Page 140 of House of Lilith

“Howe?” he echoes with a frown.

And for a second, I think it didn’t work, my little plan to loosen his tongue.

But then he lets out a little laugh. “No,” he starts, his speech a little slurred now, “me and Howe only started hanging out, like…” He waves his hand, looking away and into the distance, as if trying to remember. “Two years ago. No, less. At the start of our third year.”

Now that makes me quirk an eyebrow. “Really?” I ask.

“Yeah, I mean,” Ricky keeps going, his forearms sliding down the table a little, “I’ve always known him, but while we were growing up, my caretaker…” He waves his hand again. “Doesn’t matter. The point is, we weren’t really allowed to spend any time together.”

Frowning, I lean a little forward. “Was it your family’s… declining status?”

He raises his eyebrows at me, his body swaying a little, almost imperceptibly. “You mean,hisfamily’s.”

I shake my head a little, my lips curling into a hesitant smile. “But he’s the alpha and the son of a powerful matriarch, isn’t he?”

“Yeah,” Ricky replies as a frown starts creasing his forehead, “but he never had a father and his mother was a little unorthodox.”

He lets out a little burp. I don’t say anything. I’m practically holding my breath, just waiting for him to keep talking.

He does. “Sorry about that,” he says with an awkward little laugh. “Anyway, then his mother died and that made things…” He frowns again. “Well, it made thingsbad. And somehow…”

He shakes his head, the incredulous look in his eyes making me want to yell at him to keep going. “I guess people were angry and scared,” he finally says, this sadness in his voice as he turns his unfocused eyes onto the surface of the table, “and they just turned their backs on her family, blaming her for everything that happened. So for a good while, they were on their own, Dahrian and his brothers.”

For one long moment, I find myself at a loss for words. My voice is barely above a whisper when I finally say, “Wow, that’s brutal.”

Ricky looks up. “Yeah,” he says with a shake of his head, “it’s a brutal world we live in.”

And I know I should stop, but one more. Just one more question.

“So that’s what brought the two of you together?” I ask. “Being without parents and stuff. I mean, you seem so much closer than I’d expect from a two-year-long friendship.”

He lets out a little laugh. “I guess we do,” he slurs, “and sure, the family stuff plays a part as well…” Then he shakes his head, thinking. “But no, none of it would’ve happened if it weren’t for Dahrian’s ex.”

It feels like a slap across the face. “His ex?” I echo.

“Yeah,” he says with a nod, still out of it but turning more serious by the second, “the first time we got to talking, they’d just broken up and, well, Dahrian wasnotin a good place, to say the least.”

For a second, I just look at him, struggling to keep myself from showing emotions. “Why?” I finally ask, my voice coming out a little choked-up despite all the effort. “Was it some great love?”

Ricky lets out a loud sigh. “He doesn’t like talking about it. All I know is, Aisling cheated on him with his best friend and he wasn’t the same person after that.”

What the…

“And I do understand things don’t always make sense…” He pauses to lock eyes with me, fighting to keep his open. “But it somehow still keeps me puzzled, that something like that would happen to a guy like him. You know?”

“Yeah,” I say, without even having registered the question. “Definitely.”

What snaps me out of it is Ricky lifting the bottle to take another sip and missing his mouth.

“Um, Ricky,” I say as I take it away from him. “I think that maybe you’ve had enough of that.”

My words snap him out of it enough to throw me a smile and say, “Well, Nyx, I think you’re right.”

He gets up and he gives me a smile and a wave before he turns on his heel.

And I do feel vaguely guilty and ashamed of myself, watching him stumble out of the Common Room, but my mind almost immediately goes back to Dahrian.

I go to throw myself back into the chair, my eyebrows pulled down and this restlessness driving me crazy.

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