the only way Daddy would ever let us be together.” She shuddered.
“Police are still investigating Kian’s death and Sabina’s disappearance,” Ethan finished, but I knew there were plenty of holes in the story. Holes he didn’t want to pick apart when she was within hearing range.
Had she carried the baby to term? Or lost it?
The question was on the tip of my tongue but, though my brother thought I was a moron, I really wasn’t.
Instead, I whispered, “Would your father still want your blood?”
It wasn’t the most diplomatic of questions, but it was prudent, considering the current situation we were in.
“Yes. That’s why I’ve been in the carnival ever since. I was new to Ollywood’s, but I’ve been with four the past twelve years. It takes me around the country. Out of his way.
“But he wouldn’t tear out my throat. We’re Roma, not shapeshifters. And even though I’m impure to him now, even though I betrayed our family, he wouldn’t use a dog to change me.”
“It wasn’t a dog, Sabina,” Eli corrected her softly. “It was a wolf. A shifter. You don’t have rabies.”
She sniffed. “No. I guess I don’t. Maybe that’s something to be grateful for.”
I thought about that pathetic little trailer she’d lived in. How small it had been, how clean and neat, even if it had been a sign of her poverty, and I thought about her being in that type of place for years. Years and years. Hiding away. Leaving everything she knew behind because her family wasn’t a safe place, it was something she knew to fear.
I gnawed on my bottom lip as I also thought about her childhood sweetheart.
Did she still love him?
Mother, how wrong was it, and how stupid, to be jealous of a dead boy.
I ground my teeth down, shame flooding me at the uncharitable thoughts. I couldn’t begin to imagine the horror she’d been through, and my feelings were a moot point.
“You’re still looking for the people who bit me?” she asked, breaking into my thoughts, making me grateful she didn’t know where my mind was at.
Ethan winced at that phrasing—two people.
She was adamant. Of all the things she’d said this week, most of it drowsy and some of it incoherent, she insisted on repeating that.
Two people.
Two had done this to her.
I scrubbed my hand across my jaw as I admitted, “We don’t have a clue.”
She sighed. “I suppose it doesn’t matter.”
“You’re wrong,” Eli seethed. “I want to know who dared hurt you.”
“I’ve been hurting for a long time. I haven’t slept this much in years.”
Because she felt safe?
“I’ve never been so rested,” she continued.
Something in her voice had Ethan tilting his head to the side. I wasn’t sure what he’d picked up on, but Ethan could be great at reading between the lines. “Sabina?”
She didn’t look at him, just barked slightly in response, as if to say, “Whuttt?”
I didn’t blame her. Sometimes I felt like I was dealing with a prickly teacher too. The teacher in high school that everyone hated and always gave the majority of his class a barely passing grade, except for his teacher’s pet.
Ethan had been the original teacher’s pet and had morphed into Mrs. fucking O’Grady.
“Have you been staying in this form on purpose?”
I frowned at him. “Don’t be a dumbass.”
Ethan grunted. “Shut up, Austin.”
“Boys,” Eli intoned, and though I winced at being called that in front of her, I shut up. “Sabina, is he right?”
She huffed, sucked in a breath, and then shifted.
Not only did my brain ache from the fact that she’d purposely stayed a wolf for the past seven days, but my eyes nearly crossed when I found her naked and sprawled at my side.
I mean, I should have known to expect her nude form to appear beside me, but seeing was really fucking believing, and my mate?
She had the hugest tits I’d ever seen.
They were massive. And her nipples? Fuck me. I wanted them in my mouth.
Stat.
“You’re drooling,” Ethan noted wryly, even as he grabbed a throw from the back of the nearest sofa and headed over to shield her nudity from us.
She shot him a shy glance, even as she huddled within the thick throw, not stopping until her knees were tucked against her chest, crossed slightly at the ankle in a way that, I knew, if I angled my head just right, I’d see her pussy.
So, I was a pervert now.
Great.
She needed a shower like a week ago, but the basic essence of her? Fuck, it was like nothing