Proof of Life (The Potentate of Atlanta Book 4) Page 20

  “This isn’t the first time he’s acted in your best interests,” Linus reminded me. “He protected you from the coven’s charm under your pillow.”

  “He did.” I gave credit where it was due. “I didn’t trust his motivations then either.”

  “You’re unique, Hadley. There’s never been another dybbuk, to our knowledge, who has survived longer than a year. You’re charting new territory that will help pave the way for others who’ve made mistakes and wish to rectify them.” He rose and pulled the cover back, exposing my bare leg to the knee. “No one believed a dybbuk could be redeemed, but you’ve proven that’s not the case.”

  A sudden tightness in my throat made it hard to speak. “I couldn’t have done this without you.”

  “Don’t sell yourself short.” He examined the tattoos on my ankle. “All I did was bind Ambrose to you for life to prevent him from killing you to escape into a new host. That was the work of a few hours. You’re the one who fights to maintain your identity every day. That’s the work of a lifetime.”

  Uncomfortable with his subtle praise, which from Linus was like any other mentor pinning a gold medal on their student’s chest, I gave myself permission to ask after the others. “How are they?”

  Accepting the change of subject, since he was as uncomfortable with praise as me, he smiled. “Good.”

  “They’re going to be okay?”

  “Adelaide is awake and talking. We’ve flushed the drugs from her system. We’re working on rehydrating her now.” He sat back in his chair. “Boaz punched Abbott, called him a witchy bastard, stumbled into the room with Adelaide, then passed out on her floor.”

  “That’s…romantic…I guess?”

  “Abbott had a second bed put in her room, so they’re together. Boaz is, however, cuffed to his bedrail to prevent another assault on the staff.” Linus tapped his fingers on his knee. “He must have put up more resistance than the others. He was pumped full of drugs, a lethal amount, and his progress has been slower.” He stilled his drumming. “Honestly, I’m not sure how he survived as long as he did with that particular cocktail in his system. If you hadn’t found him when you did, he would have died. I doubt he would have lived the day.”

  A cold lump hardened in my gut, and I wet my lips. “He’s going to be okay, though, right?”

  “Grier has been working on him.” He smiled tightly. “He’s in very capable hands.”

  “That’s good.” I twisted the sheet into knots. “How is Mr. Whitaker?”

  “He’s in a medically induced coma. He didn’t handle withdrawal from his drug of choice well. He inflicted a lot of damage on himself, so he’s restrained. The drugs he was given interacted with ones already in his system, but we expect him to make a full recovery.”

  “I knew he drank, but I had no idea he used anything harder.”

  “Adelaide was also unaware he had developed other tastes, but she says it explains where some of their money has gone. She plans to check him into rehab once he’s stable enough for transfer.”

  “If you see her before I do, tell her not to worry about the cost. I’ll pay for it. All of it.”

  “I’ll do that.” A deep line furrowed his brow. “Matron Pritchard is also in good health.”

  “Good,” I said sharply, and wished I had taken time to dull the edge first. “I’m glad everyone is okay.”

  “Your mate is pacing a hole in the floor.” He rose and patted my hand. “I’ll leave you to it.”

  Linus nodded to Midas in passing, but I don’t think Midas noticed with his entire being focused on me.

  It didn’t bode well that Midas shut the door behind him to keep us from being overheard by the others. I had an idea of where this conversation was heading, and I would rather sew my mouth together without anesthesia than talk about this. But the feral cat was out of the bag now.

  The mattress dipped when he sat beside me. “Do you want to talk about Liz’s allegations?”

  “No.”

  Taking my hand, he toyed with my fingers. “Any idea how to locate her?”

  “You would really let it go, just like that?”

  “Do you know how long it took me to work up the courage to share what happened to me in Faerie?” He let that sink in. “Do you know how long after I told Mom and Lethe I held it all in until I told you?” He cut me off before I could answer. “You’re young, Hadley. It’s okay if you haven’t made peace with your past. We have the rest of our lives for you to decide what you do and don’t want me to know.”

