that sleep could offer me. I closed my eyes again on a sigh. “Five more minutes,” I mumbled into my pillow, not even bothering to turn over to see who had used their key.
“Technically, I already gave you five more minutes,” Shannon told me, sliding my comforter down. “I actually gave you another hour since I don’t think the language you answered me in the first time was even English.” Probably not, considering I didn’t even remember her waking me up an hour ago, I realized. I rolled over, cracking an eye open to look at her. Of course she was already fully dressed, her dark hair perfectly braided as she turned to dig through my closet.
I groaned, reaching blindly for my blankets. “Oh no you don’t,” she scolded. “You’re getting up this time.”
“I wanna sleep,” I whined, sticking out my bottom lip in a pout.
“The pout doesn’t work on me, remember? Why do you think they sent me in here instead of Chann or Zev?” Damn it.
“Come on.” I widened my eyes. “I need a rest day.” I wasn’t kidding about that. I really did need a rest day. I still felt like a zombie after last night, and my emotions were scattered everywhere. I couldn’t even differentiate what I was feeling from what my wolf was, which was making it all that much harder to process everything.
“And you’ll have one, but that doesn’t mean a day to just stay in bed.” She settled clothing onto my desk, her face softening as she looked at me. “It’s okay to be confused right now, love. It’s okay to be confused for a long time.” I winced. That was what happened when one of your lovers was an empath. “You’re safe now, it’s fine to be happy about that. The person who hurt your mom has been punished, another reason to feel happy—especially for your wolf. Finding out there was absolutely no way to blame yourself for any of it? Relieving and confusing. Guilt for feeling those things, human of you, but normal for your situation.” She was rattling things off as she dug through my drawers in search of bobby pins.
“Very Dr. Phil of you,” I murmured, swallowing hard.
She chuckled. “I’m just trying to tell you, it’s okay.”
I reached over to squeeze her hand. “Thanks. I’m trying to tell myself that too. Now that some of the anger is gone, though, it’s actually a bit harder to handle.”
“That’s to be expected,” she replied, leaning down to kiss me softly. “Now, come on. We let you sleep through the morning, you’re not sleeping the whole day away.”
I groaned, sliding off the bed. “Fine.” I took the clothes she’d laid out, heading to the bathroom to change. “I’m not doing anything crazy though.”
“Like jumping off the roof and through a window?” she called out dryly. Whoops.
“Um, yeah. Like that.” It only took a few minutes for me to brush my teeth and meet her at my desk so she could help fix my hair. I really had to learn how to do it as fast as she did—what would have taken me twenty minutes took her two. She formed a few twists and tucks to give me a cute style with the strands that were growing out. “What are we doing about that anyway?”
“Your hair?” she asked, wrinkling her nose.
I swallowed a chuckle as she led me from the room, locking the door behind us. “No, the twins’ dad.”
“Oh.” Her lips pressed into a thin line as we headed downstairs, the heavy wood banister cool under my palm. “Borris texted Zelda last night. They headed to Hartford this morning to meet with Ocean Mist. They’ll probably finish there tomorrow and then head home. Raff will want to interrogate him himself, so for now we’ll keep him as he is.”
I paused on the stairs. “I thought that Raff was in Washington.”
Shannon turned, tossing her braid over her shoulder. Even standing a stair below me she was still as tall as I was. “He was. But Ocean Mist and Starlight Woods are neighboring packs. It’s not unusual for him to stop there on the way back here.”
“But didn’t he meet with Ocean Mist while he was in Washington? And why did Borris text rather than call? And why didn’t Raff call Alarick back?” My wolf was growling now, my stomach tightening in an uneasy knot as Shannon studied me.
“I’m not sure. You think something’s wrong, don’t you?” she murmured, watching me closely.