Return to the Darkness - Ripley Proserpina Page 0,46

I was sure of it.

“The point being,” I guessed I wasn’t done, “Erdirg won’t be the only evil thing running around here if you try that shit again.” I held up my finger toward Aaron. “I know. He’s not evil. He’s just another creature, but so help, me he’s evil to me.”

Aaron nodded fast. “Got it.”

My shoulders slumped. Now that I’d had my rant, my energy was gone. Pulling out one of the kitchen chairs, I sat down heavily. “You can never imagine how hard it was. Everything you wanted, it wasn’t there.” I met Mr. Chee’s gaze. Understanding dawned slowly, but when it did, the same anger that must have sustained disappeared.

“They were hurt.”

I nodded. “You just have the bare bones of it, but I never want to see the hopelessness in Kelly’s eyes. Or feel the way her son curled into me just because no one held him.” I turned my gaze from him to the guys. They were watching me with such love. “You all loved me there, too, but you didn’t love yourselves. And it was the hardest thing…”

Thorn came to me. With one swoop, he lifted me in his arms and took my place in the chair so that I was in his lap. “We didn’t even get to talk there?”

I leaned my head on his shoulder. He smelled so good and so familiar. Home. “No. But you helped me. In that unfamiliar reality, you still cared for me.”

“Did you care for them?” Mr. Chee’s question surprised me, and it put me in a sticky spot because no matter what plane of existence I was on, I loved these guys.

“I love them.” I took Thorn’s hand from where it rested on my thigh and lifted it to my lips. “Thorn is Thorn no matter where he is, but you can’t understand how much it hurt to tell them it was this version of them I loved.” Flawed as they were, my subtle rejection of them must have cut deep. “And how horrible am I for hoping they don’t exist anymore, because I can’t stand to imagine their lives.”

“I only wanted to help.” Mr. Chee stared hard at his sons, first Oliver and then Aaron. It was with Oliver that he had the most difficult relationship, but there was a distance between him and Aaron that was obvious. “I wanted to show you both I put you first. Like I always should have done.”

“So will you now?” Oliver asked. He came to stand in front of his father. Arms crossed, face set in serious lines, he resembled the man who stared up at him. “Will you stop rearranging the past?”

After a moment, Mr. Chee nodded. “I will.” He let out a breath. “Will you forgive me?”

“Eventually.” Oliver gave a half-smile, and his father chuckled.

“I suppose that’s the most anyone can ask for.”

For any of us. But since I had Ray here, I might as well ask about Erdirg.

“Has anyone seen him? Any sightings?”

He scratched his head. “Yesterday, I heard someone saying something mean about you. On the street. They don’t even know that you’re back, but it’s starting again. So I’d say he’s starting to influence.”

I got to my feet. I didn’t care about the small-minded people in this small town anymore. It wasn’t a personal affront. If Erdirg could influence them so easily that they were going to start to talk trash about a person they hadn’t seen in a decade, then they weren’t worth my time anyway. The four guys in here weren’t so easily manipulated. That was more important.

“Erdirg visited me in the other place. And now that we know that he wants me because I…” I steeled myself to say the words. “Smell good to him thanks to my fae blood, then we can use that. I don’t have to find him. I just have to kill him.”

Oliver nodded. “Yes, except this time, I’m not going to be knocked out in some cavern. We’ll help you. I agree you are the best person to kill him. What do you need?”

Last time, it had been all about me just winging it. I’d knocked him out, but here he was again. We had to do better, or else I was going to have to live with the idea that Erdirg would always be here, always messing with people’s lives, killing children, or whoever, to get to me. There was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide—I couldn’t even go to a different reality.

“How would you