Vanished. I had no fucking clue where he could have disappeared to. Mercury didn’t work, currently. He’d taken on babysitting Dash as his full-time job. He helped on Dirt with Dash, our pack lead’s famed internet talk show. Plus, he followed Dash around when he went out to clubs and made sure his image wasn’t shattered to pieces.
He was the pack dad, despite not being the pack lead.
That was his nature—babying Dash to a level that was toxic to the man’s healing. Maybe if he’d seen more consequences instead of Mercury sweeping up his mess, he would have pulled himself out of the funk by now. It was hard to know.
“He probably followed Dash,” I muttered to myself as I threw on clothes.
The little knife wound in my back was almost healed already. My aura had worked to close the injury overnight, and it only twinged with a tiny bit of pain.
Kiara’s bruises, on the other hand, would be worse today.
My entire pack was at Leighton’s house, but even if they hadn’t been I would have had to check on Kiara. It was only right when I’d nearly killed her.
It didn’t take long to cab over, and her building was so busy someone was always going in or out the front doors. I slid in behind a young woman who took one look at me and decided not to question it.
The scars intimidated people. Sometimes I looked in the mirror and they intimidated me, even though they were mine and I’d sure as fuck gone through the wringer to get them.
When I knocked on Leighton’s door, Dash answered with a grin. “Knew you were going to come join the party. Welcome back.”
He was doused in Kiara’s scent.
“What have you done?” I asked.
“Leighton made it very clear that her omega is hers last night. All I was doing was basking in the spoils of that claiming.”
I had a feeling I knew what he meant, and I was shocked Leighton hadn’t kicked him out the front door when she found out.
Shoving past him, I found the living room full of tense silence. Mercury and Kiara had a show playing on TV, but neither were watching it. Kiara was still incapable of sitting still and paying attention, and Mercury was watching her. Fully staring in a way that she could probably feel burning into her skin.
“Good morning,” I said.
Kiara spun to face me, eyes wide.
“Why are you here?” she asked, looking me up and down.
Mercury snorted. I glared at him and he glared back, our fight from last night not wrapped up. He didn’t understand why his actions were harming more than helping.
He also didn’t understand why I wasn’t mad at Kiara for pushing that knife into my back. It made sense that he’d have trouble with the concept, but now he’d met her I hoped he would come to realize how soft she really was. Desperation made people do stupid things—Dash was proof enough of that, though his ‘stupid’ had never turned violent.
“My entire pack is here, and I wanted to check on your bruises.”
She turned her gaze to the floor, turning the remote control over in her hands. “They’re fine.”
Dash hovered at the edge of the room while I walked to the couch, crouching in front of her. She was wearing a pair of sweatpants and a shirt that showed off way too much cleavage. Or just enough cleavage, if I hadn’t been trying to avoid looking.
“Let me check them,” I commanded softly.
She looked up, giving me a better view of the ugly dark purple and green ringing her neck. There was a slight wince in every movement of her head. When I reached out to brush my knuckles across the bruises, she released a low whine from deep in her chest.
“Does it hurt, princess?”
“Not that much,” she murmured.
“Don’t lie to me.”
“Fine. It hurts a lot.”
I got lost in her eyes every time I looked in them, and right now was no different. Regret swirled in their depths, her thick eyelashes fluttering as her gaze flitted back and forth.
