Chapter 15

Chapter 15

Prairie Rose

"In the interest of this Alexander character being a massive cunt, I feel like the least I could do is go down to Arizona with a few of the guys from the garage and finish what I started that day I killed those wolves who took Lila from me."

"Rome!" Prairie Rose grabbed her brother's arm and dragged him further into the kitchen.

After they'd eaten together, which was about as awkward as she anticipated with Rome and Agnar at opposite ends of the table, Agnar had to leave to go to Tadpole's for a few hours. As soon as he was gone, the boys spotted Rome's chessboard in the living room and asked if they could play. In the interest of not leaving Waverly out, they were now trying to teach her. Blake was patient, but Levi had little time for four-year-old girls who were sweet and sensitive and had never been trained in the finer points of physical combat, or butt kicking as he liked to call it.

The dishes from dinner were still waiting on the counter and by the sink. Instead of rinsing them and filling the dishwasher, she started to fill up one side of the double sink. She threw a dish towel at her brother, who stared at her with his cold dark eyes burning. Staring at Rome too long was like going out in frigid weather with no shoes on, and not as a wolf either.

"The boys might hear you. They might be young, but they tend to overhear and understand everything. I'm as honest with them as I can be." The sound of the water splashing into the sink muffled their conversation somewhat. "You had better not be serious. Not with Waverly to care for now. What would happen to her if something happened to you?"

"She'd go to stay with Kieran and Zora. I have them listed as next of kin." He stared at her, unblinking, the striped, white-and-red towel hanging from his hands. "She'd probably be better off there."

"Don't say that," she warned him. "Arizona isn't your fight. I've been trying to convince Agnar that it's not his either."

"He reminds me a lot of me."

She dumped cups and plates in and started scrubbing away at them with the ratty dishcloth. She recognized it as the pattern her mom was so good at making. Had Kieran or Briar May brought him this? She could still go home. What was it like for Rome here, knowing that he couldn't, because his love had driven him to do something terrible?

"Good. I'm glad to hear it. I wouldn't want any of my sisters mated to someone like me. But he is a murderer and you're sweet and innocent. What was Kieran thinking, bartering you for peace?"

"Rome," she groaned. "It wasn't like that. And Agnar isn't a murderer."

"He is. But, sister mine, you can love him if you choose. That's your business. For my part, I did start all of this by killing Castor's brother. He came looking for vengeance and instead ended up knocking up our little sister." She bent over the sink, groaning. "Oh. Oh no. Not you too."

"No!" She turned and grimaced at her brother. "Not me too."

"I see. So you haven't actually become mates, then."

She had to hide her red face. It wasn't for lack of desire on her part. It was inexplicable to her why she wanted Agnar so much. She just knew that she did, from the first second she'd met him on that halfway journey before their official mating.

"He is like me in one respect. Men like him aren't built for loving. We're not equipped to be tender. He's not the mate you used to dream about. You and Briar May, always planning your human-style weddings. Cutting out those clippings from magazines that mom would buy when she'd go thrifting or to garage sales. She was always bringing back weird things, but you both loved those so much."

"Briar May is happy. Castor might not be the white knight she wanted, but she's okay with that. She loves him very much and he loves her no less, in his own way."

"Did you know, Prairie Rose, that when you're thinking about Agnar, you get this look on your face?"

"No, I don't." She scrubbed a few cups, rinsed them, and set them in the other sink.

Rome smirked at her. "Yes, you do. You look like he's the moon and all the damn stars in the sky. The guy is the night. He's dangerous. You're working very hard to make life bearable for him, but are you sure it's a life he even wants?"

She tried not to be angry or go into cardiac arrest. Slamming plates was only going to wreck her brother's dishes. His apartment was small, but redone to make it more modern. It only had two bedrooms, and while the boys would bunk on the bottom bunk in Waverly's room and she'd take the top, Rome had given up his bed in favor of the couch so that she and Agnar could sleep comfortably as his guests. He didn't have to do it. The brother she knew from before he'd left the pack wouldn't have even thought of it. Rome marched to a beat only he could hear, and it was so… off. Everyone knew it.

"He won't want it if all he has in Wyoming is a mate with a heart hardened against him and a pack who refuses to accept him. He won't ever feel like he could be part of something if he's always made to feel like an outsider."

"He's not an outsider, our pack has accepted him and his people," Prairie Rose said as she wrung out the washcloth.

"People like us, we're always going to be the outsiders, even when we're perfectly ensconced right in the middle of things," Her brother responded.

