Page 38 of Shadow Bound

Winslow and Remington freeze when they pass the tree line and come across us. Isabeau is just finishing tugging the shirt over her head when Remington’s eyes light with mischief and a wicked grin grows on her face. “Oh,hello. So sorry to interrupt,” she drawls. “Hopefully you guys were finished.”

“We weren’t—” Isabeau begins to talk but when an animalistic growl rumbles my chest, she clams up.

“I’ll take that as ano.” She purses her lips. “You know you left a motel with private rooms that have do not disturb signs on them. You could have avoided this whole thing if you’d just done the dirty in one of those and not the…snow?” Remington scrunches up her face. “Damn, that had to be chilly on your bits.”

Winnie hides a snort. “Leave them alone, Remi.”

“Yeah, that’s probably a good idea. They’re probably both suffering fromfrostbitenow. I don’t need to make it worse.” Remington rolls her eyes at me. “Haven’t you spent enough time in snow today?”

“Remington,” I warn, not bothering to keep the edge from my voice. “I don’t go around talking shit when you spend time with Gage, do I?”

“You would have to be home for you to be able to do that.” She smiles sweetly, despite the dig. She’s right, she’d only just started ‘dating’ Gage when I left. I haven’t been home to tease her about her relationship.

Notthat what I have with Isabeau is a relationship.

“Alright everyone, retract the claws.” Winslow steps forward, putting her small body between Remi and me. “We didn’t mean to interrupt…whatever… was going on out here, but we wanted to let you know that Ranger is helping the doctor load up Sawyer. I already called the pilot; he’s getting the plane ready as we speak. So…” She points with her thumb over her shoulder. “Let’s blow this frigid popsicle stand.”

Isabeau skirts around all of us and walks briskly back toward the motel. She keeps her head down and doesn’t look at me when she passes and for some reason, that really pisses me off. Does she regret kissing me? Or is she just upset we got caught?

Remington waits until we can no longer see her before spinning around on her heels to face me. "Speaking offrigid. She’s about as warm and fuzzy as an icicle.” She smiles sweetly at me. “I actually thought I might like her, but then she went and climbed into your pants, and frankly, I just can’t respect someone who would stoop so low.”

I scrub my hand over my face, sighing. “Nothing happened, Remington.”

“If we hadn’t come out here, do you think something would have?” she challenges.

“I—” I stop, thinking about it. “Fuck. I don’t know.”

I have a gut feeling that Isabeau would have stopped it before we got too far. Based on the look of horror on her face when she came out of whatever fog she was under; she clearly regrets it.

“Did youwantsomething to happen?”

Yes.

“Jesus, Rem, enough with the questions.” I gesture with my hand in the direction Beau disappeared. “She just all but ran away from me, so I think it’s safe to say that whatever happened tonight won’t happen again.”

“Good,” Remi huffs. “Can you imagine if you brought her home? Ryker would kill her on site. Talk about a blood bath.”Shit, I forgot about Ryker. That misguided anger of his is already directed at me, if he finds out I just stuck my tongue down the throat of the person who shot his wife…fuck me. He might kill me too.

Nervously, I rub the back of my neck. “Nobody says anything to Ryker about Isabeau yet. I need to be the one who tells him.”

“When you do tell him about your new girlfriend, can I be there?”

Winslow grabs Remi by the wrist and pulls her away from me. Remington laughs when Winnie shoves her in the direction of the motel, silently letting her know that she should stop testing my patience. Winnie shakes her head at my sister’s back, until she too disappears through the trees.

When I move to follow behind my sister, Winslow speaks up. “Do you remember how I held back from Ranger because I was afraid he’d eventually change his mind and leave me? Everyone in my life before him had shoved me to the side like a piece of trash, so why wouldn’t he? That’s what I thought anyway.”

I frown at her, confused, but I still nod my head. “Yeah, I remember.”

Winslow nervously bites her bottom lip, a nervous habit she has. “Okay, that girl” —she points in the direction Isabeau went— “no one has ever abandoned her because she neverhadanyone. While I panicked about someone leaving me, she has no idea what it’s like to even have someone in her corner. I struggled to let someone in because I didn’t want to get hurt. She doesn’t knowhowto let someone into her life, because no one has ever given enough shits to be there in the first place.”

Winslow not only can see the souls of the dead, but she has this weird ability to look into someone’s soul and figure them out. The latter skill isn’t even part of her witch powers, she’s just that good at reading people

“You got all of this by spending all of five minutes with her?” I ask skeptically, even though I already know that Winslow’s assessment isn’t far off. From the small amount I’ve learned from Beau about her childhood, she didn’t have anyone there to care for or love her.

“Lonely recognizes lonely,” Winslow says simply.

“She wasn’t always alone. She had her brother,” I remind her.

Winnie gives me a look. “Did you not hear what she said tonight? She was there the night her brother died, she said she saweverythingthat happened. If that’s the truth, why didn’t she stop Jax from killing him?” she asks. “I don’t think her relationship with her brother is like the one you have with your siblings.”

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