His Moonsilver Mate (Abby and Kade) novel Chapter 91

Next Chapter Chapter 91

Rate Chapter

Send Gift

Comments

MON

2

K

105 Mon Nov 2 MO

Chapter 91

Liam

made the bed in Abby’s old room three times before Tiernan’s car pulled up outside.

The first time, I did it the way I always made beds, which apparently wasn’t good enough, because ten minutes later I was back in the doorway looking at the creases. The second time, I put the extra blanket at the foot instead of folding it on the chair. The third time, I took the extra blanket away entirely because it looked like was trying too hard.

You are trying too hard, Jasper said.

Nobody asked you.

You bought new sheets.

Abby already did this joke.

It is a good joke.

I shut the spare room door harder than necessary and went downstairs.

My house wasn’t big. Two bedrooms, one bathroom, a kitchen that opened into a living room with a fireplace I mostly forgot to use. I had bought it when Abby and I needed somewhere that wasn’t surrounded by forty other wolves. It had only been quiet, a little bare, and entirely mine for a few weeks, and I still wasn’t used to it.

I had cleaned it like an inspection was coming.

When the knock came, I was standing in the middle of the living room with a dish towel over my shoulder, and I had no memory of picking it up.

I threw it on the counter and opened the door.

Tiernan stood on the step holding a cardboard box, looking far too entertained for a man who had driven all morning. Behind him, Kaia was pulling a duffel bag out of the back seat. A second bag already sat on the gravel beside a wooden crate full of plants in clay pots.

She straightened and looked at the house.

Then at me.

Jasper surged forward so suddenly that I had to put a hand on the doorframe. Somewhere just past the edge of my senses, something answered him. Quick and bright and furious, like a bird beating

MON

002

OOK

1805 Mon, Nov 2 MO

“Morning,” Tiernan said cheerfully. “Where do you want the ferns?”

It took twenty minutes to carry everything inside. Kaia didn’t let me touch her duffel bags.she did let me carry the plants, mostly, I suspected, because there were nine of them and she had

“You brought a garden,” I said, setting the crate on the kitchen table.

“I brought my plants.”

“They’re very…” I looked at one with long trailing leaves. “Alive.”

hands.

“That’s generally the goal with plants.” She picked up a small pot and turned slowly, looking for somewhere to put it. Her eyes moved over the bare windowsill, the empty shelf, the single framed photograph of Abby and me at the lake when she was twelve. “Do you not own anything?”

“I own a house.”

“With nothing in it.”

“There’s a couch.”

She looked at the couch.

It was not a good couch.

Tiernan made a sound behind me that he turned into a cough. When I looked at him, he was examining the ceiling with great interest.

He left half an hour later. Kaia walked him to the car, and they spoke for a minute in low voices I didn’t try to overhear. Then Tiernan came back alone to the doorstep, where I was waiting.

He looked at me, and the humor went out of his face.

“A few months,” he said. “Then she decides.”

“I know.”

“If she asks you to leave her alone, you leave her alone.”

“I will.”

MON

2

OK

୮

1805 Mon, Nov 2 M DO

Kaia had rules.

She delivered them at the kitchen table that afternoon, sitting very straight with her arms olded, as though she were negotiating a border treaty.

“Separate rooms.”

“Obviously.”

“You knock.”

“You knock too.”

She considered that and nodded. “Fine. I pay for my own food.”

“You don’t have to-

“I pay for my own food.”

I held up both hands. “You pay for your own food.”

“I don’t need a babysitter. I’m not one of your patrol wolves, I don’t need to report where I’m going, and I don’t need you checking on me every hour.”

“That one I can’t agree to.”

Her eyes narrowed.

“Not because of you,” I said. “Because of what’s out there. Two weeks ago, rogues were keeping girls in cells under a mountain. The witch who did it is still free. So is the man she works for.” I kept my voice level. “Everyone in Moonhaven tells someone before they leave the territory right now. Me included. I’m not asking you for anything I don’t ask of Ryan.”

She held my gaze for a long moment.

Then she looked away. “Fine. Leaving the territory. Not leaving the house.”

“Deal.”

“And,” she said, “you don’t do that thing.”

MON

2

OK

|||

Г

Because I had been doing exactly that.

‘ll try,” I said.

She gave me a look that said trying wasn’t a rule, but she didn’t argue.

Jasper was pacing restlessly. She smells like rain..

Stop it.

She does.

She did. Rain on stone and juniper, cold and clean, with that storm-sharp edge underneath that I didn’t want to think about too closely while she was sitting four feet away telling me how to behave in

my own house.

***

The first real problem was the bathroom.

There was only one, and I had never once thought of that as an issue until I came back from the training hall at six that evening, sweaty and aching, and found the door locked and the shower

running.

I waited.

The shower kept running.

I went downstairs, drank a glass of water, answered two messages from Ryan, checked the patrol rotations for the night and came back up.

Still running.

She is a she-wolf, Jasper said wisely. They like to be clean.

She’s been in there forty minutes.

When the door finally opened, a cloud of steam rolled into the hallway, along with the smell of something floral and Kaia in a towel with her hair piled on top of her head.

We both froze.

7

I had a very brief, very clear view of water drying on her bare shoulders before I turned and stared

MON

2

K

|||

O

Somewhere close by, Wren answered him.

Knock,” Kaia said tightly.

“It’s a hallway.”

“Then knock on the hallway.”

She stalked past me. Her door shut with a sharp click.

I stood there for a moment, breathing.

Then I went into the bathroom.

The hot water was gone.

***

I took a cold shower, which was probably for the best.

When I came downstairs, Kaia was in the kitchen, and so were her plants. All nine of them. Two on the windowsill, one on top of the fridge, three on the shelf that had been empty that morning, and the trailing one hanging from a hook I had never noticed above the sink.

The coffee mugs were in a different cupboard.

The coffee was in a different cupboard.

“What happened to my kitchen?”

She didn’t turn around from the stove. “It got organized.”

“It was organized.”

“Your spices were in alphabetical order.”

“Yes.”

“Nobody cooks in alphabetical order.” She stirred something in a pan. It smelled like garlic and butter, and my stomach reminded me loudly that I had skipped lunch. “Things you use together go together.”

I opened my mouth to argue. The smell got there first.

MON

2

OOK

|||

く

1805 Mon, Nov 2 MO.

“Noted.”

‘s just pasta.”

“It smells like more than pasta.”

“It’s pasta,” she said firmly, and turned back to the stove.

We ate at the kitchen table. Neither of us said much. It should have been awkward, and some offit was, but less than I expected. The food was good. Very good. I said so, and she shrugged like it didn’t matter, but she ate a little faster afterward, which I was beginning to suspect meant it did.

Halfway through, the pack link opened.

Liam. Ryan. Last team’s back from the western ridge.

I set down my fork. And?

Nothing. No tracks past the old service road. Whoever took her knows how to disappear.

I closed my eyes briefly.

Keep two wolves on the road. Rotate them. If anyone uses it again, I want to know.

Already done.

The link closed.

When I opened my eyes, Kaia was watching me.

“Bad news?”

“No news.” I picked up my fork, then put it down again. “We’re still looking for someone.’