A Fang in the Sass

16

Much calmer, she said, “Tell me everything.” She’d been waiting for this moment far too long. She would kill, slowly, whoever hurt her parents and took them from her.

“I guess you were in hiding since I didn’t know where you were before one of my contacts heard some Valderis were on a boat on a lake up north. My guys and I hauled ass—”

Anger jerked her body. “Just so you could kill them first?”

He yanked her back against him, hard. “No. I—” He stayed quiet, but she scented confusion and lust mixed together. “I needed to find you, see you again.”

Again? She’d seen him the first time a couple months ago. No. Something told her that wasn’t right. Her heart felt heavy with sadness. Tears burned her eyes. She fought them as he continued.

“When my friends and I got to the harbor, it was nighttime. We asked around to find the Valderis, saying we were meeting them to go out on the lake. No one knew who they were or ever heard the name.”

“That’s because we never traveled under our real name. I didn’t take it back until moving into the house with the North clan,” she commented.

He nodded. “Makes sense. About to give up, I was outside the dockside shop watching a houseboat slowly make its way in. I stood next to a guy doing the same. Figured he was waiting for his wife in the small store.

“I asked him the same question we’d asked everyone else. Only he didn’t answer right away. He stared at the incoming boat, then gave a nod toward it, making me look at the floating house with a slide on the back.

“Suddenly, the boat exploded with a massive concussion. It knocked me off my feet, but the stranger hadn’t moved. He’d been prepared for it. Then he said, ‘Those were the Valderi. One more to go.’ Then he walked away.

“I was so stunned by everything, I was momentarily stupefied. People barged from the store and dock. I hadn’t gotten off the ground yet and many stumbled over me in the dark. The fire was intense, just on the inside of the No Wake zone. There was no way anyone, human, wolf, or vamp could’ve lived through it. I’m sorry.”

That was the story in a nutshell that she read in the newspaper the next day. She’d been living on her own for a while at that point, wanting her independence. Since there hadn’t been any threats against them for several decades, they partially came out of hiding.

From where they had been under protection in Spain, they moved to the house where the northern clan her father started after her grandfather’s death were living—the Blue Creek mansion. It had been a mistake.

She’d gone back into hiding until she tired of living in fear. She had nothing to lose, so she came back to the house and pumped security to keep all within safe. She hadn’t been there very long when a younger Emma dropped by.

She found words through her pain. “This man, was he human?”

“No, he smelled like a vampire. Regular looking. We searched for him for years. But it was like he fell off the face of the earth.”

Oh my god. One of her own had hunted her family and killed everyone. Her time would come. He would come for her.

The protection and safeness she felt lying in Trevan’s arm was like no other. Not even the safe house in Spain where she spent many years hiding.

He said, “I won’t let anyone hurt you, my love. I will die keeping you safe. They think you’re dead anyway. Let’s keep it that way.”

She agreed with that for the moment. Never in her life had she had someone to lean on for comfort or help. Her advisors advised her on clan stuff, but there had been no one to share her life with. No one who brought the comfort a loved companion provided. She could have that now. She felt that with Trevan. Did she want to give it up just because he was a f*****g wolf?

She rolled in his arms and looked into his eyes. As she stared, the gold around his irises flared. His wolf wanted her again. Her mate would always want her and only her. Who gave a s**t if he was a wolf? She’d never been accused of following the norm. She wanted him. He was hers.

She kissed him with the love a mate has for the other, because what she was about to do would call her decision into question with her mate. She pulled away slowly. “I want you to leave, right now, and never come back.”

Aria flinched when Traven slammed the Central Wolfe pack’s guesthouse’s front door behind him. They had argued until he was close to shifting with anger. She would not back down. He was alive. If he hung around her, he wouldn’t be.

Knowing he was living, breathing, someplace in the world was better than him being dead at her side. She’d be dead, also. She couldn’t live without him, now that she’d given her heart him. Scooting onto his side of the bed and burying her face in his pillow, she took a deep breath.

How could he survive someone powerful enough to get to her grandfather and parents? Answer was he couldn’t. They were the strongest people she ever knew. She’d never forget the day she found out her grandfather was dead. The pain from all those years ago still lingered.

Aria had been with her mother in their Victorian house, learning how to embroider like all fine ladies did in the day. She hated it. She’d rather be out doing something constructive than sitting around with a needle poking material.

Her father rushed into the room and told them to pack an overnight bag. They were going to the South clan. In a whirlwind of motion and time, they were in the South clan’s underground town.

She didn’t like being there. It was cold and smelled bad. The adults had been arguing back and forth over things that didn’t concern her. All she needed to know was that her grandfather was dead. She would never see him again. In the buzzing background, she heard her last name and perked up. It seemed several of the South vampires didn’t want her father to be their leader. Their pack no longer belonged to the Valderis.

Anger grew in her young chest. This was her grandfather’s pack and always would be. The Valderi name should go on. At that point, her mother took her hand and went up the stairs to the cabin.