Chapter 15

Chapter Fifteen

Kicks was sitting on the couch in the middle of the afternoon. I tried not to stare, but there was something altogether odd about the whole situation. I glanced outside again and could see the rest of the pack going about their day, still building and working. Was he not feeling well and didn't want to tell me?

There was a soft knock at the door before Evangeline let herself in.

"Hey, came over to see if you want to get tea with me and the ladies?"

She had a smile fixed on her face like a bad actor who was trying to follow a script. It wasn't that Evangeline didn't smile, but not quite this wide or forced—or prolonged. It stank of a setup, even to my inferior nose.

"That sounds like a great idea. You should go. I'll be here when Charlie gets back from school," Kicks said.

I glared at him. "What are you two doing? Whispering in the corner on how to get me out of the house?"

Evangeline shot an accusing look at Kicks. "I told you it was a stupid idea. That she wasn't just going to jump up and say, ‘Yippee, let's go.'"

"The more you get out of the house and let them see you, the sooner they might get over it," Kicks said to me, ignoring Evangeline's glare.

"It's not going to work." I could feel the tension in the pack every time I was near. They wanted to run from me, and no one could blame them. Even if I hadn't killed Zetti, her death had something to do with me. We all knew it, even as some of us pretended it didn't.

"If it doesn't, we'll deal with it then, but at least try," Kicks replied.

Fine. Haunt them all with my presence until he came to terms with it. After he'd tried to bully them all into accepting me, I felt as if I owed him that. Plus, what if he was right? Maybe it could work? If it didn't, it would make it easier in the end, when I did have to leave, to prove I'd exhausted all possibilities. I still had no idea where I would go, if I should take Charlie with me or whether he'd be better off here. The idea of leaving him behind made me willing to try anything.

"Deal with it how?" Evangeline asked, losing that forced smile as her eyes ping-ponged between Kicks and me. "What does that mean? You two are talking about leaving?"

"We're not talking about leaving permanently," Kicks stated, as if he'd chiseled the words into granite.

That might've been technically true. He hadn't put that option on the table. I had. Either way, his words seemed to smooth out the worried lines on Evangeline's face as she nodded.

If I did go, I wasn't taking Kicks with me, no matter what he thought. This was his home and I wouldn't take that from him. Plus, Charlie would need him.

Either way, it looked like I was going to tea.

"Do they know I'm coming?" I said, trying to draw her attention to a different topic.

"Not exactly. I hinted, but I thought it would be best to leave it vague. You know, until I was sure you'd come."

And so they didn't go running for the hills when they found out. Everyone would suddenly be backed up with work or not feeling so well if they knew I was coming. I'd probably be lucky if they didn't poison me.

"Let me go and get changed." I'd at least look good before they all ran from me.

My jeans weren't too shabby, but I put on nicer boots and a sweater that I'd gotten recently from the stash Evangeline gave me. It was enough to not be insulting to them, as if I'd made some sort of effort.

I walked back into the living room as Evangeline was nodding to Kicks and saying, "I'll make sure."

He'd clearly given her a list of instructions as to a curfew or babysitting detail. I wasn't sure which, and I was okay not knowing. It didn't matter anyway. He thought he was managing me with this situation, but in truth, I was managing him.

"Let's go." I stretched out as big a smile as I could paint on. It probably looked as fake as hers. "You have to do me a favor," I said to Evangeline. "Just to be on the safe side, don't touch me, okay?"

"To be honest, I wasn't really planning on it." She giggled. It was probably a nervous giggle, but it made me laugh as well, until we were both giggling.

I walked out of the cabin beside her and could feel my hackles rising as soon as I did. People were watching me, probably wondering what I was doing out and about at this time of day. The only time they saw me was when I walked Charlie to school.

The only good thing about their giving me a wide berth was I could talk a little more freely.

"What was Kicks' previous mate like?" Of all the things I should've asked her about, like strategic questions about the terrain around here or how far to the main road if you walked… No, I asked about this .

