Under the Moon (Goddesses Rising) - By Natalie J. Damschroder Page 0,86

noticed he barely put weight on his injured leg. He had to be hurting.

“Sam, do you mind getting the medical supplies from the car?”

“I have everything you’ll need,” Marley said. She nodded to Tim and Bobby. “We’re good, guys. I’ll call you if I need you.”

They nodded and disappeared in opposite directions.

Sam trailed behind as Quinn and Nick followed Marley back to the kitchen. Quinn settled Nick at a large, heavy log table and sat in a matching chair, propping his leg on her lap. The moon lust had abated since she’d run from the truck stop, but heat seeped into her where his leg rested.

Marley brought over a first-aid kit, bowl of water, and scissors, then joined them at the table. Sam prowled the kitchen, not touching anything and being so unobtrusive that Marley didn’t even flick him a glance.

“What happened to him?” Marley asked.

“I was shot by one of your thugs,” Nick accused. He jerked his leg when Quinn removed the red-soaked bandage and a few of his leg hairs with it. “Ouch.”

“Sorry. We don’t know who shot him,” Quinn corrected. She dampened a piece of gauze and mopped around the wound. “But it happened yesterday on your property.”

“What was he doing on my property?” Marley’s tone held more than a note of defensiveness.

“You tell me!” Nick didn’t exactly yell, but he didn’t moderate his voice, either. “I didn’t intend to be there.”

“Where?”

“Out back. Past the labyrinth.”

Marley’s brows knit together. “I don’t have anyone out there with a gun.”

“Sure. As evidenced by the quick response of the ones inside the house.”

“I mean it. I’ve had guests. I’m not going to have amateurs with rifles roaming around in the common areas.”

“Why do you have amateurs with rifles at all?”

Marley didn’t answer right away. Quinn pressed a clean gauze pad coated with antibacterial ointment against the wound. Nick hissed and his hand jerked toward hers as if to pull it away, but he stopped himself.

“Damn, that hurts.”

“Sorry.” She raised her eyebrows at him, silently offering, once again, to heal the wound. He shook his head, but she couldn’t let him go on hurting. It was her fault the wound had reopened. She closed her eyes and covered his calf with her hand, drawing on the limited pool of energy available to her, and focused on filling in the tissues, sealing blood vessels. His muscles relaxed, and she checked the hole. It looked as if it had happened weeks ago instead of yesterday, but it wasn’t healed completely.

She took a deep breath but before she could try again, Nick folded his hand around hers. “Thanks.” His look said that’s enough, and Quinn was weak enough now to obey. She taped fresh gauze over the area to keep it clean and rested her hand on Nick’s shin before turning her attention to her sister. “Well?”

Marley nibbled on her lower lip. “It’s a long story.”

“We’re here for a long story,” Sam said from behind Quinn. “You can start at the beginning. Like how long you’ve known about your sister.”

Marley nodded. “I guess that’s as good a place as any to start. I’ve known since I was ten.”

Quinn absorbed the shock of that. So long, and Marley had never contacted her? She would have been about seventeen, a senior in high school. She’d decided by then that she didn’t care about her “other” family and was focused on the future, but that would have changed in an instant if she’d learned she had a little sister.

“How did you find out?”

“I heard Mom and Dad talking. Nothing major. Dad said something about ‘the baby,’ and whatever else he said—I don’t actually remember—made it clear he wasn’t talking about me. I was nosy and went digging. I found a copy of your birth certificate and adoption papers in the safe in the back of their closet.”

“Pretty good for a ten-year-old,” Nick said. Quinn considered ripping off a few more hairs. Then she saw his face and she realized he wasn’t impressed, but encouraging the conversation.

“Did you confront them?” Quinn didn’t like the idea that Tess had lied to her. None of them could change the past, but how they acted now would affect any potential future relationships.

“Nope. My curiosity was satisfied. You were a lot older, and I figured you wouldn’t be interested in me. Then a couple of years later Mom taught me more about the goddess thing, and that was a lot more interesting than a long-lost sister who couldn’t be bothered to find