Chapter 49

“Where Daddy?” Millie asked, looking around the room.

Asire managed to keep her expression smooth and for that I applaud her. She smoothed her hand down Millie’s hair and then her back and said, voice even, “He isn’t here. Why don’t we get you home, huh?”

The little girl nodded just as her mother’s body decided to start living again.

Asire’s house was not unscathed. All the ground floor windows and several of the second story ones were smashed. It had been ransacked as well. Furniture was turned over, electronics were missing. They had torn up the carpet and put holes in the walls, looking for what I have no clue.

Several of the bedrooms were in a similar state. Asire’s included. There was a giant hole in the mattress and stuffing had been thrown around the room. All the drawers of her dresser and desk had been yanked out and dumped on the floor. Clothes and papers were everywhere. Surprisingly, her art nook was untouched. Everything neatly laid out. Probably because there wasn’t any chance of something being hidden in here.

She was downstairs suffering through Reggie’s forced triage. She hadn’t seen this yet. Just what had been downstairs.

I dug through the mess until I found my suitcase. It had been overturned and all the contents on the floor. With a sigh, I knelt down and started picking everything up, looking at the mess. After my stuff was in order, I began dumping bedding back on the mattress and her comforter. Then I began righting her furniture. Halfway through putting the desk back together I came across her Orphaning papers.

Without knowing why, I opened them up and started reading through them. I counted the number of reasons they had to kill her. Seven on the papers, but if she was even suspected of any of these, she’d be killed. I looked through it again. She had done pretty much all of this in the last week. How long before they found out and she was executed for it?

I looked around her room. Her scent was so strong, mixed with that of the intruders and myself. It was nighttime and she no longer had a place to sleep. My eyes drifted down to the papers again. I ran my thumb over the words before folding it up and putting it back in her drawer.

Their reasoning for Orphaning her was so stupid. She hadn’t done anything to deserve this treatment.

Her dresser was almost back together when she finally got upstairs. There were stitches in her neck and chin. She had changed into a new pair of jeans and a t-shirt. She had washed the dust off her face, hands and arms. She was also wearing a slight scowl. It disappeared when she saw her room and what I had done for it. Her shoulders slumped and she said, “Thanks. For all of this.”

“No problem. I’m just glad we got Millie back.”

“Me too,” she said. “I don’t think Ella would live if her daughter didn’t come back, so that’s a bonus…of course, if her daughter hadn’t been taken, then Alain would still be alive.”

“How’re you feeling?” I asked, to change the subject.

The scowl came back. “Annoyed.”

“At?”

“Lots of thing. Mostly the stitches. I can barely move my head without them pulling,” she grimaced. “Then we have the vampires to deal with.”

“Never ends, huh?” I asked.

She shrugged. “I’m more than used it. Besides, it keeps life from getting boring. Isn’t that a good thing?”

“I don’t want another mate,” I said before I could stop the words from coming out of my mouth.

Asire froze.

“Shit,” I said, holding my hands up. “I didn’t mean to open with that…but after what happened earlier.” I gesture toward her bed, even though we hadn’t actually gotten to it before. “I felt like you should know. I don’t know why I kissed you,” lie, “But it wasn’t fair to either of us. After Eve died… I’m not a whole person and you don’t deserve that. I don’t deserve that. I… Hell… I just don’t want another mate.”

“I understand,” Asire said. “I wasn’t asking for anything.”

“This conversation was meant to go a lot smoother than it is, just so you know,” I told her.

She smirked. “It’s all right. I get that you don’t want another mate. I get why you wouldn’t. Don’t worry about me. I don’t have time for a mate anyway, with all the shit I do in this city.”

“That’s the other thing,” I said.

“What is?”

I looked at her, really looked at her. Saw the stitches and my heart hurt. Was I really going to do this? Even with us keeping our distance from each other, it would be painful when she died. She was so reckless. She had made a move to fight with a knife at her throat. It was to save a child, yes, but I think she would have done it for anyone. Maybe even someone she barely knew.

All the shit that had gone down in the last week flashed through my mind. Did I really want to risk bringing her into my Family? Getting more attached to her and letting the others get attached to her.

Then I thought of my first night here. When I couldn’t sleep. All the junk food she brought up. Funny, after I broke the rollaway bed and we were next to each other, neither of us had any trouble with the insomnia. Twice, I had woken up in the night and found that my arm had moved around her without my permission.

She could be so dangerous. She made risky decisions. But it was always because she couldn’t fathom doing anything else. So yes, it might hurt my Family to bring her into it, but I felt… Like it would hurt me more to leave her behind. It would hurt Billy and Regory more.

I sat down on the ruins of her mattress, just on the end. My elbows went to my knees and I stared down at the floor, seeing the decision I had already made and wondering why the hell I was still arguing with myself over it.

“Loki?” Asire asked.

Here goes nothing.

“Do you wanna join my Family?” I asked.

Once more, Asire froze. The entire length of her long body going rigid in surprise. Her eyes, those black pools that could hold my gaze, widened. She flashed a startled smile and edged back. I could almost feel her panic from where I was sitting. The panic I knew the cause of now.

She’d had such a tough life.

I just wanted it to be better.

“You know I can’t,” she said. “The wardens would kill me and besides, you live in New Mexico. I can’t leave the city.”

“You technically weren’t supposed to have Billy here, either,” I pointed out.

“That’s different,” she argued, the panic getting bigger. She was scared of me. Well, not me, exactly. Her instincts told her to run, but she couldn’t because they also told her to stay. This beautiful, messed up girl. Without even knowing it, she had backed up almost to the door. The second she realized it, she stilled her legs.

“That’s not true, Asire,” I said. “If the people who signed your Orphaning papers gave you a pass, you could leave. By their permission for the amount of time they allotted.”

“So?” she asked.

“And if even one of them revoked their part of the Orphaning, you’d be free.”

“Only if they didn’t get someone else to sign it right after,” she argued. “And what? You think you can go to my grandparents and father and convince them to do any of this?”

I smiled and something in it had her relaxing. Odd since I was feeling particularly predatory at the moment. “I know I can. Asire, you do not belong in this city. You should not be here. And I am offering to get you out. I am offering to bring you home with Billy and Regory and give you a real life instead of this prison where you will get killed when the wrong person sees you doing what is necessary.” Our eyes were locked and I held hers when I said, “So, what do you say?”