He said it again and she padded to Orla, placing a paw on her bare foot. “Lida picks Orla. You should all go to bed.”
Despite their shared willingness to kill for my daughter, Viktor and Alexei were nothing alike. They shared a history, but they saw the world through a different lens, and their personalities were chalk and water. But somehow they both possessed the ability to speak as if they were the oldest, wisest men on earth.
Viktor extended his hand. Ranger took it without hesitation, and they slipped from the room, Lida padding after them with a quiet huff, taking some of the inexplicable madness with them.
From me. From Nash.
From Rubi as he shrugged. “Sounds fair enough to me.”
Not done, Orla glared. “You needed a dog to tell you that?”
“Lida ain’t no ordinary dog, Khaleesi. You know this.”
For a brief moment, Orla’s temper flared brighter. Then she sighed. “Maybe we all need a fucking dog to talk some sense tonight. I remember this—” Her gaze flickered to River. “—from the night we buried Ma. We’d found some peace, but we still wanted to fight the whole world.”
“Speak for yourself.” Rubi stretched his arms, flexing his neck with a wince. “I spent that night putting out O’Brian fires so poor Nashie and Saint didn’t burn to death. Can I go back to bed now?”
“No one asked you to get up,” Orla sniped, but her tone lacked the bite of any real temper and Rubi grinned as he let Nash push him out of the room.
River was already gone. It left us alone again, in mutinous silence, and I realised it was the first time there’d been any real discord between the three of us since the last time I’d royally fucked up and walked out on them.
I was a different man now. A better one—ahealedone. I wasn’t going anywhere, but for some fuckin’ reason, my mouth stayed clamped shut, my feet rooted to the floor, when all my heart wanted was to crawl to my woman and apologise.
She came to me, her bump arriving first. “I’m sorry—I mean, I’m not sorry for what I said, but I’m sorry for how I said it.”
I skated a hand over her belly, feeling the lumps and bumps of eight limbs crammed in there, thinking of first baby girl, cos I’d dream her for as long as I lived. “I’m sorry too. Maybe you’re right about the post-funeral madness. I was okay when my parents died, but there’s some blank time after we buried Wren. Logan had to come and take me away somewhere.”
Orla scratched those nails through the scruff on my jaw. “Do you feel like that now? Like you need to be somewhere else?”
“No, I’m just fuckin’ annoyed.”
“With who?”
“Myself, mainly. I knew it was a matter of time before Willow met someone, but she had a girlfriend a few years ago, so I hadn’t prepared for her hooking up with some old cunt.” Another rush of caveman energy hit me. I gritted my teeth, ignoring the amusement that was slowly replacing Orla’s rage.
Trying to, at least. But her wicked grin got me, every fuckin’ time.
“Stop it.” I hid my face in her neck.
She laughed. “You realise a girl can break her heart too, right?”
“Not funny.”
“I know, sweetheart, but you are.”
Her words feathered my ear as Nash filled what little space Orla and the babies had left him. He kissed my temple, and I sighed, soaking up the moment for what it was. Comfort from the people I fuckin’ lived for. “I really am sorry.”
Orla tipped my chin, forcing me to meet her tough O’Brian gaze. “For what?”
“For shouting. For not listening.”
“You heard me though.”
“I did.”
“And?”
“And...” I forced the lingering aggression away. “I’ll at least meet this drippy dickhead before I kill him.”