“What did I miss?” Ronnie asked, looking at each of them.
“Nothing,” Stan said, putting a hand on his son’s shoulder. “You’ve had quite a long day. Why don’t you go home and check in with your mother?”
Ronnie frowned, studying Colt closely.
“He’s right,” Colt said with a nod. “I’d say you’ve earned a day off.”
Ronnie blew a puff of air through his lips, tossing the empty tray in the trash. “You’d have to be paying me for it to be a day of.”
“Fair enough.” Colt paused, catching up with him before he was halfway down the hall. “Wait.”
“Yeah?” Ronnie asked, turning around.
“I was kind of out of it earlier and didn’t get a chance to thank you.”
The younger ghoul laughed. “Don’t worry about it. Just keep your creepy brother away from me and we’ll call it even.”
“I will,” Colt promised.
He knew Ronnie was teasing. He was the one person Colt had ever known to be more uncomfortable when he was being praised than when he was in the hot seat. Nonetheless, he’d already promised himself this was the last time Peter—or anyone, for that matter—was going to be able to use someone he loved against him.
Chapter 24
Ronnie
As soon as Ronnie made it through the front door, Susan descended on him like a vulture on roadkill.
“Sweetheart,” she cried, throwing her arms around him tight enough that she knocked the breath from his lungs. As embarrassing as it was for a tiny woman to be capable of breaking his ribs, she was pretty damn close to it.
“Mom. Still mortal,” he croaked.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said, pulling away only to take his face in her hands. “Are you alright? You weren’t hurt, were you? Where is Colt?”
“No, I’m not hurt, and Colt’s at the hospital with Jason,” he said, noting the worry that immediately came over her face. “He’s okay, too. We got to him in time, and Peter kept his word.” He glanced around the empty hall and knew better than to think that meant no one was listening. “We should probably talk about this somewhere else.”
“Of course,” she said, clinging to his arm as she dragged him toward their wing of the estate. Ronnie was less than thrilled to still be living with his parents, but at least they had their own kitchen, and the rooms were pretty well spread out. “You must be starving. I’ll make you something to eat.”
“Please nothing peopley,” he muttered, sitting down at the kitchen counter.
She just laughed and went over to the refrigerator to rummage around for ingredients. Most ghoul parents raised their children on a diet of what they would eventually have to consume. When Ronnie was seven, he’d had a meltdown upon finding out what was in the hot dogs at his birthday cookout and that had put an end to that. He was still paranoid, though.
Not that it mattered. Five years, and he’d be on a steady diet of human whether he liked it or not. He tried to remind himself Colt had gotten used to it and he was raised as a human, so it shouldn’t be that big of a deal.
Maybe he could start eating ghouls too and become an Alpha. That thought was even more horrifying, but he’d been around humans long enough to feel less guilty about the idea of eating those among his own kind who deserved it. He just had to figure out how to get past the whole cannibalism thing, but he wouldn’t mind being powerful for once.
Killing Vaughn should have made him feel powerful, but it hadn’t. He wasn’t even sure what he felt, only that it had left a strange hollow feeling in his chest.
It wasn’t guilt. Or at least, he didn’t want to believe he was enough of a pussy to feel guilty about killing someone who was about to kill Colt without hesitation.
It was no surprise when Susan wanted to know everything, and while Ronnie didn’t have the energy to relive it so soon, he figured it was better him than his father. He was still annoyed at them both for all the secrets they’d been keeping, but if Colt could get over it and the secrets were about him, he’d find a way.
As he recounted the events of the day, doing his best to gloss over the part where he’d killed another ghoul, he could see the shock on his mother’s face growing. And it took a lot, considering the only reason she didn’t hunt down