Resolved, I turned off the shower and readied myself as if I was going to battle. The black liner around my blue eyes, just shades darker than King’s icy gaze, the lip gloss and the blown-out hair big and tousled around my head like Lion’s hands had been through it. Torn up blue jeans, a cropped Guns N’ Roses tee I’d stolen ages ago from Dad, and my shitkickers laced up my ankles.
I was ready to fucking rock it.
This was who I was, a rebel and a fighter. My family needed me today, and I’d be there for them as strong as King would be in my place.
Later, much later, when night had fallen and the darkness swaddled my cries, Lion wrapped around me like a shield, if I needed to cry, maybe I would.
But not until then.
I could be soft, but only with my Lion, only after I’d stood strong for my family.
I braced my hands on the counter and jumped forward to press a kiss on my reflection in the mirror.
“You got this,” I told myself with a wink before I turned on my heel and left the cooling room.
Saint met me in the bedroom, his soft ears twitching, tail wagging so strongly it made a soft whomp whomp noise in the air. I bent to kiss his muzzle, cooing to him as we walked together down the hall into the kitchen.
After all that mental preparation, I wasn’t prepared.
The last time I’d heard from her, she was travelling on King’s motorcycle through the backwoods of Alaska trying to flee her grief.
And now, there she was.
Cressida Garro.
The closest I’d ever come to having a mother even though she was my brother’s wife.
My brother’s widow.
She sat at the same scarred farm table I’d spend countless mornings at through the course of my life. First as the Danner’s ward, then as Lion’s woman. Her hair was thick and shining in the cool morning light spilling through the windows, and she was smiling.
My breath caught in my throat and solidified like a knife lodged point down. I tried to swallow and winced.
She was smiling at something Lion was saying as if she always sat at our table and waited for him to serve her a cup of tea in a mug with our old puppy, Hero’s, face on it.
I hadn’t seen her in months.
Hadn’t seen her smile in longer.
I tried to say her name, but a strange sound emerged in its stead.
Something like a whimper.
Cressida’s warm, whiskey-brown eyes cut to me and grew warmer.
“There she is,” she said softly as though she’d been out here waiting for me patiently for years.
Like she loved me and she’d never stopped.
A hiccough exploded from my mouth like a gunshot. I slapped a hand over my lips and continued to stare at the woman I’d missed almost as much as my brother.
“Hey,” she crooned softly, extending a hand to me that sparkled with the rings that marked her legally as King’s. “Hey, honey, come here.”
But my knees were weak, coltish and new. I couldn’t find out how to make them move without trembling, and when I tried, one leg collapsed.
Lion caught me before I tumbled to the ground, his arms a solid structure for me to cling to. His eyes were before me, all I could see, as green as everything living.
“I got you, Rosie,” he whispered to me, a little grin like a secret just for me tucked into the hard contours of his mouth. “It’s okay.”
It wasn’t okay, not really.
I was trying to be strong, didn’t he understand?
It was going to be a hard day, the worst day, and I hadn’t accounted for Cressida’s return. It made everything so much more acute. My skin flayed raw by her reappearance, so everything hurt more.
“It’s okay to be overwhelmed,” Lion murmured just for me, pressing his forehead to mine. “Maybe you should sit down for the next bit.”
“The next bit?” I echoed dumbly as he gently pushed me into a wooden chair next to Cress.
On cue, my sister-in-law smiled wryly and slowly pushed away from the table.
I gawked as she rose.
Because my slender, Disney Princess beauty of a sister was swollen near to bursting with pregnancy.
Tears pierced the backs of my eyes like shards of glass, and my voice, when I spoke, was almost too rough to be coherent. “K-King’s?”
Cressida smiled so beautifully, she fucking glowed. Her hands went to that ripe swell tenderly in a gesture that belied she was already a mother. “Yes.”
It was hard to breathe, the air too thin in my lungs so it wouldn’t stick.
Lion squeezed my hand, and it got a little easier.
“He would’ve fucking loved that kid,” I whispered thickly, tipping back my head to keep the water swelling against my lower lids from spilling out.
“Mmm,” she responsed, and then her soft hand was on my face tilting it down so she could lock eyes with me. “Will you come with me somewhere?”
“Of course,” I said without hesitation, reaching up to tangle our fingers and kiss the back of her hand. “The doctor’s office?”
“No, the baby is healthy. I had a check-up last week, and I’m not due for another two weeks.” She laughed, so light and lovely. The Cressida of before.
Before that wedding night when King had plunged to his premature death on the cliffs of Back Bay Road. Maybe the baby, a tiny version of our lost King, had brought back her hope and half her heart.
Maybe he or she would bring back that missing piece of our brother to The Fallen fold.
If I’d been less grief-stricken, less mired in kaleidoscopic shock, maybe I would have seen it clearly.
But I could only focus on the present, on the feel of Cressida’s smooth skin against my own as she held my hand while we grabbed our coats and headed to the car. On the sound of her giggle as Saint jumped into the back seat of Lion’s Dodge Ram 1500 and started to pepper her face with kisses. I sat back there with her instead of in the front seat beside my man.
I couldn’t let her go.
She let me pull our hands into my lap, smiled softly as I traced a bit-down fingernail over the white scar tissue marring the centre of her palm, a reminder of the night the Nightstalkers MC had abducted her and nailed her to a chair.
“You could have them removed,” I murmured, swirling my finger over the flesh.
“I’m not ashamed or regretful of any moment in my life,” she responded easily. “I’m proud of my scars and the story they tell. When…When I lost King, I was grateful for every reminder of him I had.”
“That’s what I tell Harleigh Rose about my scar,” Lion said, glancing at me in the rear-view mirror as he drove down the highway back into Entrance. It occurred to me that he was too calm, that he knew exactly where to go, and I wondered what I was missing. “She hates to see it.”
“Well, it’s not exactly a romantic reminder,” I muttered. “I stabbed you in the back.”
“Shoulder,” he corrected with a crooked grin. “And I’ve told you just like Cress just did. I’m proud to wear the badges of our love story.”
“Romantic idiot,” I grumbled, but he and Cressida just laughed.
The sound of two of my favourite humans laughing on a day as hard as this soothed my ragged soul. I gave in to my need and rested my head against Cress’s shoulder, laying our combined hands on the swell of her belly.