Page 54 of Siren in the Rain

I just found him. I can’t lose him now.

Fighting back every instinct that wants me to run off with Shae and leave everyone behind, I strive to pull myself together. Raising my head, I look Dallas straight in the eyes. “Could I go with him? If he decides to leave?”

Everyone else in the room stills at my words.

Finally, Dallas clears his throat awkwardly. “If… if that’s what you want, and Shae’s clan is willing to let you join them, then yes, that is an option.”

That would be the tricky part. Convincing them to let an outsider like me stay with them and Shae.

For the first time since I’ve known him, Cal looks openly distressed.

“You’d leave us?” he asks, looking like I sucker-punched him.

I whine in the back of my throat again. Seeing Cal in pain hurts me too, but I have to prioritize my mate, no matter how hard that might be. “I don’t want to, but if it comes to the team or my mate, I will choose Shae.” My eyes plead with him. “Please understand, Cal.”

Cal moves away from the table and starts pacing. “Cap, we can’t have our team start falling apart. Not after how hard we worked to get to where we all are now.” He whirls on me. “I don’t want you to leave, Griff. You’re my brother in every way that matters.”

“Cal’s right. We can’t let the team fall apart. Besides, it won’t be nearly as fun around here anymore without you, Griff.” Ruby’s bottom lip trembles. “What are we going to do without your adorable puppy-dog eyes and fluffy tail thumping away all the time?”

Now I’m starting to feel bad.

“You guys,” I say, biting my lip.

Dallas sighs again. “Cal and Ruby, stop guilt-tripping poor Griffin.”

Ruby pouts at him and Cal scowls.

Dallas ignores them and studies me for a long moment. “I’d hate to lose you, kid. But I understand what it means to find your fated mate. We’ll do everything we can to support you if that’s the direction things go.”

I jump out of my seat and hurry to where he sits, wrapping myself around him in a tight hug from behind. He squeezes my arm and then pats it gently. When I glance down, I see the faint shimmer of tears in his big brown eyes.

“Let’s not start saying our goodbyes quite yet,” he says gruffly. “We need to just let things play out and see where they go.”

I nod quickly. “Understood.”

Dallas reaches up an enormous hand and clasps my shoulder. “Shae’s going to need you today, whether he knows it or not. Meeting with family he thought had abandoned him to his fate for most of his life and having to rehash the truth about what happened to his mother is going to be emotionally draining.” Dallas squeezes my shoulder again. “I know how deeply you empathize with others, but today you need to set aside your own feelings and be a rock-solid pillar of support for Shae. This is the time to use your powers to learn and understand him more, and let your pheromones soothe and relax him as much as possible. Do you think you can do that?”

I inhale sharply and cross my hand over my heart. Leave it to Dallas to get me all riled up and ready to go to battle—in a metaphoric sense. Part of me really wants to give King Theoden’s speech in The Two Towers about drawing our swords together, but I bite my tongue since no one else in the room shares my fantasy nerdery.

RIP, Bernard Hill. You will always be my King Theoden!

“For Shae, I’m willing to do whatever it takes to help him.”

Dallas squeezes my shoulder one final time and lets go. “Good man.”

His praise gives me all the warm, happy feels.

“I have some high-end fresh sushi being brought in for lunch with Shae’s family today,” Harper pipes up again. “They told me they eat a primarily seafood diet on the island and particularly enjoy raw fish.”

“Nice work,” Dallas says.

I beam at Harper. “Heck, yeah. Bring on the sashimi!”

Cal wrinkles his nose and shudders. “I’ll make sure to eat something before they get here. I don’t know how you all do the raw fish thing.”

Harper sighs longingly. “I do miss seafood from time to time.”

I don’t know how or when Harper became a vampire, but at one point, he’d been alive. He confided once that his birth parents had sold him to a vampire family as an adolescent when they needed money. This was many years ago when such things weren’t uncommon apparently. Since vampires can’t procreate in the same fashion as other species, they tend to adopt children they later turn when they get older. It sounds kind of awful, and I’m not sure how much autonomy the adopted child has in the process. The details are hazy. Undead beings are a mystery to most of us, and vampires guard their secrets carefully.

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