Wicked Wings (Lizzie Grace #5) - Keri Arthur Page 0,48
And right now, one of the most outspoken members of that council had me in her sights.
“I’ve already foreseen the end of our relationship, Mrs. O’Connor, and it ends with my heart broken, not his.” I stepped closer. We were, surprisingly, the same height, despite the fact her rangy form and the way she held herself made her appear taller. “Until that moment, however, I will continue to see your son and enjoy every moment I can with him. And you can’t—and won’t—stop me.”
Her eyes were now so narrow I could barely even see the chips of blue, and her aura dark with anger. “I could have you thrown out of this reservation—”
“Oh, you can try,” I cut in. “But I think you’ll find neither Katie nor the wild magic itself would like that situation.”
“Is that a threat?”
My answering smile held no humor. “No. Simply a statement of fact.”
“Then at least we now know where we both stand on this matter.”
“Yes.”
She would be doing everything in her power to end my relationship with Aiden, and I would be doing everything in my power to thwart her.
Lights swept around the corner and sped toward us. I stepped back. The slight uptick of her mouth suggested she knew it wasn’t a retreat.
Aiden pulled up and climbed out of her BMW. As he helped her into the car, I walked over to the truck and waited. Now that the confrontation was over, my gut churned and the shakes had begun. It took several breaths to calm them—or, at least, outwardly enough to hopefully fool Aiden. The inward shakiness would take nothing less than several large glasses of whiskey to calm.
“Is everything all right?” He clicked the truck’s remote and then opened the door.
“Yes.”
He snorted and helped me into the cab. “I got the same monosyllabic response from my mother. I believe neither.”
“Honestly, there’s nothing for you to worry about.”
“Meaning there’s absolutely everything to worry about.” He slammed the door shut and ran around to the driver side. Once he’d pulled out and was heading out of town, he added, “What exactly did she say to you?”
“Nothing I wasn’t expecting.” I shifted slightly to view him better. “I got the impression in the restaurant that she ran someone off—was that someone the wolf you loved and lost? The one you’re reluctant to talk about?”
“No. I ran Mia off, not my mother.” He hesitated and then grimaced. “I gave her a choice. She chose the second option.”
Which wasn’t him, obviously. “What did she do?”
“She lied. Everything she’d told me about herself—every single thing—wasn’t true.” He glanced at me, his eyes filled with shadows and hurt. He loved her still, despite everything, and that damn near shattered my already aching heart. “My mother never liked her, but she also never did anything physical to disrupt or otherwise end my relationship with her.”
Which no doubt meant she’d done everything in her power to verbally run her off—something I suspected she intended with me. Thank God a good percentage of our customers at the café were tourists or human locals—even if she ordered the wolves to avoid our venue, we could still survive.
“But she has run one of your lovers off?”
“Yes. When I was eighteen and head over heels for a wolf who turned out to be a rather close relation.” He glanced at me. “What did she say to you?”
A smile touched my lips. “That I would never be allowed to marry you. To which I replied, ‘never fear, because that prospect has never been part of our equation.’”
“It looked a whole lot more serious than that when I came around the corner.”
“That’s the condensed version. Was Mia a local wolf?”
“I don’t really want to talk about her—”
“And I don’t really want to talk about your mother. Besides, you can’t keep putting this discussion off forever. Not when you’re the one who demanded utter honesty.”
“I knew those words would come back to bite me,” he muttered. He took a somewhat shuddering breath and released it slowly. “No, she wasn’t local. She was a nurse who came here as part of the exchange program.”
The exchange program being a means of ensuring reservations didn’t get too inbred. “Where from?”
“The Raines, who hail from the Northern Territory.”
And who were the only pack in that state, if I remembered correctly. “How long were you together before you discovered her lies?”
“Just over a year. We were set to marry.” His expression was distant, and his aura swirled with pain that had neither