rylee adamson 10 - blood of the lost (8 page)

“We do?” His golden eyes widened and it was then I realized that unlike other shifters I knew—excluding Liam—Alex’s eyes didn’t revert to their original color. They stayed werewolf gold despite being in human shape. Perhaps leftovers from being a submissive so long . . . .

Pamela hurried ahead of us, her blonde hair swinging loosely down her back. Alex tracked her with his eyes—the same way I knew Liam did me. Yeah, that was not happening anytime soon.

“Uh-huh, you and me need to chat. Might not get another chance to.” I stepped in front of him, blocking his path and put a hand on his chest. “Down, boy.”

“What? I’ve been good.” His eyes went as wide as I’d ever seen them. A false innocence, if I ever saw it.

My lips twitched despite the morose mood swirling through me. “Look, I get it. I do. Pamela is pretty, smart, a powerhouse of a witch. But she is fifteen and you are what, twenty?”

He at least had the grace to blush. “That obvious?”

“I don’t think subtle is in your repertoire, my friend.” I smiled to soften what I was going to say. “You need to remember that no matter how grown up she is, she is too young for you, right now. She and Frank were only a year apart. And now he’s dead and he was her first love. Be her friend. Be patient.”

Cactus strolled by us as he headed toward the store, catching the last bit I said. He burst out laughing. “Be a girl’s friend? Goddess, might work eventually. At least,
I’m
hoping.”

Alex looked from me to Cactus and let out a low growl. “Don’t mock her.”

I put a hand on his arm. “Alex. I may not get another chance to say this. Let Pamela have time. If, when she’s a few years older, you feel the same way, then you can say something. But not before that. Do you understand?”

He blew out a slow breath. “Yeah, I get it. I’ll be her friend.”

Cactus patted Alex on the shoulder. “Welcome to the friend club. Membership is free and at least you’ll get to hold them while they cry over another man.”

Alex grimaced and I shook my head. “Ignore him.”

We went into the box store to shop together for the last time.

Although saying we shopped would imply that we paid for our things, which we most certainly did not.

CHAPTER 8

PAMELA

I RIFLED THROUGH THE clothes on the racks, looking for something . . . or nothing. I wondered where the alarms were; it wasn’t like we’d had keys and pass codes to get in. Berget and Faris, or Liam depending on who was in charge, had broken the locks and headed deep into the storeroom.

Berget ghosted to my side as if thinking of her called her to me.

“I saw you looking at the cameras. Faris and I disarmed the whole system when we came in, so we should be good here for a while. All the workers are . . . sleeping now.”

“Oh, I . . . I thought we were going to have to rush out.”

She nodded. “Yes, like we always do?”

“Yes.” I breathed the word, feeling a strange hesitancy in our conversation. We’d talked before, but not alone. Not when Rylee wasn’t in the room.

Berget had tried to kill me the first time we’d met, and I wondered sometimes if she still harbored those intentions. I didn’t think so, at least I hoped not.

“The blue will look good with your eyes.” She pointed at a turquoise button down shirt.

“It would look good with yours, too,” I said softly. A question hovered on my tongue and I took a breath, wondering if I should bother asking.

“Go ahead,” the vampire said. “You won’t offend me.”

“Do you think it is coincidence that you and I look so alike? I mean, what do you think?” I wanted to kick myself, but Berget tapped a hand on the rack of clothes we stood by.

“I doubt anything in this world of ours is coincidence. If you hadn’t looked so much like me, maybe Rylee would have let you go into foster care. Or maybe even to the druid who wanted to train you. And without you, she wouldn’t have survived this long.” Berget cleared her throat. “May I ask you a question?”

I nodded quickly. “Of course.”

She seemed to stumble over the words. “Do you think . . . she loves you better than me?”

My eyes sprang open at the mere suggestion. “Are you kidding? You’re her sister. She never stopped looking for you.”

“And I tried to kill her on several occasions.”

“Not your fault.” I lifted a hand and carefully put it over hers. “Why would you even think she could love me more?”

Berget’s eye’s glimmered with tears. “Insecurities run deep, I suppose. I see her with you, and I see the bond you have. I . . . she doesn’t turn to me like she turns to you.”

I didn’t know what to say to that, so I flipped through the clothes. “I think you’re right. This blue would look good on both of us.” I shoved a shirt at her and then grabbed her hand. “We might not be normal teenagers, but we can act like it for a few minutes, right?”

She laughed softly and grabbed another handful of shirts from the rack. “Okay, let’s be teenagers, for now. No spells, no blood, no monsters.”