  “Except now I’ll be paranoid every time I’m naked in front of you that you’re staring at them. The scars.”

  “You don’t gawk at mine.” He rubbed a hand down one crosshatched forearm. “Why would I fixate on yours?”

  “You heard what she said,” I whispered. “You know how I got them.”

  Honest confusion tugged his lips down. “What’s your point?”

  “You’ve dedicated yourself to empowering women who have suffered abuse.” I hadn’t consciously had a clue I felt this way about us until it popped out of my mouth. “What if that’s what attracted you to me?”

  “You’re not wearing a scarlet letter, Hadley. You don’t telegraph your abuse simply by existing. You fight against your perception of yourself, against her perception of you, every day. It’s only natural you would think others see the conflict in you, but they don’t, I promise you that.”

  “You did.” I had been too flighty around him at first, too nervous he would unmask me. “Quickly too.”

  “Did I wonder at times? Yes. I’ve been around enough survivors to recognize the symptoms, and you evidenced several of them. I had no idea it was your mother, or what she did to you.” He laughed harshly, but it was self-directed. “I thought a boyfriend might have done it.”

  Scrunching up my face, I asked, “Why is that funny?”

  “Abuse colors the world survivors live in, and I chalked up your problems to my issues.” He hesitated as I studied him. “I laughed at the reminder of how twisted up we all get in our own heads, in our own pasts. We view everyone else through the clouded lens of our own life experience. That’s how assumptions get made, and they’re generally wrong. We apply our experiences to others in an effort to understand them and their motivations, but we rarely get it right.”

  “Liz said something…”

  “…designed to get under your skin.”

  “I was happy to take it slow, physically, with you.” I wasn’t sure how to fit the rest of the words in my mouth without choking on them. “You were working through some stuff, and I didn’t want to pressure you.” He looked at his hands, his features unreadable. “I put it all on you. In my head, I mean. I convinced myself I was content waiting for your benefit.”

  “You think you were subconsciously avoiding sex with me to avoid a conversation on your scars.”

  “I’ve never dated anyone who mattered. I’ve never cared what the guys I was with thought of me. I had plans. I had school. Dreams. Guys were warm bodies when I felt like having dinner out or watching a movie or…that.” A slow burn moved through my cheeks. “But you matter. I care very much, maybe too much, what you think of me. I still have plans. I still have dreams. They just all include you now.”

  “You can’t believe it would make any difference to me.”

  “We’re all twisted up in our own heads, our own pasts,” I quoted back to him. “What do you think?”

  “I want to see your scars.” He placed one hand beside my pillow and leaned over me, his delicious heat sinking into me. “I want to see you.” He ducked his head, pressed his lips to mine, and kissed me slowly, with such tenderness tears threatened to swamp me. “I want you, Hadley.”

  The way he tasted me, with a hungry growl revving up the back of his throat and a sharp edge to his kiss, turned my knees—and more interesting places—liquid as I patted the mattress. “There’s room for two.”

  “There are also half a dozen people with their noses pressed t
o the glass.”

  “Frak, frak, frak.” I peered around him. “Tell them to go away?”

  The crowd dispersed to make way for a woman with instincts that bordered on downright terrifying.

  “Your mom is here.” I smoothed a hand down my chest. “Does she know? About…?”

  The ants. The scars. The pantry.

  “I didn’t tell her.” He twisted around to scan the newcomers. “I won’t tell her without your permission.”

  Feeling small, I gripped his wrists. “Ford?”

  “I can’t see him mentioning your private business in his report.” Midas rubbed his jaw. “He wouldn’t betray you unless he felt you had been compromised and the pack was in danger.” He dropped his hand. “Mom could have pressed him for details, without understanding what he would confide, but I doubt it.”

  “Okay.” I wiggled myself upright. “Let her in.”

  The door had barely cracked before Tisdale wedged herself through it and strode to me. “Sweetheart.”

  “Hi.” I waved like a dork. “I’m fine. You don’t have to—”

  Gwyllgi are strong, and their hugs can be fierce, but Tisdale’s was downright ferocious.

