Page 103 of Iris
Freya locks the door and waits by it, one heel pushed back against the wall, her arms crossed.
“She tell you that?” I gesture at Iris. Who smells too fucking good. Xav hasn’t moved for good reason. He doesn’t want to lose his diminishing control before he gets it back in grip.
“Yes. She wanted to tell you something, wanted me to see, but she went into the first throws of heat on the way. Mom suspects she’s ready for heat, but no one figured she was thisclose.” The girl frowns, her robe’s hood down. “We brought her here.”
“It’s the only place,” Icy whispers, hand on my waist, and my hormones are going haywire.
Flowers. Sex. The clean scent of rain that only intensifies everything instead of dulling it.
“You can’t stay here. I’m sorry, but we can’t help.”
“She has to,” Marigold says. “Iris can’t be on the streets like this. We have to get the car fixed to get home. Or we wait for Heath, but he’ll kill her.”
Their brother sounds like a piece of work.
It’s not our problem.
But I take in the faces in front of me and think of Emmie. She loves Iris.
“Once the tire is fixed, I’m going to have to go back home and smooth this over with my brother and Mom. They’ll believe me. But Iris needs to get to Pen. It’s the best place for her now.”
I have no idea who Pen is.
She sucks in a breath. “You’ll need to take her to Pen’s. It’s out of the way, but the directions are on Iris’s phone.”
“We shouldn’t.” It’s too dangerous. “Freya?—”
“I can’t drive. You know that,” Freya stops and looks the other Delta up and down. “Do you? We can take the guys’ car.”
The Delta shakes his head.
“Me neither,” Mari says.
Of course not. She’s probably always had chauffeurs taking her everywhere.
There’s a jingle of a cellphone ringing, and Mari pulls hers out of her dress’s pocket. Her face pales once she sees the screen. “Oh, no. It’s Heath.”
“Noooo…” Iris is trembling. “Don’t…”
“I need to take this or he’ll know something up,” she starts moving toward the door as the cell rings and rings. “Please, take her to Pen’s. She’ll know what to do.”
“I’ll stay with them,” Freya says. “Keep an eye on things.”
She means make sure we keep out fucking hands to ourselves.
I want to argue, push back, but Iris’s sister and the Delta servant are already out the front door before I can say a thing.
Well, shit.
“Listen.” Freya’s sharp words snap me back into reality for a second. “You two need to hold it together. Do you understand me? One of you is going to drive, and I’ll stay in the back with Iris. And no one is going to touch her.”
I blink. “Right.”
“Freeeeeyaaaa!” Emmie’s little voice comes from the top of the stairs, and all of us look that way. “It’s story time!”
“I’ll do it,” I say. “Xav, you go?—”
“Freeeeeyaaaa! Your turn!” Emmie continues to shriek.
