And for the moment, she had more immediate problems to deal with. If even part of what he said was true, she needed to get out of the house and get help now. “Are you up for a little trip to see Granny and Grandpa at work?”
“Yay!” Zoe bounced on her toes.
“Great. Let’s go get your backpack ready.”
“You’ll need to pack enough for a week, maybe longer,” Vlad said.
She glared back at him. “I’ll take care of it.”
“Are we going on a vacation, Mommy?”
She frowned. Zoe’s little face had lit up. When they went on vacation, it was usually to some adventure, like bouldering, camping, hiking, or bodyboarding in the ocean. Zoe had inherited her mom’s love of adventure.
“Okay,” she relented. “You’ve been a very good girl. I think you’ve earned a vacation.” She was stuck leaving now. Since she’d never been able to help with the pain, Rose worked hard never to lie to Zoe about anything else. And a plan was starting to form, a way to get Vlad off her back and still keep her daughter safe. “Go get your backpack ready.”
Zoe giggled and spun on her heels, racing back to her room.
Vlad came up behind Rose. “She seems better now.”
“When she’s not in pain, she’s really healthy and full of energy. Almost too much sometimes.” She groaned and Vlad chuckled. The sound sent a little shiver down her spine and a tingling jolt of warmth to places lower.
She leaned back toward him against her will, drawn by his familiar scent, as heat pumped through her, making her skin tingle. She found herself imagining his hands on her arms, her waist, moving up to her breasts.
She straightened and snarled. She hated that she reacted to him in any way that wasn’t anger. She might just have to go back to wishing the torments of hell on him—for both the trouble he brought with him and the way he made her feel.
“I’ll go with you to the office, and then make sure you get away. After I know you’re safe, I’ll take care of my brothers.”
She was curious enough to ask, “How?”
He paused, as if listening to something, then very quietly said, “I need to convince them Zoe isn’t my daughter.”
“That shouldn’t be hard, since you never believed she was.”
“Rose. You know why now. And I’m sorry I didn’t believe you.”
She closed her eyes briefly as the last four years of heartache washed over her. When she opened her eyes again, she kept her attention on the hallway so he couldn’t see her emotions. “I’ve moved on. I don’t have time to worry about it anymore.”
“Where will you go on this ‘vacation?’” he asked.
She’d been considering that. There was a cabin in Alpine her parents looked after for a family friend. It wasn’t in any of their names, so it should be safe enough while she made more long-term plans to keep Zoe safe. But she wasn’t about to tell Vlad any of that. “Don’t worry about it.”
“I still need to…” He paused.
She finally turned to face him, her brows raised.
“I need to teach Zoe how to deal with what’s happening to her,” he said.
She appreciated his vague reference to the shifter business. Zoe had outrageously good hearing. Rose couldn’t even mutter a “damn” in the kitchen while her daughter was in the bedroom without Zoe scolding her for the “bad word.” Come to think of it, he’d been quiet when mentioning Zoe was his daughter aloud. Did he realize she had acute hearing? Was it related to her being a shifter?
“Getting your brothers to leave us alone is your priority,” she said. “Just tell me how to talk her through the pain.”
“You need to get her thinking about what her—” he glanced down the hall, “—body feels like when everything is normal. Get her focusing on physical sensations that are distinctly human.” He mouthed the word human rather than saying it out loud. “The way her blanket feels against her fingers and cheek is especially good because that’s her favorite thing. Anything tactile will work. That will bring her back into her body.”
“Will that work every time?”
“It should help for a little while longer.”
Hopefully a lot longer because she didn’t want her daughter to have any part of his world. “I can only stay away for a week. My parents can spare us that long, but my father is leading a white water rafting trip at the beginning of next month, and my mother needs me at the office.”
He frowned. “That might not be long enough.”
“How hard can it be? You just have to convince your brothers of what you’ve always believed. They’ll leave, and Zoe and I can get back to our lives.” With a few guns stored in her house. She hated having them around when Zoe was so young, but she didn’t have much choice now. She didn’t dare go without protection against things that could do what Vlad had done. She’d just have to get a good gun safe.