Chapter 29

CHAPTER 29

IZZY

A t my mom's voice, I close my eyes briefly before opening them to glare at Bishop. He just smirks at me.

I turn to look over my shoulder at my mom. Her long blonde hair is free to float over her shoulders and down her back. Mom's gray eyes are narrowed at me as she puts her hands on her green-sundress-clad hips.

"Mother of my heart! It's just lovely to see you. Whatever are you doing here?" I ask as I bat my eyelashes at my mom.

She rolls her eyes at me. "Nice try, Izzy. I had to learn from Bishop that my daughter almost died after lying to me that she wasn't healing ghosts for—" She breaks off and turns to Bishop. "How long was it?"

"Six years," Bishop helpfully supplies.

"Traitor," I hiss under my breath. He just smiles at me. Frustrated with him, I move to get off his lap, but Bishop's hold on my hips prevents me. When he doesn't make a move to release me, I sigh and slump back down. I guess I'm having this conversation with my mom while on one of my mates' lap.

Awesome. I love awkward situations. That's clearly why I always find myself in them.

"Oh yes, six years. Six entire years, Isabel! I can't believe you lied to me, your father, your brothers, and Bishop for that long. What on earth were you thinking?" My mom's voice raises as she finishes until she's almost shouting at me. For my very even-tempered mom, raising her voice at all is a big deal.

I sigh. "I was thinking about the ghosts. They need to be healed, and no one else can do it. I knew you'd try to stop me."

"Yes, I would. You almost died! Again, Izzy!" Tears slip down my mom's cheeks as she tries to gather herself. My mom is the most put together person I know, so it's rare to see her cry. "I just don't know why it has to be you."

My heart hurts from seeing my mom so upset. "There's no one else who can, Mom."

"I know that! I just don't know why it always has to be you. Why can't it be someone else's daughter who's always in danger?" Mom's voice breaks on the last word. She presses her lips together and closes her eyes for a moment.

This time, when I push on Bishop, he lets me up. I stand from the couch and walk over to my mom. "I'm sorry."

She shakes her head at me and opens her eyes that are so similar to mine. "It's not your fault, Izzy. I just… We can't lose you, baby. You're supposed to outlive your dad and me by at least fifty years. You're supposed to annoy your brothers for centuries." My lips briefly twitch up. "You can't keep going like this."

"I know." My mom's eyebrows raise practically to her hairline at my easy acceptance. I snort. "Bishop already talked to me, Mom. I'll try to be more careful. I just wanted to keep everyone safe." It kills me that I put everyone I care about in so much danger. I just want them to be happy and safe, and I don't know how to make it happen.

"Oh, honey. That's not your job." My mom wraps her arms around me and squeezes me with a surprising amount of strength for her slight frame. She rubs my back for a long moment. "You're always thinking about everyone else, but it doesn't all fall to you. We can help you if you tell us what's going on."

"Yeah," I mumble into her shoulder.

With one last squeeze, my mom releases me and steps back. She smooths down her sundress before glancing at her dainty gold watch. It's a gold chain of interlocking crescent moons with a small watch face. It was originally my grandmother's. We don't see her often, but she's always been nice to me, unlike my paternal grandparents. "We're late for dinner. Your father and brothers portaled here with me and are anxious to see you. They're waiting in the dining room."

"Oh good, more people to yell at me," I grumble.

My mom rolls her eyes at me—again—before looking over my shoulder. "Do you know the way, Bishop?"

"Yep, I do." Bishop gets up from his perch on the sofa and walks over to me. He tunnels one of his hands through my hair and tilts my face up to his. He slams his lips on mine for a hard, fast kiss. After just a few seconds, Bishop pulls away and walks out the door, leaving me reeling.

Mom grins at me before clasping my hand in hers and pulling me after Bishop. "So, you're kissing Bishop now? Does that mean you're going to mate him?"

"No, it definitely doesn't mean that, Mother." We walk down a maze of winding hallways. I have no clue how Bishop knows his way around this place. I have zero idea how to even get back to the room we were just in.

"Whatever you need to tell yourself, Izzy." My mom gives me a wide grin before we follow Bishop along dark wood doors into a huge dining room. The dark wood continues onto the floor and through the trim in the elegant room. She nods toward Luca, Archer, and Cain standing on the other side of the massive table. Levi is standing near the wolves and gives my mom a charming smile. "Are these your other mates?"

I'm momentarily distracted by the absolutely massive white oak table that dominates the space. It's big enough to sit around twenty-five people. With the light table and cream walls, the dining room feels airy. The bank of windows behind the wolves also helps brighten up the space.

