A Crown Of Smoke And Ash - Sloane Murphy Page 0,47
say the guys weren’t happy with me leaving alone is an understatement, but I’d like to be able to trust my brother. He seemed like he was coming around when I saw him last, and it would be nice not to be hated by everyone in my family.
That’s why I find myself sitting on the couch in my apartment, hugging a mug of coffee, staring out of the window after Levi dropped me on the roof half hour ago. Having an Angel around for personal transport is pretty handy, especially with the deflection spell from Fallon, so people just wouldn’t want to look in our direction should they look towards the skies.
After the arguments about me driving here alone after yesterday, despite my argument that it was highly unlikely they’d try again so soon to get me, if at all, I gave in and let the brutes win. Just this once. I wasn’t even able to drive in with Creek who’s meeting up with Maddie to get more details on the Elder Tower. I get that they’re worried about me, and that makes them more than a little crazy, but all of this overprotective stuff is going to make me crazy if they’re not careful.
I’m not sure who has been here since I was here last, but the entire place has been put back together fully, anything broken has been replaced, even the sofa is new, and comfortable as hell. Maybe I’ll see if we can get one put in the sitting room at the manor. While that huge corner suite is nice, this thing has accepted me as one of its own, and I never want to leave the cushions I’ve sunk into.
“Knock, knock.” Colts voices breaks me from my ridiculous musings, and I see his head pop around the door.
“Most people actually just knock,” I laugh as he enters and shuts the door, scanning the room. “It’s just me.”
I shrug when he looks surprised, and pat the sofa beside me. He walks over but hovers, and I relax a little. I just wish it didn’t feel so forced between us right now, but I guess that’s to be expected.
“So…” he says with a short laugh that screams awkwardness.
“So, you want to know why, right? That’s what you said before?” He nods and rubs the back of his neck.
“Pretty much.”
“Why don’t you grab a drink and then take a seat. This is going to take a little while.” He scans the room again but nods and grabs himself a mug of coffee before sitting on the opposite side of the sofa.
“There’s so much, it all goes back so far.” I blow out a breath, trying to work out where to begin. “I’m going to start, right at the beginning, and I need you to contain yourself, and save any outbursts and questions for when I’m done, okay?”
“Erm, okay, I guess,” he says looking skeptical.
And so I tell him. I tell him what Levi explained about the War of the Fallen. I tell him about Evie and Ethan. About what our grandfather did to me, to those other Hunters, about my suspicions that that’s why he and Mom never got on. I tell him how I must have remembered some kernel of truth those many lives ago. I tell him how I met Kain, how he saved my life, and how I risked everything to save his. How what I felt for him, how I saw him, grew from that. I tell him about my life with the pack. Learning so many different things. Then I tell him how my lives seemed to collide in this lifetime and brought me all of them.
I even tell him about yesterday, about the attack at the manor, about the hybrids. I don’t tell him everything we learned, but enough to show an offering of trust. When I’m done, he looks at me like I have six heads. A mixture of confusion, anger, and sadness.
“I honestly, for the first time in my existence, have no fucking words. That’s… it’s a lot.” He blows out a breath and pulls on his hair.
“Oh, I know,” I tell him softly. “But now you see why it was truly so easy for me to love them. They’re not the monsters we’ve been brainwashed to believe they are.”
He just sits there, coffee untouched, stunned. I give him time, to let it sink in. God knows I’ve had lifetimes to come to grips with most of this. I just dumped