“Definitely that last,” I said and caught her eye. We burst into giggles like it was the most natural thing in the world.

Within minutes we were in the fitting room, swapping clothes under the door and leaping out at the same time with the most ridiculous of outfits on. And for those few brief moments, I was just Pamela, hanging out with a girlfriend.

There was nothing to be scared of, no future to wonder about.

No monsters, zombies, demons, or vampires trying to take us out.

And for that moment I forgot I was a witch and we were trying to save the world from being overrun by demons.

CHAPTER 9

LARK

I LOOKED AT THE women’s clothes, found a pair of jeans that looked like they would fit, and a dark brown T-shirt. I slid out of my beat up clothes and pulled the human clothing on. My sister Belladonna would have loved to be here, picking outfits, and trying them on. I realized I was doing my best not to think about what had almost happened with Pestilence.

Sitting on top of a pile of cotton T-shirts, Peta stared hard at me.

“You know you were wrong, Lark,” she said softly.

I hunched my shoulders a little. “You don’t have to rub it in.”

“I’m not.” She let out a jaw-cracking yawn and then rubbed a paw over her face. “It’s my job to help you grow. Admitting your wrong when you are wrong is a way to do that.”

I frowned at her and she grinned back. Dropping my face to hers, she rubbed against me. “And I only do it because I love you.”

Scooping her into my arms, I held her to me. “Thanks, cat.”

“Anytime, dirt girl. And to soften this, you may have been wrong, but I believe something
is
wrong with Rylee. She is not herself.”

“I picked up on that too, but unless she opens herself, we can’t help her.”

I set her down and my mind immediately went back to the scene in the parking lot.

Rylee had come so close to being killed, and I’d been unable to do anything as my body was wracked with spasms. If Pamela hadn’t been there, and hadn’t been with it as much as she had, there would have been no way I could have helped Rylee in the end.

Cactus cleared his throat beside me. “You should try the green shirt. It’ll look better on you.”

“The green shirt is two sizes too small.”

“Yes, that’s what I said, it will look better on you.” He slapped my ass and I glared at him.

“Not now, Cactus. I’m not in the mood.”

A low grumbling hiss came from Peta. “Prick, keep your hands to yourself.”

“What? You two badass girls kicked that demon into the seventh Veil, everyone is still alive; what more could you want?” He backed away from Peta a bit. He’d learned the hard way not to ignore her.

I finished buttoning the jeans and tugged at the T-shirt. “It didn’t go as planned. The whole thing fell to pot as soon as Pestilence arrived. I’m supposed to help Rylee get to the final battle with Orion, but how can I do that if I can’t even run a play?”

“What? Have you been watching football?” He smiled at me and I swatted him on the arm.

“Cactus, you know what I mean.”

“I don’t understand why it’s such an issue. When you first started as an Ender, you didn’t exactly plan things. You tried, but then you rolled with the punches as things shifted and changed.”

How did I explain to him this was different? Lives were on the line, but when I was younger, those lives wouldn’t affect the outcome of the whole world.

Rylee’s life would. And I was determined to see her through to the end, no matter what.

“You have to let her do her thing, Lark. You have to. No matter how hard it is for you to let go, this isn’t your hunt. It’s hers. We can only try to manage the fall out, whatever it might be.”

Goblin piss and worm shit, he was right, and I felt that from Peta too. She knew it as well as I did. “See if you can find me a belt, would you?”

He leaned in. “Don’t I get a kiss for helping you figure out you were wrong?”

I lifted my hand and squeezed his cheeks until his lips puckered. “No. I told you we would have this discussion later.”

“It is later,” he spit out through puckered lips.

“Not late enough,” I murmured as I walked away from him, Peta following me. Rylee was a few aisles over, rifling through the tank tops. “Hey.”

She looked at me, her tri-colored eyes swirling. “Hey, nice digs.”

I glanced down at myself. “Listen, I shouldn’t have tried to take control back there. This is your show, so you lead and I will follow.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “Why the sudden change in heart? Admitting you’re wrong doesn’t seem like something you’d ever do, what with the whole ‘I’m an elemental and I’m better than you’ shit you’ve got going on.”

I had to bite my tongue not to respond to the dig and remind myself she was not herself in the least. “Oh, Cactus reminded me I was not so unlike your leap-before-you-look style when I was younger. And that I managed to survive my own crazy ideas. Of course, he also pointed out I am support for you in this. I’m one of the keys to the final battle, but right now? This is your show.”