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  I’d desperately wanted to believe there’d been some mistake, that the police had gotten Mom mixed up with someone else. Every time the phone rang or the door opened, I’d held my breath, waiting for it to be her number on Caller ID, or her voice calling out to me. It never had been, but even after the funeral, I’d kept hoping. Right up until I left home, I’d kept hoping.

  I hated not being able to tell Chelle her sister would be coming home safe and sound, because like my mom, she wouldn’t be. Dani was dead. I didn’t feel like I could handle that right now, and I barely knew her. How was Chelle supposed to deal with the heartbreaking news?

  “Have you called Mandy?” I asked, desperate for something to say, anything at all to keep from thinking.

  “She’s with Beth. They should be here soon.”

  We sat in silence for a minute before the doorbell rang.

  Relief poured through me, causing my knees to sag a little. I headed toward the door with a murmured “excuse me” to Chelle.

  She didn’t even look up.

  I hurried to the door as quickly as possible then pulled it open.

  I didn’t know the older man waiting on the other side. So far as I knew, he wasn’t one of the four people I’d expected. He was tall and wiry with graying hair and a kind, compassionate face. I blinked up at him, trying to get my mind in order enough to ask his name.

  “You must be Arionna,” he said, distracted. “I’m Thomas Edwards. Your dad called me from the car. Is she still here?” He came into the house and looked around, his eyes as worried as Dad’s had been when he’d left.

  “Oh, um … ” I’d forgotten about our dinner plans. I figured I could be forgiven the oversight. I closed the door behind him and turned into the house. “She’s in the kitchen.”

  ”Is Beth here yet?” He pulled off his tweed jacket then laid it over the banister.

  “Not yet,” I said. My hands were shaking. “She’s on her way. With Mandy.”

  He looked relieved. “That’s good. Mandy should be here, too. They’re very close.”

  “Yeah … ” I nodded. “Dace Matthews and Gage Carter are on their way as well.”

  “Good, good,” he said as if unsurprised to learn they were coming too. “Good guys to have around for something like this.” He frowned, turning to look at me fully. “You, um, do you … ?”

  I felt sorry for him, struggling along so awkwardly.

  “Know it’s Dani they found?” I nodded, the lump in my throat growing. “Dace told me.”

  “Oh.” The uncertainty in his eyes cleared slightly. “Dace. Of course. He would know. You haven’t … ?”

  “I thought it best to wait.”

  “Good, good,” he said again. “My wife is trying to reach Brett and Julie. Poor folks are going to be devastated.” He clucked his tongue, shaking his head. “Dani was an amazing young lady. Such a ray of light. Her sisters … it’s a real damn shame.”

  “Yeah,” I said. I had no clue what else to say. I stood there for a minute, ill at ease. Not because of him and the way he fumbled about, but because the entire situation sucked. “Do you want to go in and wait with her?”

  “Um … .” He glanced around, clearly torn.

  The doorbell saved him from having to make a decision. I turned around to answer the door, only to find Dace already pushing his way inside, a beanie cap pulled low over his ears. His gaze sought mine as soon as he stepped over the threshold. He scrutinized my face, tension visibly draining from his shoulders.

  Some of mine eased, too.

  “Are Beth and Mandy here yet?” he asked.

  I shook my head, not trusting myself to speak to him yet. I wouldn’t be able to keep standing there if I did try to talk. I’d fly into his arms and fall apart, and Chelle didn’t need to find out that way.

  Dace closed his eyes as if in prayer, and then opened them and turned to Professor Edwards. “You know?”

  Professor Edwards nodded, frowning. “I heard on my way over. Awful.”

  Dace stepped up beside me, not touching but providing me strength and comfort anyway. Are you okay? His voice sounded in my head, calm and gentle.

  I looked at him and shrugged slightly. I wanted him to put his arms around me and tell me this wasn’t happening.

  His wolf rumbled as if in support of that plan.

  Dace smiled crookedly, trying to be brave for me, I think. His smile didn’t reflect in his eyes. “Will you sit with Chelle until the others get here?” I need to talk to Edwards, he added on our private link.

