A Cursed Embrace(31)
“Forget the wolves, Celia, and heed my warning. Whatever this creature is, it now recognizes who you are. I heard him speak to you. He wants you, and he will come for you.”
CHAPTER 8
Aric and I spread out on the couch, his arm draped around me holding me close. Danny sat on the floor, carefully turning the pages of a leather-bound text two days shy of completely disintegrating. Bren lay back in our recliner sipping a beer and watching, of all things, the Angels play. Irony never seemed to be lost in the Wird household.
Vampires, furious Elders, and demonic possession had a funny way of interrupting dinner plans. Aric and I never made it out. Instead we waited for the others to return and collectively devoured all the leftover lasagna, fried chicken, and pot roast. Taking on evil worked up quite the appetite.
My sisters huddled out on the deck with their wolves, speaking in hushed voices and drinking hot chocolate. Their conversation lacked the usual lighthearted humor and laughter. And while the wolves hadn’t commented directly, I had the impression their link to Aric alerted them of the unrest within their pack.
I cuddled closer against Aric. He hadn’t discussed his Elder’s call with me, but I guess he didn’t have to. Anara didn’t want Aric with me. And that’s all there was to it. Whether Aric would defy his pack remained to be seen. For the moment, I thanked God for his company and the comforting warmth that accompanied our closeness.
Bren took a long swill of his beer. He seemed engrossed in the game, but I knew better. Sports always brought the crazed fan lurking beside his wolf. If he wasn’t commenting, screaming at our tiny TV, or accusing the umpire of being a shithead, his head wasn’t in the game.
The others had ventured outside shortly after cleanup. After my demon child encounter, I craved the warm glow and security of the house. Aric stayed with me, but neither of us had spoken much.
“Bren and Danny have a key to your place?” Aric asked, breaking the silence.
The question caught me off guard. And at first I meant to respond with an “Of course. Why wouldn’t they?” except the subtle bitter scent of jealousy that wafted into my nose null-and-voided my response. “Aric . . .”
Bren turned his head, his scruffy brown beard brightening his jovial grin. “Celia and I are very close.” He danced his brows. “Very close—shit!”
The plastic tumbler I nailed him with bounced off his head and rolled across our dark wooden floors. He was lucky I’d finished my water. “Stop trying to cause trouble.” I rubbed my forehead when I caught a whiff of Aric’s rising jealousy. “Danny and Bren are our very dear friends. Danny keeps a copy of the key.” My eyes narrowed at Bren. “Otherwise Bren would eat all our food.”
“Hey, that just happened one time. Besides, you needed to go grocery shopping.”
Bren knew two ways to deal with stress. Either kill whatever bugged him or have fun at someone else’s expense. Bren, by far, was the annoying big brother we never had. But we loved him despite his faults and he loved us right back.
Aric’s frigid glare in Bren’s direction told me he suspected Bren and I had shared more than friendship. In all actuality, it was Danny and me who had once been involved. He was the first and only male I’d had sex with. Granted, we were seventeen, and neither of us knew what we were doing. But his caring nature and his kind soul kept our friendship going long after the physical intimacy ended.
Danny glanced up from the frail and stained pages. His black frames slid down his nose, and his unruly curly hair stuck out in too many directions to count. “Um, Shayna called us after you and Aric left them. She thought maybe I could dig something up in one of my texts, so I came right over.” He pushed his glasses up, but they slipped back down anyway. “Misha and his family arrived shortly after us, looking for you, Celia. He said he could feel your unrest, but didn’t say much more. I didn’t know much, either, but even if I had, I wouldn’t have told him—you know, unless he used hypnosis or torture or something.”
I wouldn’t have put it past Misha to use his vamp mojo to extract information. He wouldn’t, however, hurt Danny. No decent soul would. Torturing Danny was the equivalent of snapping a kitten’s neck. As it was, his stick-thin limbs barely held the oversize book. And yet despite what I believed about Misha, Aric thought the exact opposite, and always would. “I wouldn’t let that prick hurt you, Dan,” Aric assured him.
Aric’s protectiveness made me smile. He felt the need to defend those smaller and weaker than him. I wasn’t sure if that would’ve changed had he known how close Danny and I had once been. So I kept my mouth shut and allowed him to see Danny as he was, a good person and one worthy of our protection.