Evangeline jerked her gaze to me. "Verity? Kicks mentioned her?"

"Not much. Just that she'd passed away. I was curious what she was like."

She nodded. "I don't know if I'm the most objective person to answer this because she was more than a pack mate to me. She was like a sister. I'm afraid I might paint too rosy a picture, but it's hard when the love runs deep."

"It's okay. Just speak your truth." I was afraid to hear it, even though I'd asked. This had been someone Kicks chose, and probably not for convenience or to make a transition easier. He'd chosen her for her, and I couldn't help but feel jealousy well up over a dead woman.

"She was like having a piece of sunshine in your life," Evangeline said. "Even when you were having a bad day, she'd come around and know just the right joke or thing to say. It was impossible to be down around her. Didn't matter what happened earlier. She'd brighten it up. She was a beautiful person, and it had nothing to do with how she looked, which isn't to say she wasn't pretty. She was, but that's not what drew people to her."

What had I expected to hear when I asked? That she had been a miserable troll? That wasn't who Kicks would choose to spend his life with.

"How did she die? You shifters seem pretty hardy."

"It was sudden. No one saw it coming." She took a seat on a bench we were passing, sort of slumping as her eyes seemed to focus somewhere else. "Her and Kicks came down to my restaurant and had dinner with me two nights before she passed. We all laughed and had a great time. It was one of those nights you know you'll always remember. At the time I hadn't known it would be in a bittersweet way.

"At one point, when we were alone, she'd confided in me that her and Kicks were planning on starting a family. I got the impression that she might've preemptively started, if you know what I mean. I called her the next day to tell her she needed to come back soon. We'd had so much fun. She said she would but hung up pretty fast. She said she wanted to lie down because she was feeling a little under the weather. She was dead by that evening."

"I'm so sorry." I waited, hoping she'd say more but afraid to press.

"I'm not completely sure what happened, but I have a guess, not that I've ever gotten it confirmed or would even try, because I know that would just cause more pain."

She took a few breaths that seemed too heavy for her slight frame.

Her gaze flickered to the ground and then me, as if she were debating something. "There's a sickness that sets in with some shifters right after they get pregnant, like a day or so after the egg attaches to the womb, and it can kill them. We don't know exactly why, but it's hypothesized that the egg is incompatible with the mother. Pregnancy with shifters is different than with humans. A human female might miscarry, and shifters do miscarry, too. But sometimes the embryo, as small as it is, can kill the female shifter."

"Is that common?"

"No. It's not. It's more likely with a strong gene pool."

"By strong gene pool, you mean like an alpha?"

She nodded, knowing exactly what that was implying. "I wouldn't worry. You're human. The chance of your getting pregnant is almost zilch, and even if by some miracle you did, it wouldn't likely be a shifter embryo."

A picture was forming, and I wasn't sure if it helped me as much as Evangeline thought it would. "How long ago did she die?"

"Ten years. He's had his flings here and there, but nothing serious since then."

"What about Bri? He had a thing with her. That didn't head anywhere?" How could it not have? She was as nearly perfect a woman as I'd ever seen.

Evangeline was shaking her head before I finished. "He liked her, but that wasn't going anywhere. He kept his distance, and not just geographically, if you get my meaning."

Because he feared it had been partly his fault that Verity died. He hadn't mated with me just because of convenience, as I'd imagined. It went deeper than I'd known. The pack had probably wondered when he'd take a new mate, and how many of the female shifters hoped it would be them? When he mated with me to give the pack a guide, it gave him an excuse to mate with a human. He wouldn't have to worry about getting me pregnant when odds were I couldn't carry a shifter baby. I'd thought he hadn't cared that I was human. He'd wanted me because I was human. I was the easy way out, the safe way.

"Why do you look like that?" Evangeline asked.

"Like what?"

"Like I burned your toast."

"Oh no, it's just sad, is all." On more levels than I'd speak of. "Come on, I don't want to keep them waiting. They're already going to be cranky enough when they see me."