  About this?

  He hesitated, but I couldn’t get a read on what he thought. He’d blocked me out somehow. I still felt him in my head, but I couldn’t hear his thoughts anymore.

  Yes. Please?

  “Of course,” I said aloud, not looking at him, but speaking to him. “She shouldn’t be alone anyway.” You’ll tell me later?

  Do I have a choice?

  I did look at him then. I didn’t shake my head or say anything. I simply looked at him, knowing his answer was evident in my eyes, and in my thoughts.

  He sighed internally. Yes. I’ll tell you later.

  I nodded to Professor Edwards, then headed back to the kitchen to wait with Chelle, my nerves clamoring for a million new reasons.

  Chapter Twelve

  Chelle stared into her glass of tea as if the ice slowly melting away inside held the answers she sought. Little ripples of heartbreak waved through the room until every surface in the kitchen seemed covered in a palpable film of sorrow.

  Hovering in the doorway, I realized she already knew the truth. She knew Dani was not coming home this time. She waited only for someone to say the words so she could start grieving. I hated myself for not being brave enough to give her that release. I wanted to take her trembling hand in mine and tell her Dani was gone, but I couldn’t.

  I stood there trying to work up the nerve to tell her what she already knew when the doorbell rang for the third time. I jumped at the sound and then cursed myself for being an idiot. I couldn’t help the soft sigh of relief that escaped either. I wouldn’t have to tell Chelle after all.

  Within seconds, a ray of light made his way into the kitchen. I’d never seen him before, but I knew it could only be her boyfriend, Gage. He was as unmistakable as Dace, and in a completely different way. No matter where I saw Dace, he had an aura of power surrounding him. I’d sensed it all the way across the quad on that first day and hadn’t stopping noticing it since. Gage had an aura of his own, shining as bright as midday.

  Looking at him, I could believe he was kindness and compassion and all that was right in the world. Gentleness poured from him in waves, and I understood instantly why Dace had wanted to make sure Chelle didn’t find out about Dani until he arrived. If anyone can help her through this, it’s him, I thought.

  He was as dark-headed as Chelle, and tall and lean like Dace. His eyes were a beautiful sky-blue color, bright beneath his dark hair. I felt no desire whatsoever for him, but I didn’t think anyone could look at him and not feel a little awe.

  He walked past me to Chelle’s side, his eyes meeting mine. He didn’t say “hello” or “how do you do?” or anything of that nature. He simply nodded in my direction and then walked straight by me, his gaze moving from me and locking onto Chelle.

  Whenever Dace came near me, I felt him. Chelle seemed to have that same sense with Gage. She didn’t look up from her tea or move, but the worried lines on her forehead smoothed a little. In two short steps, Gage was at her side, taking her into his arms. She didn’t cry or scream or sigh when he wrapped his arms around her. She shuddered, her shoulders drooping. Gage held her a little tighter, his lips brushing across her forehead.

  “I am so sorry,” he whispered.

  I decided I most definitely was not needed and slipped away, unable to stay and watch him tell her. I wasn’t that brave. I made my way back to the foyer only to find that Dace and Professor Edwards were no longer there.

  I dropped do
wn onto the bottom stair with a groan, too tired and emotionally wrung out to go find Dace, especially after last night. I wasn’t sure I’d survive a repeat of the overload if our emotions started feeding one another again now.

  The sense of peace I’d felt upon waking was long gone. I felt drained, depressed, and I hurt everywhere. Worse, I didn’t need Dace to tell me Dani’s death hadn’t been some tragic accident like my mom’s. I felt the truth every time he whispered to me through our bond. Knowing Dani hadn’t died accidentally made the entire situation so much worse.

  With mom, I’d known deep down nothing could have been done. No matter how much losing her hurt or how hard I still struggled to accept her death, I just knew there was nothing I could have done to change it. Dani’s death was something altogether different. I didn’t know what had killed Dani, but there wasn’t a doubt in my mind that her death had been no accident. She’d been killed by someone or something.

