shoulder for a hard, warning squeeze, his tone coolly clinical. “If this isn’t Mia and you can’t get your Mia back, is what you have better than having nothing of her?”
A single tear tracked his cheek. “If it’s just her shell and nothing more, I’d say no. I’d say send whatever that thing is to hell, so I can mourn the mate I lost. But it’s not just Mia.”
“The baby,” Max finished for him with gutting clarity.
“My son. Our son. If she came back different, would that change what he is, too? Is he still my son?” He ground knuckles against his eyelids. Hands dropping limply to his lap, he looked between them and whispered, “I don’t know which is worse, you both thinking I’m crazy or knowing that I’m not.”
“Don’t alarm her,” Max suggested. “At least until we find out what her agenda is.”
“There’s a way,” Silas began, his expression warning that none would like it, “to find out the truth. I’ve seen this before, not exactly like it, but close enough to scare the hell outta me. I’ll make some calls. In the meantime, you need to hold it together. Can you do that?” Colin stared at him unblinkingly until he repeated, more forcefully, “Colin, can you do that?”
“Yes.” He sucked in a stabilizing breath. “I need to know.”
– – –
Cee Cee never said no to company. She’d been a self-proclaimed loner for most of her life, with the exceptions of Mary Kate and her NOPD brothers. Something about this new gathering of friends with their like problems and similar goals relaxed instead of aggravated her. Silas and Nica were almost family, always welcome and at ease. Though Colin and Mia were relatively new in her trusted circle, the Terriot prince she enjoyed for his sharp wit and pretty green eyes. Mia took time to warm up to, but pregnancy and the fierce protectiveness that came with it had bonded them as sisters. It should have been a relaxed and enjoyable evening after her frustrating workday.
What was she missing? Tension hardened Colin’s wry smile. Tonight, the usual physical and emotional closeness between the attractive couple seemed as wide as the Mississippi. Recent trauma perhaps. Both had been to hell and back. Or had they come back at all?
Max gave a start at the pinch of her grip on his arm.
“Got a minute?” she murmured. A sharp tug offered no option except following her from the parlor into the wide hall where she turned on him with a curt, “What the hell, Savoie?”
“’Scuse me?”
“Colin and Mia. You and the MacCreedys are watching them as if they’re about to explode.” Concern thickened her tone. “Are they all right? Something about the accident?”
“Can this wait until—”
“No, it cannot.”
Max sighed, expression betraying a rare indecision. “Nothing for certain. If it was, I’da told you.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“Colin suspects it wasn’t Mia who came back from the dead.”
That bluntness exploded, a hollow point to the heart. Recovering quickly, she wasted no time speculating. “What’s the plan?”
His slow smile unfurled. “You are purely amazing, Detective.”
Cee Cee batted his words away like a gnat. “Yah, yah, blah, blah. So, if Si and Nica are here, I’m assuming some serious woo woo is about to go down.” She assessed their guests with a cool glance. “If we’re casting out demons, our parlor probably isn’t the best setting.”
“Something in mind, sha?”
She laid out a plan knowing none of them would like it.
Max certainly didn’t. But, expression as harsh and dangerous as what they were about to attempt, he nodded. “All right then. Let’s get this soiree started.”
– – –
Mia Terriot began to sway. Colin caught her as her punch glass tipped then fell from slack fingers. She went boneless in his arms.
“What the hell?” His alarm heightened when none of the others seemed surprised. “What is this?”
“Safe,” Nica assured as she felt for a pulse in one slack wrist. She’d come prepared, with Dr. LaRoche’s blessing. “And to see it stays that way, we need to take this someplace contained for all our safety.” Seeing hesitation and a whole lot of Hell no! building in Colin’s features, she added, “Trust us, or this won’t happen the way it needs to.”
A quick nod. He scooped up Mia’s slack form, and once assured she was breathing softly against his tightly-working throat, he followed their hosts out of the house with the MacCreedys close behind him. He’d expected a vehicle waiting to take them to Susanna. Instead, Max led the