  “Hush.” She cinched her arms tighter until spots danced in my vision. “I’m so relieved you’re all right.”

  Midas grinned at me when I slid a panicked glance past her shoulder.

  “It was just a broken ankle.” I patted her lightly on the back. “Seriously, I’m good.”

  “Abbott told me you healed yourself.” She pulled back, and I sucked in air. “That’s remarkable.”

  A queasy sensation writhed through my gut when it hit me that she and I hadn’t been alone since she learned who and what I really was the hard way. We weren’t alone now, with Midas here, but it left me itching to hunch away from the blow that was sure to come.

  Tisdale hadn’t had a problem with Hadley Whitaker, future Potentate of Atlanta, as a daughter-in-law.

  But I wasn’t her, exactly, and now she knew it.

  “I took the liberty of familiarizing myself with your history,” she said, plucking the creeping fear right out of my head. “For the pack’s sake, I have to be well informed on any matter that might blow back onto us in the future.”

  Lips gone numb, I managed to fumble out, “I understand.”

  “That history will not be made public, sweetheart. No one will learn of it from me. I wouldn’t betray you or your secrets.” She cupped my cheek. “You understand you are pack now. This was as much to protect you as the rest of us.”

  Again, Midas grinned at me, and again, his mother practiced her anaconda-style hugging technique.

  “I might be out of line in supposing that your reluctance to spend time with me and the pack stems from the betrayal from your own mother and family when they disowned you.” She tightened her thin arms, I don’t know how, and my vision tunneled. “You’re ours now, and we’ll fight for you. I don’t only mean myself, or Midas, but all of us. Pack means you never walk alone.”

  Tears pricked the backs of my eyes, and I blinked at the ceiling to clear them. “Thanks.”

  “I understand Liz is still at large.” She withdrew slowly. “Ares hasn’t woken yet, but she will soon.”

  Even without the vow she just made me, I would have to be blind to miss how much the losses hurt her.

  “I’m hoping Ares will have answers for us.” I leaned back before she trapped me again. “Nothing about it makes sense to me.” I smoothed my sheets. “They took high-value targets but didn’t ransom them. They had days to…” I swallowed hard, “…but they didn’t add them to their closet. They fed and watered them and had more supplies that hinted at their plans to keep them alive for an undisclosed purpose and amount of time. Even the drugs were meant to keep them docile enough they wouldn’t harm themselves, or their captors.”

  Not that Boaz let their best intentions stop him from causing enough trouble to force them to take lethal measures to contain him.

  “You’ll figure it out.” She patted my thigh. “I have faith.”

  A knock on the door brought her head around as Lethe strolled into the room. “Time to go, Mom.”

  “Leaving so soon?” Midas intercepted her with an arm slung around her shoulders. “Are you two headed back to the den?”

  “Yep.” Leaning her head against him, she growled, “The Knoxville debacle is eating my soul.”

  Withdrawing a bit, he looked down at her bright blue hair. “Do you need any help?”

  “If two alphas can’t fix this,” she reasoned, straightening, “then two alphas and a beta can’t either.”

  “What’s causing the problem?” I glanced between them. “I thought we had worked out a solution.”

  The former alpha had been kicked to the curb, and Tisdale was open to absorbing the rest into her pack.

  “With the pack itself?” Lethe met my gaze, and for once it was absent of hostilities. “They’re cool with whatever. Honestly? They’ve been beaten down so often they don’t much care what happens to them.” She twitched her shoulder. “The issue is other packs who have a bone to pick with Atlanta seeing guests of ours come to harm. They’re spinning the incident into an attack on neighboring packs instead of what it is—an attack on us—in the hopes it gives them a foothold to social climb.”

  “You said ours,” Midas pointed out with a little-brother smirk.

  “Shut up your face.” She palmed his forehead and pushed him back. “Old habits die hard.”

  “Call if you need anything.” Tisdale went to break up the shoving match between her kids. “And do try not to get yourself maimed, mauled, or generally murdered, won’t you, sweetheart?”

  “I will do my best,” I promised her. “Let me know if you need any help on your end too.”

