Moon Child (The Year of the Wolf #2) - Serena Akeroyd Page 0,73

someone grabbed me, pulled on my shirt and wrenched me back.

“Seth, stop it.”

Twisting around at the sound of Daniel’s voice, I frowned and asked, “Daniel, what are you doing here?”

“I’m watching over Seth. He needs me.”

The simplistic answer in no way explained just how peculiar any of that was.

But even worse? The notion that if this small child hadn’t stopped me, I’d have beaten Seth.

When pain hit me behind the eyes, enough to have me staggering to my knees, Daniel rasped, “Seth! Stop it! Right now!” He stormed into the room as I collided with the floor, and when his hands grabbed Seth’s shoulders and he shook him, with more strength than was wise, I felt the sudden release like the pressure on a vacuum seal had just been ruptured.

I gasped, sucking in air like I’d been drowning, the burden off my shoulders, even though they still felt like they were caving in. Which was how Lara found me.

She knelt at my side and asked, “Seth isn’t himself.”

Somehow, I knew she wasn’t talking figuratively.

I twisted to look at her, and when I came face to face with her calm, I shook my head in bewilderment.

Why was everyone, apart from me, calm today?

Sinking back onto my heels felt far too difficult, but every single bone in my body ached with a misery that made me feel about a hundred years old.

“What’s going on?” I rasped, watching her stare at Seth and sensing she somehow had gotten a read on things.

“I have no idea,” she admitted. “But what’s inside him can somehow attack what’s inside you.”

My nostrils flared at that news. “Have you spoken with Sabina about this?”

“No. We had other things to discuss, and I only just learned this so how could we have talked about it?”

I ignored that to sharply question, “Other things? What kind of other things? What else could be more important than—”

She grunted at that, then reprimanded me, “What’s discussed between sisters is none of your business.”

Then, of course, I remembered what they had to talk about—how she was mated to Choi, and the whole, ‘how the hell she’d transformed’ thing the night before, plus a decade’s worth of stuff they had to share.

I reached up and dug into my eyes, which hurt, but it made me feel awake, and hey, at the moment, everywhere was damn well hurting so feeling more alert was a boon.

Her hand on my shoulder snagged my attention, but it was Daniel who I listened to as he said, “Ethan, Seth is being very trying right now.”

Bet your ass he was.

“Think he figured that out already, Daniel,” Lara muttered.

But I looked at the boy who was becoming like a son to me, saw the earnestness on his face, and asked, “I thought you and he weren’t friends?”

“We weren’t. Until I realized Maribel was having a baby.”

I froze at that. “Why would that matter?”

He blinked at me. “I can’t say.”

“Why can’t you?” I demanded, not appreciating that answer. I hated it when my mate stonewalled me because she was hiding a new talent that she thought would make us think she was nuts, but this was even less tolerable.

Lara laughed softly. “Can’t you see? He’s been given a duty.”

My mouth rounded at that as I whipped my head around to look at her, wondering how on earth she’d even know that was a thing, then I flickered my gaze back to catch Daniel’s with mine. She couldn’t know what that phrasing would mean, not with her so recently having arrived in this society, but I knew what it meant.

Especially when his cheeks turned bright pink and his line of sight was on par with the carpet beneath his feet.

“Covenant?”

Just one word, and a simple nod would make me accept what he was saying. Which he gave me.

Which, in turn, had me blowing out a breath.

The Mother knew about Seth.

I mean, she had to know, of course. He and the baby in Maribel’s belly were the first true siblings to ever be born—not like twins, who were ‘accidents.’ The entire family was important to the Mother’s plan. But this went deeper than that.

Daniel had appeared out of nowhere, reprimanding Seth like he was a guardian or something. Whatever Seth had done to me, Daniel had managed to control it.

Was that a gift she’d given him?

I rasped, “I understand, Daniel.”

His shoulders hitched like he felt guilty for withholding things from me, but I understood. What happened during our covenant was something we had no control