I shrug at my mom's question. "I dunno. All wolves look the same to me. It's especially hard to tell the two blond meatheads apart." I can't say the whole thing with a straight face. A small grin crosses my lips as I stare at my wolf mates.

Archer laughs at my comment, Luca rolls his eyes at me, and Cain smiles slightly.

Before my mom gets a chance to scold me, a voice pipes in from behind us. "How dare you talk about the alpha like that!"

"Oh, boy." Sighing, I turn to face the wolf dude behind me who feels the need to make an already shitty day worse. He's taller than me but shorter than any of my mates. He has pale skin, dark hair, and brown eyes. Overall, he's pretty unremarkable. "Who the fuck are you?"

"I'm—" he starts to say.

I cut him off. "No, I actually don't give a shit." Dismissing the wolf, I turn around.

As I'm facing forward, I hear steps behind me right before a large hand lands hard on my shoulder. Before he has a chance to yank me back, I grab his hand and pull it with both of mine. When he's off-balance, I squat and shove my hips back into his before straightening and throwing him over my shoulder. He lands with a satisfying thud.

I conjure my favorite blade without a thought as I straddle the wolf. This is exactly why I have to lock down my magic at school. If I'm unexpectedly under attack, my magic pours out of me before I have a chance to react. And I turn into a knife-toting wack job who reacts with excessive violence, apparently.

Pressing the dagger to the terrified wolf's throat, I lean in and snarl, "Touch me again, and I'll fucking break every one of your fingers. Then I'll heal them, break them again, and heal them in the wrong position. Do you understand me?"

"That was hot," Archer whispers to someone to the right of me. I'm too distracted with the rando wolf to see who he's talking to.

"Y-y-yes." The wolf I'm kneeling on widens his eyes at whatever he sees on my face. Fucking great. I'm sure my eyes are glowing the same light blue as my magic, since my blade is shining blue too.

My hair starts floating in a non-existent breeze, and I know I'm in trouble. The wolf senses the same thing and starts thrashing under me. Unfortunately for both of us, that only encourages my magic to keep flowing out to put an end to the threat.

"Stop! Stop fucking moving, you dumbass! Do you want me to slowly and painfully kill you? You're antagonizing something more powerful than you can even comprehend, wolf. You need to be still, so I can put it back in its cage. Understood?" The wolf stills at my warning and looks up at me with abject terror on his face. I would feel bad for him if he weren't running around grabbing women he doesn't know.

"Izzy. Rein it in." Bishop strides toward me until he's standing a foot in front of me. His eyebrows knit together with concern.

I roll my eyes before glancing up at Bishop. "What the fuck do you think I'm trying to do here, St. James? Fuck. Should I just kill him? Has he seen too much?" The wolf whimpers under me. I look down at him. "You got yourself into this situation by touching a woman without consent, my dude. We don't fucking do that from now on, do we?"

The wolf frantically shakes his head, his wide eyes darting around the room. No one's making a move to help him. Sucks to be him.

"That'd be awfully messy, honey," my mom chimes in while frowning down at the wolf.

The wolf's eyes widen even farther, like he expected someone in my family to try to stop me. He clearly doesn't know the Gallaghers, because we're all a bit unhinged. I'm actually surprised my dad and brothers are letting me handle this myself. They like to swoop in and steal my kills. It's super rude.

"I mean, it doesn't have to be. I could just do the… um, thing," I finish lamely to avoid telling my mates what I can do. While my family knows about that aspect of my magic, my mates don't need to. Even for a spirit mage, I'm unusual. Aggie couldn't do most of what I could when she was alive. I don't want my mates to think I'm even more of a freak.

Levi chimes in before my mom can say anything. "I can erase his memories."

I whip my head up to look at Levi, who's watching the encounter from the other side of the table with the wolves. His red irises are the only thing that gives away that he's not as calm as he seems. "You're a memory reader?"

Levi's lips twitch up in a small smile. "Still not a mage, little raven."

"He's apparently not a demon, either," Archer grumbles while giving Levi an epic side-eye. A small smile crosses my face at Archer's antics.

My magic also starts pulling back when it realizes the wolf under me isn't a serious threat and my mates would help if he were. I let out a long sigh of relief when my hair lays back against my shoulders and the knife stops glowing. It's weird as fuck that my magic receded without a fight, but I'm not going to question it right now.

"Can you leave the memories of me flipping him and the general feeling of being about to shit his pants when he thinks about me?"

Levi snorts. "I can."

"Cool. Have at 'im, then." When Levi reaches me, I get off the wolf while still holding my blade to his throat. Levi straddles him, and the wolf looks even more scared. I step back to give Levi room to work.

"This will probably hurt. A lot." Levi takes great delight in telling him that before a black mist completely covers the wolf.

Yet again, I wonder what the actual fuck Levi is.