Wicked Wings (Lizzie Grace #5) - Keri Arthur Page 0,52

held little sincerity. “It was most… illuminating. Thank you for allowing me to speak to my daughter. Aiden, we’ll talk later.”

“Sure.” His tone was flat. The annoyance was back, obviously.

As his mother strode back to her car, he rose and helped me up. Then he swung me fully into his arms and carried me to his truck, placing me carefully in the passenger seat and then grabbing a blanket from the back and tucking it around me. It went some way to warming my legs and feet. My shoes, I noted sadly, were not only wet and muddy, but were now missing several sparkly stones. A bin rather than my wardrobe was their next resting place.

Aiden jumped into the driver seat and started her up. “I take it you’re heading back home rather than coming to my place now?”

I smiled, but it was filled with the weariness that beat through me. “Yeah. I’m sorry, but I’m just—”

“Bone tired, and perhaps more than a little sick of the whole O’Connor pack right now.”

“Well, not the whole pack.”

“I’ll be having words with my mother—”

“Don’t—not for me. It’s not worth stirring up bad feelings for a relationship that has a limited time frame.”

He was silent for too many seconds, and though his expression gave nothing away, his grip on the steering wheel seemed that little bit tighter. “What did Katie’s warning to me mean?”

“You know exactly what she meant.”

“Well, she obviously meant Mia, but she isn’t exactly haunting me.”

“Isn’t she?” I said softly. “From what I can gather, you’ve avoided a long-term relationship with another wolf ever since.”

He glanced at me, expression annoyed. “I haven’t avoided them. I just haven’t found anyone—”

“Who lived up to her standard.”

His responding snort was a somewhat bitter sound. “And thank God for that, given she was a liar and a cheat.”

And one who still held his heart. “Perhaps Katie simply meant it’s time you stop hanging on to whatever feelings you have for her—be they anger, hurt, or something else—and start looking for the wolf who will be your future.”

“I haven’t finished with the present, thank you very much.”

“And I, for one, am very happy to hear that.” I hesitated. “I doubt your mother will be, though.”

“My mother needs to stick her nose—”

“She’s your mom,” I reminded him gently. “Nose sticking comes with the territory.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Speaking from experience?”

I laughed again, though it was a somewhat harsh sound. “Only from watching the interaction of my parents with my siblings. Mom no doubt loved me, but I was never her shining light, and I was always aware of it. I never had the same sort of interaction with her as my brother and sister.”

“I never knew you had a brother.”

I nodded. “His name is Julius, and he became the family’s shining light after my sister was murdered. And from what Monty has said, he’s done them proud by marrying into another powerful family and presenting them with four grandkids.”

“Four? How much older is he than you?”

“Not that much. They had two sets of twins, apparently.”

“Do they run in the family?”

“Yes, although my parents weren’t blessed.”

He glanced at me. “Why would twins be considered a blessing? I’d have thought multiple births would mean any witch power would be split between them, and given how your parents reacted to you…”

He let the sentence fade, and I grimaced. “You’d think so, but apparently the opposite often happens, for some weird reason. It’s why many lesser witch lines marry into families with a history of multiple births—they hope that, through them, they may improve their standing.”

He snorted. “Which is really no different to what Mia’s pack was attempting.”

“It’s a whole lot different, Aiden. For a start, there’s no deceit or lies.” There couldn’t be when all the witch lines, royal or not, were carefully catalogued to inhibit any chance of inbreeding—as there had been, back in the darker ages. “But I have no doubt Juli’s children will make advantageous marriages when they’re old enough and further cement the hold on power my family has up there.”

“That’s still treating your kids as an asset, and I can’t abide that.”

“Neither can I, but not all witches can marry for love, Aiden. Not when there are only six bloodlines.”

“A strange statement, considering what happened to you.”

I shrugged. “My situation isn’t common—”

“It seriously wouldn’t want to be, given forced marriages are against the law.”

Only if those doing the forcing are caught. There’d never been much hope of that happening in my case—not when my