  As I sat there, trying to come to terms with that reality, dread crept up from the inside and plunged icy fingers deep into my body. There were monsters under the bed. I’d never seen them, and had only recently begun to hear their rumblings, but I could feel them under there, and they weren’t waiting anymore. The doomed feelings I’d been having weren’t about some event far off in the future, but about this. The here and now. Whatever I’d thought was coming had already made it here, and it had gotten Dani.

  Dace had blocked me out to keep that information from me, I think. I didn’t know how I felt about that because I didn’t know the rules to this world. I still grasped in the dark and fumbled with things that had been nothing more than myth and legend to me my entire life. But he knew the rules, he knew how this world worked, and he was scared. After last night, I knew better than anyone that if he had a reason to fear, so did I.

  His shifter half didn’t make him the person he was. The sense of authority he gave off, the fact he was absolutely capable, didn’t spring from the wolf in him. That came from him. That side was who he was. Fully human or shifter, he would have been exactly the same. He protected those he felt needed to be protected, and defended those who needed to be defended. And to his way of thinking, one of his had been harmed. He hadn’t been close to Dani, but he counted Chelle as a friend. That he hadn’t been able to protect Dani for her hurt him.

  The strength of the connection between us didn’t help him any, either. My grief sent little knives plunging into his heart. And unfortunately, I didn’t know how to mask my emotions like he could. I couldn’t stop thinking about the look on Chelle’s face long enough to even try to mask from Dace how much I hurt, let alone how scared I was. There were no walls I could put up to keep him out or protect him from the depth of my fear.

  He knew, and that made everything so much worse for him.

  Beth and Mandy arrived fifteen minutes later, both pale and frightened.

  Professor Edwards slipped out, and Dace and I joined everyone in the kitchen. In monotones, Chelle told Beth and Mandy what the rest of us already knew. Dani wasn’t coming home.

  They didn’t want to believe Chelle. They denied the truth. They screamed. They begged. They pleaded. And then they fell into one another’s arms and sobbed as if their world had ended. Chelle didn’t shed a single tear through any of their hysterics, but out of the three, she still managed to look the saddest.

  Her face was ghostly pale, and small tremors shuddered through her every so often. Her eyes were so wide and pained, I wanted to beg her to cry, as if crying would ease some of the hurt and give it an escape from those far too expressive eyes. Tears wouldn’t help, of course, but she was drowning in sorrow and we could do nothing for her.

  I felt as if her grief would kill me.

  Dace stood behind me through the entire horrible scene with his arms wrapped around me, holding me together. He and Gage exchanged covert glances every so often, but they didn’t speak to one another. Those glances said more than enough though. If anyone understood Dace and the secrets he kept, Gage did.

  Eventually, Beth and Mandy stopped sobbing and sat together in the floor where they’d fallen, staring down at their hands as silently mournful as Chelle had been throughout the ordeal. She joined them in the little group on the floor, taking their hands in hers and sitting with them, staring off into space.

  Soon enough, she looked up from that stupor and pegged Dace with her sorrowful, angry gaze. “Who did it, Dace?”

  He tensed against me. “I don’t know.”

  “But you will.” Chelle didn’t ask him, she simply stated what she knew. The sun would rise, rain would fall, and Dace would find out who killed Dani.

  “I will,” he said softly.

  I knew he meant it more than he’d ever meant anything. He would find out who’d taken her sister from her, and hell would not compare.

  Chelle watched his face for another minute and then nodded. “When you do find out … .” She didn’t have to finish the thought. I understood what she meant as soon as Dace did.

  He smiled a feral, dangerous smile that sent shards of ice deep into my heart. I knew exactly what he would do when he found the responsible person. And I hoped to God he made death hurt.

  Dad made it back to the house an hour later, and with the help of Dace and Gage, gathered the girls up to take them home where Professor Edwards and his wife would stay with them until their parents could get a flight back. No one said anything as the guys helped Beth and Mandy to the car, but there wasn’t much left to say. No words would ever bring Dani back.