She rinsed the plates and threw cutlery and a few pots into the soapy water. Rome didn't move to dry anything. "He wants to be part of it. He just doesn't know it yet. He wants to have hope. Everyone does. He's a father who would like his children to live in a better world than the one he knew. He didn't have the childhood we did. He didn't have a home like we did. He's had to fight for every single thing he's ever had. That's made him hard. He's seen far too much death and—"

"Caused far too much death."

"I don't care about that!"

Rome raised a brow. "Are you sure? The Prairie Rose I know would run the other direction when faced with bloodstained hands."

"His pack had to fight for their survival like ours used to do so long ago. But what they had to endure makes the skirmishes between us and our neighbors look like children quarreling. We can't even remember it. We aren't old enough."

"You can't call it love when you see the potential in someone. You can't love that gap or that fantasy of what they could be because no one ever turns into it or reaches that benchmark."

"That's not true either," she growled. "And I don't, in any case. I don't want Agnar because of who he could be. I've tried very hard to give him a home where he can heal and be exactly who he is."

"The fact that you don't even care that he's broken in every way and maimed physically says a lot about you. You're a good woman, Prairie Rose. Better than me by far, had I been a woman."

"If you would have been a woman, you would have been terrifying," she said, deadpan. She didn't want to talk about Agnar when he wasn't there. She knew he would be humiliated in her defense of him. "You're terrifying right now."

"I noticed Agnar doesn't have many tattoos," he said changing the subject.

Prairie Rose took in her brother's inked arms.

She wasn't sure where else he had them, but that was the only skin she could see. He had two sleeves, the black and gray ink swirling in hyper realistic angels and demons on one arm and Greek gods on the other. It didn't seem like he'd been away from the pack for long enough to have that much ink, "When did you get all those done? I don't remember you having any tattoos before."

"It seemed like a way to mark a new phase of my life. The shop we go to is run by a wolf and everyone there is some kind of shifter or supe."

"Eww. Don't call supernatural people supes."

"Alright, vampires and witches."

"Jesus, a vampire works there?'

"Yeah." He scrubbed a hand down his face. "She's alright. The shop is open twenty-four seven. Who better to work the night shift?" Rome didn't have a sense of humor, but his lips twitched.

"Are you serious?"

"Dead serious. Technically, though, I've learned vampires are quite alive, contrary to popular belief. They're a species, just like shifters. Born like that, not made, and she doesn't hate garlic, let alone fear it."

Prairie Rose finished scrubbing the pots. She was going to ask Rome more about the auto repair shop, but Levi and Blake's voices picked up from the living room. They clearly weren't playing chess any longer.

"I'll be the murdering jerk face who kidnaps Princess Poo Turd and holds her prisoner."

"And I'll be the one who saves her before she gets her head cut off."

"Don't cut my dolly's head off!" Waverly cried indignantly.

"No, I'm going to save her."

"Unless I rip her head off first!" Levi yelled and laughed like a maniac.

"Goodness. I had better go save her poor dolls. The boys aren't used to playing with little girls and dolls."

"Whatever happened to chess?"

"Don't you remember being young and having a five-minute attention span?"

"If they haven't taken the living room apart already, you've done a good job raising them. They probably came to you like feral animals."

"No. Blake and Levi are great kids. They're tough, but incredibly smart and sweet." She lowered her voice to a whisper. "They needed a mother. Badly."

"So does Waverly. I'm afraid I fit that bill like shit."

She grasped Rome's shoulder with her soapy hands. For once, he looked absolutely miserable. Normally, he let what he was feeling and thinking show even less than Agnar. "She needs you." His eyes gleamed with a feral light. "Rome. She needs you."

"Arrr, here comes the executioner."

"Anyone want cookies?" She'd seen a box in the cupboard earlier when she'd helped Rome make dinner.

That caused a stampede. The boys rushed in with Waverly close behind them. She was all smiles and not close to tears as Prairie Rose feared she might be, with her poor toys threatened by wild boys.

She passed one around to the kids and then handed two over to Rome when he held out his hand. He was like Agnar that way too. He didn't do sweets. Apparently, he'd changed his mind about a lot of things since leaving the pack.

"I didn't thank you for everything you did for Briar May when she came here," she told Rome quietly while the kids munched happily on their treats.

He shrugged, shoving the whole cookie into his mouth. "I can do more for you too."

"No," she responded immediately, giving him a stink eye like no other, hoping for once that he'd listen. "No. You stay right here in Casper. You're building a life. No need to tear it down."

Another shrug. It might have been a yes. It might have meant that he was going to prove to be a shit listener like he'd always been and do whatever the hell he wanted.