Chapter 5 Blood and Water

Odessa

The door didn't open so much as explode.

Joshua stood there with his chest heaving and his eyes completely gone, the gold swallowing the brown. Two Sorrel guards were hanging off his arms like he was a bull they were trying to hold down. He shook them off like they were nothing.

"Josh," I said. "Josh, look at me."

He did. For one second the wolf in his eyes flickered, and I saw my brother, the same one who used to sneak me fries after Mom put me on punishment, the same one who once punched a boy for calling me weird. Then his gaze moved to my hands, which were still on Evan's shoulders.

And just like that, the wolf came back.

"Get away from him."

"It's not what it looks like."

"Odessa." His voice dropped, which was so much worse than yelling. "Get. Away. From him."

"Joshua, she's fine," Alpha Grayson said, stepping in front of him with both palms open. "Nobody has hurt your sister. You have my word."

"Your word?" My brother laughed, and it sounded like glass breaking. "Your word. You drugged her, Grayson. You took my sister off the road like she was a, a package. Do you know what Dad is doing right now? He is tearing the city apart. He thinks she's dead."

My stomach dropped. Dad. I hadn't even thought about Dad.

"I sent word," the Alpha said quietly. "I sent word two hours ago."

"You sent word to the wrong person." Josh was shaking now. "Because the only one who answered is me, and I'm here."

Then his eyes landed on Evan, who was somehow sitting upright, pale as paper, with blood still dried at the corner of his mouth.

I felt it before I saw it, the way the air in the room got heavy.

"You," Joshua whispered.

"Josh, don't," I said.

But he was already moving. Three steps, and he had Evan by the collar, dragging him halfway off the bed. The healers shrieked. A tray crashed to the floor.

"You took Mia," he said, right in Evan's face. "You took her, and I said nothing. I smiled at your wedding rehearsal. I shook your hand. And now you want my sister too?"

"Joshua." Evan's voice was hoarse, but steady. He didn't fight back. He didn't even raise his hands. "Hit me if it helps. I mean it."

"Don't tempt me."

"I'm not tempting you. I'm telling you I deserve it."

That did something to my brother's face. His grip faltered, just a little. I saw it, and I think Evan did too.

I did the only thing I could think of. I grabbed my brother's wrist and squeezed until he looked at me.

"She's my mate, Josh."

Everything stopped.

Even the healers stopped breathing. I heard the clock on the wall tick once, twice, three times.

"What did you say?" Josh said, so softly I almost didn't hear him.

"Evan is my mate." The words felt like swallowing glass. "I didn't know until today. I swear on Mom's life, I didn't know."

My brother let go of Evan like he was on fire.

He stepped back. Then again. His mouth opened, closed, opened again, and nothing came out. I watched all the colour leave his face, and in that moment I understood what I had just done. I had just handed my brother the exact same wound he already carried, and I had handed it to him wrapped in Evan's name.

"Mia was supposed to be mine," he finally said, so quietly. "The Goddess gave her to me. And he took her anyway, and now the Goddess gives him you."

"Josh..."

"Is this a joke?" He looked up at the ceiling, and his voice cracked. "Is this funny to you? Is that what I am to you?"

"Joshua," Alpha Grayson started.

"Don't. Don't say my name."

He turned and walked out. He didn't slam the door. He just left, like a man walking out of his own funeral, and somehow that hurt more than any crash.

I stood there, shaking.

"I'll go after him," I said.

"Odessa."

It was Evan. I didn't turn around.

"Give him an hour," he said. "If you go now, he'll say something he can't take back, and so will you."

"Don't tell me what to do with my own brother."

"You're right." A pause. "I'm sorry."

I finally turned. He looked terrible, hair stuck to his forehead, shoulders slumped like holding himself up was costing him everything. But his eyes were on me, the same blue eyes from the dance floor, and there was no smirk in them at all.

God, I hated how much I wanted to believe him.

Evan

My father waited until the door closed before he exhaled.

"That," he said, "could have gone worse."

"Could it?" I asked.

"Barely." He rubbed his face with both hands. He looked ten years older than he did at the party. "Healer Mara, would you give us the room?"

The healers filed out. Odessa didn't move. She stood by the window with her arms crossed so tightly I thought she might crack a rib, and she was looking at my father the way she'd look at a snake.

"Start talking," she said.

"Odessa..."

"You kidnapped me, Alpha. You get one chance. Tell me why you needed to take me instead of just asking, and don't lie, because apparently your son can't."

I almost laughed. I really did. But the look on my father's face stopped me.

"Because I knew what you'd say," he said. "And I knew what your father would say. And I didn't have time."

"Time for what?"

My father looked at me, and I knew. I knew what was coming before he opened his mouth, and I wanted to stop him, but my chest tightened and the words stuck in my throat.

"The bond is half-formed," he said. "Evan felt it six years ago, and he buried it. He rejected it, Odessa, without ever saying the words. You don't just do that to the Goddess's will and walk away."

"Dad," I said.

"It's been eating him alive. Slowly at first. Now faster." His voice cracked. "The healers say he has until the full moon."

Odessa went very still.

"The full moon is in thirty days," she said.

"Yes."

"And then what?"

Nobody answered. The silence stretched until it wasn't silence anymore. It was an answer.

"Unless the bond is sealed," I said quietly, because somebody had to say it. "Properly. Before the moon."

"Sealed how?"

I looked at her. I tried to find a version of this sentence that wouldn't make her hate me forever. There wasn't one.

"Marriage," I said. "And a mating mark. Both."

She stared at me. I watched the horror cross her face, then the anger, then something else, something small and terrified that she tried to bury before I could see it.

"So that's why," she said. "The partnership. The seat at the table. The marriage offer in front of my father." She laughed, and it shook. "It was never about the company."

"It was always about you." I said it before I could think. "It was always about you."

There was no pain in my chest this time. Not even a flicker.

Odessa noticed. I watched her notice. Her eyes dropped to my chest, then back to my face, and her lips parted, and for one terrible second I thought she might cry.

"Thirty days," she whispered.

"Thirty days."

She turned toward the window. Outside, the sun was setting over the Sorrel territory, red and gold on the treeline, and somewhere out there my best friend's brother was probably breaking something with his bare hands.

"I want to see my father," she said, without turning around. "Tonight. And you're coming with me."

"Odessa, he'll..."

"He'll what? Kill you?" She looked back at me then, and her eyes were wet, but her chin was lifted. "Good. Then you'll finally understand what you did to my family."

She walked to the door and stopped with her hand on the knob.

"But if I find out there's one more lie in this room, Evan Sorrel," she said quietly, "I won't need the full moon to finish you."

The door closed behind her.

My father let out a long, slow breath.

"She's her mother's daughter," he said.

"She's mine," I whispered, and for the first time in six years, it didn't hurt to say it.