Dog through the mansion like hellhounds—no offense, Dog— and keeping Quinlan from passing out in a crowded kitchen, we'd skipped right over introductions.
"I believe it is what he signed his contract for." Knox hadn't shared that guess with any of us yet, but it seemed like the only logical conclusion. Pierce wasn't the strategist in our team; that was Knox's role then, as it was now.
I watched Quinlan lift his mug to his lips a second time. His lips were turned down, and his eyebrows were flat, the very picture of unbothered, cool, bored, even. But before the ceramic could touch his lips, his hand trembled, shaking the mug so minutely, the only person who noticed it was me, and because I refused to stop looking at him.
"What do you mean by what he made you see? We at least know he made you see the alphas doing horrible things. But what else?"
"Sitka, that's…a personal…question?" Jazz started strong, but his confidence rapidly gave way to uncertainty. "I don't know." He threw his hands up, and Sitka bumped their shoulders together.
"It is and isn't. It isn't personal in that I care if people know, but it is in that it happened to me. Only me, I guess. Was it horrible of me to hope at one point that my packmates were also there in that place with me? It felt nice imagining our rooms side by side."
"That isn't horrible," Storri replied nearly before Quinlan had finished speaking. "I understand." His eyelids wrenched up, his eyes wide. "I don't mean I want you all tortured if I am tortured!"
Quinlan reached over the table, and the wraith on his right slid down his arm, beating Quinlan to the back of Storri's hand. The wraith patted Storri's hand three times before sliding back.
"You don't have to tell them to do things?" Sitka asked with an adorable amount of jealousy.
At the same moment, Jazz pulled Storri's elbow, bringing their faces together. "What did that feel like? I've been dying to know."
"Cold," Storri said like he wasn't at all happy about that fact.
Faust shuffled closer to his mate's backside.
"I don't usually have to speak. They normally just know." He paused to roll his eyes at the wraith that had patted Storri's hand.
"They talk too?" Sitka asked with a tone that was just as much a whine as an inquiry.
My wolf preened, proud of our mate until we both remembered it was the wraiths that Sitka was jealous of.
"They do." Quinlan's pride rang so clear, it sounded nearly paternal.
"Yeah, well, you can't move things around for me," Sitka snapped at the ceiling.
Jazz's cheeks blazed an unfortunate shade of red, the same way they always did when one of Sitka's ghosts was definitely in the room with us. Really, he didn't enjoy the concept of the hotel being full of ghosts in general. The nephilim weren't a group of identical people who had no trouble getting along, but a group with a bond that transcended their differences. That Quinlan had fallen so smoothly into place was the only thing bringing me peace at the moment.
"Sitka can talk to ghosts," Huntley explained to a very confused Quinlan. He hesitated, nearly taking a step away from Quinlan before he asked, a fraction belligerently, "Do we get to talk to you now?"
The moment Quinlan's lips turned up into a smirk was the moment I knew what hell felt like. Another man. Another alpha had made my mate do something that I knew to be impossible for me. He'd made him smile.
"You can," Quinlan said softly. "Just you."
Jesus-fucking-Christ, thank you. At least both twins weren't in his good graces before I was even dealt a hand.
"He showed me what he called truths. In the beginning, anyway. He told me that the other Alphas had gone crazy for power. That you were attacking the pack, killing them. He said he'd barely had time to rescue me. He told me about the people each of you killed, described the murders in detail, every horrible, awful thing he witnessed you do. All except Huntley." Quinlan's flat lips twitched into a smirk.
"What did he say about me?" Huntley's outrage rang loud and clear.
"He said you mostly cried in the car and could only do what the others told you to do. Then later, when he got more creative… He…" Quinlan sighed, looking at a loss as to how to put the thoughts to words. "Put it this way, if the others were the horror, you were