  Tisdale and Lethe made their exit, leaving Midas and me alone together.

  For all of a second.

  “You’ve got to be more careful.” Remy bounded into the room. “You’re the face of our company, and it’s not a great look when you’re black and blue.”

  “It warms my heart to hear your concern.”

  “If I didn’t care, I’d have brought the paperwork you owe me and made you do it while you’re laid up.”

  “That would have been cruel.”

  “But effective.”

  I smiled when she produced a steaming café mocha and thrust it at me.

  “There is a favor I need to ask.” She flopped onto the bed with me. “Can I have your apartment?”

  “Uh.” I did a double take. “Come again?”

  “Your old apartment. Can I have it?” She bristled. “I’ll pay rent and everything, but it’s the only open spot in the whole building. Mostly because it’s not really open. It’s still in your name. So can I have it?”

  “You want to move into the Faraday?”

  “I need a place of my own, and somebody’s got to watch your back. It’ll be easier for me if I’m only a few floors down.”

  “Okay.”

  “Okay you agree with me, or okay I can have your apartment?”

  “Okay to both.” I took a sip and sighed happily. “I don’t need two apartments.”

  Midas and I were in a good place, a great place, actually, and I was ready to let that bit of my past go.

  “Excellent.” She clapped her hands. “Then I’ll let you get back to your scheming.”

  Scheming was more of a Remy thing, but her business plans—which bred like rabbits in the dark corners of her mind—kept her too busy to get in much trouble these days, for which I was grateful. The apartment would be yet another project, and Atlanta was always a bit safer with her mind occupied and her car off the roads.

  “Thanks.”

  Giving Bishop a high-five as she passed him, he took the opening and joined us.

  “Hey, kid.” He sat on the bed. “Why are you still lazing about? I thought your ankle was fixed.”

  A low sound poured into the room and lifted the fine hairs
down my nape. “Midas.”

  “He. Blew. You. Up.”

  “This again?” Bishop threw his hands up in frustration. “She told me to do it.”

  Wincing at Midas’s scowl, I raised a finger. “I did tell him to do it.”

  Midas dripped beads of red magic onto the floor. “He also tranquilized you.”

  “For her own protection,” Bishop argued, “you lunkhead.”

  “He’s not wrong,” I said quietly, whispered really. “I’ve been tranqed before and probably will be again.”

  Turning away from the bed, Midas stared through the glass door into the now-empty hall.

  Intellectually, I knew he wasn’t turning his back on me. He was tuning out Bishop, and the reminder of how fast things could and did spin out of his control. He was fighting against his instincts to give me room to breathe, but it was hard for him to suppress the urge to coddle and protect me from every thorn destined for my side. But it required conscious effort not to cringe from his temper, when he would never hurt me.

  Thanks, Mom.

  “Linus performs a necessary function for Hadley, and I do too. Neither of us wants to hurt her, but we’re both responsible for doing whatever it takes to de-escalate any behavior that might cost her her life. I get it’s hard for you. Guess what? It’s hard for us too. She’s our friend, and we care about her. It’s not fun to always have the fear of what might happen if she ever slips wedged into the back of your mind like a splinter. Actually, it fucking sucks.”

  “I’m sorry, Bish.” I covered his hand with mine. “You shouldn’t have to police me.”

  “Kid, you’re not listening.” He layered his other hand on top of mine. “You’re my friend, and I care what happens to you. That’s why I do it. I’m not worried about what havoc you unleash. I’m worried about the consequences to you if your control slips.” He shrugged. “I’m selfish like that.”

  “You’re with the OPA,” I reminded him. “You’re supposed to protect the city first and always.”

  “Guess what?” He chucked me on the chin. “Protecting its protector accomplishes that very goal.”

  “Does Linus know you’ve developed a rebellious streak?”

  “Who do you think inspired it?” He chuckled. “You have to believe in something, or it’s all for nothing. I believe in you. You’re the good I want to see in the world. You’re not perfect, and you don’t try to be. You do the best you can, no matter what it costs you, and that’s all any of us can do.”