack demanded, jabbing a finger at Stella. “Cast your spell again. He’d be here.”
“Who?” Jay asked again, louder this time.
“The f**king bastard brother!” Zack roared, lifting another dead enemy. He sniffed again and growled. “Where the f**k is he?”
“He isn’t here,” Kaley said, her voice thick with tears. “You’ve looked at all the bodies twice already, Zack. Jonas isn’t—”
He just growled and went to the next wolf. “Cast the spell, witch.”
Stella bristled. “Hey, I have a name.”