  I was too emotionally drained to string words together anyway, especially when I knew intimately that words would never take away the hurt the girls suffered. There weren’t enough apologies in the entire world to make their loss hurt less. If anyone could understand that, I could.

  I’d heard a thousand apologies from a thousand different mouths in the last few weeks. Not one of those words made me feel any better. None of the apologies I’d heard changed anything or brought back my mom. No apology would help Chelle, Beth, or Mandy either.

  I hugged Beth and Mandy and then sat wearily on the floor beside Chelle while Gage and Dace escorted Beth and Mandy to Dad’s car. Chelle didn’t look over at me, but she did sigh a little, as if she knew I was there.

  For long minutes, we sat there, and then she stirred restlessly, fiddling with a frayed hem of her sweater.

  “You’ll take care of Dace, won’t you?” she asked.

  “I will,” I promised.

  “Good.” She stared down into her lap for another minute, twisting the loose thread around her index finger. “He’ll find whoever did it, you know.”

  “I know.”

  She did look at me then, and I swear she looked right into me. “You know he’ll kill them, right?”

  “I know.”

  “That doesn’t bother you?”

  “That he’s going to kill a monster or that I wouldn’t be able to stop him even if I tried?”

  “Both, I guess.” She shrugged like she didn’t know which she meant.

  I shook my head, not sure how to explain to her all of the thoughts running through my mind. I’d been taught from the time I was old enough to understand that murder is wrong. That to kill another is the biggest sin a person could ever commit. Normally I agreed with that, but things were different this time. Everything else I’d been taught about what was right and possible no longer held true.

  There were things in the world that couldn’t be explained away. There were things in me that couldn’t be explained away. And the horrible, inexplicable things happening here threatened my new world as much, if not more, than this new world threatened everything I’d ever believed. The usual rules no longer applied. If Dace could stop Dani’s murderer from hurting anyone else, how could I judge him? Who was I to say he had no right to get involved, or that he would become no better than the monster if he did?

  Besides, if taking matters into his own hands made him wrong, then I was, too, because I wanted ju
stice just as badly, and I wasn’t naïve enough to believe the police or court system would ever be able to mete out a proper punishment. I didn’t need to understand this new reality to grasp that sometimes human methods simply weren’t enough.

  “I was right, you know,” Chelle whispered.

  “About what?” I turned my head to find her staring straight ahead, the loose thread still wrapped around her finger.

  Gage stepped into the room and held a hand out to her, not even looking in my direction. I didn’t mind because I knew he didn’t intend to be rude. He simply had his priorities. He looked after the woman he loved first. Had our positions been reversed, I would have been the same way.

  Chelle placed her hand in his and climbed to her feet before she turned back to me. “You’ll be good for him, like I thought you would. You’ll see.” She looked as if she wanted to say more, but decided not to speak. She and Gage made their way out of the kitchen, leaving me sitting on the floor, staring after them.

  She was an unusual girl. I’d never met anyone, aside from Dace, who could see my thoughts so clearly. With him, there was a reason. I didn’t have to understand the reason to know it existed. Chelle’s ability to see through me was simply part of who she was. She couldn’t read my thoughts maybe, but she seemed to know them all the same. Maybe she’d have better luck figuring them out than I seemed to be having.

  I rolled my eyes at that and climbed to my feet, knowing Dace would return as soon as he and my dad had the girls on the way. And Dace and I needed to talk.

  He wouldn’t make the conversation easy, either. What walls had tumbled between us last night were replaced and buttressed today.

  Chapter Thirteen

  I curled up on the couch to wait for Dace.

  Ten minutes later, he walked through the front door, looking grim and exhausted. I tilted my head in his direction and gave him a small, wobbly smile. I didn’t move though. I didn’t have the energy to move.

  He stood at the end of the couch for a long time, watching me as if he couldn’t quite figure me out. He furrowed his brow and kind of tilted his head back and forth. It probably should have made him seem more wolf-like, but it didn’t. The action made him seem more human. I could appreciate that, especially now.