Page 44 of Ravaged Wolf
“Abertha said this has to be handleddelicately.” Nia is still whispering, even though her mouth is right next to my ear.
Abertha. That explains it.
“Well, Rae asked him to fix her radio, and I didn’t want toorder him to leave. That would’ve been suspicious.” Rosie gives me a comforting pat on the back. “And everything is going to be fine. We ripped the Band-Aid off.”
“Damn, Rosie, you’re starting to sound like me,” Nia laughs.
“And you sound like me. Delicately? Since when do you handle things delicately?”
“Since the witch recruited us for this mission.” Nia sounds absolutely serious. “Don’t tell me you didn’t get the sense that this is a test. Mark my words—she’s planning anAvengers Assemble, and this is how we prove ourselves. Whatever she’s up to, I want to be on the original team. I don’t want to be added at the end for comic effect like Ant Man or something.”
I have no idea what Nia is talking about, but she is distracting me from my meltdown. I manage to sit up straight and wipe my face. I have no choice but to use the sleeve of my cardigan. If Mom saw, she’d have a conniption.
“Your imagination is running away with you. Abertha just wants us to be supportive,” Rosie says and smiles at me gently. “She cares about Izzy. And Trevor.”
“Abertha knows Trevor?” I ask. My sinuses are so swollen, I sound like a goose.
“She brought him here, with Alec’s Granddad and the other Salt Mountain refugees,” Rosie explains. “Alec is Flora’s mate. And Flora is the lady with the tea.” As if on cue, Flora arrives, sets a crowded tray on the table, and then sinks into a seat.
Nia grabs an oatmeal cookie from a heaped plate, sticks the whole thing in her mouth, and proceeds to pour all of us a cup of tea.
Flora takes over the explanation. “Things are apparently getting a little hairy at Salt Mountain now that Leith Munroe is alpha. It was decided that it would be best to evacuate the more vulnerable folks—the elders and the sick and the young unmated females who don’t have male relatives. Abertha led the group here. Trevor carried Granddad all the way. He took out a pack of ferals that was stalking them, too.”
A small glow warms my chest. It feels strange to be proud of him, but still—I tuck the story away so I can take it out and consider it more later.
Nia sets a steaming cup of tea in front of me. The floral pattern on the chipped saucer doesn’t match the pattern on the cup, and the flowers on the cup don’t match the flowers on the teapot. The dessert plate she passes me piled with cookies has a blue and white Chinoiserie pattern, with, for some inexplicable reason, pterodactyls and a rampaging Sasquatch running through the classic temple scene.
“Here.” Flora passes me a bottled water. “Drink this while your tea cools. You need to hydrate.”
Rosie plucks an orange from a bowl on the tray and peels it with her thumbnail. “Trevor’s been here for a few months now, and Cadoc says he doesn’t know what we’d do without him. Alec is so busy rehauling our infrastructure,he doesn’t have time to fix all the little things that break in a given week. Trevor has really come in clutch. He fixed my pocket watch.”
“He rewired the kill switch on Pritchard’s bike,” Nia adds, nabbing a peeled orange slice from the pile Rosie’s started.
“He’s supposed to be fixing my rabbit’s hutch as we speak.” Flora blows on her tea.
“What happened to Harriet’s hutch?” Nia asks.
“I pried off a few of the slats like Rosie told me.” Flora takes a sip.
“Why’d you do that?” Nia asks Rosie.
“That was the ruse to get Trevor away from the den when Izzy arrived.”
Nia snags another orange slice. “Where’s poor Harriet?”
“Keeping Miss Nola company, watching cop shows, probably.” Flora gives me a smile. “Miss Nola raised me. She’ll be so delighted to meet you. She loves Trevor.”
My chest twinges. I can’t be jealous, but that’s what it feels like. “What did Abertha say to you about me?” I ask to change the subject.
I don’t want to examine that twinge too closely. Would it be worse to be jealous of an elderly female because she actually knows my mate? Or to be jealous of my mate because everyone here seems to like him, and even though I’m useful to my pack now that I’m a healer, I can’t imagine people thinking about me, let alone speaking highly of me, when I’m not around.
Rosie smacks Nia’s creeping fingers and snatches up an orange slice for herself. “You want to hear everything she said?” she asks me. “Even the rough stuff?”
My stomach knots. I feel raw and fragile and so far out of my depth that I’m in the middle of the ocean. Still, I say, “Yes.”
Rosie hands me the orange slice she saved. I clutch it a little too tight, but it doesn’t squish.
“She said that when you mated Trevor, you were both young. Your parents and Howell Owens pressured you to wait, and threatened Trevor’s family. Trevor went into rut and raped you. He was exiled to Salt Mountain.”
