Page 13 of The Souls We Claim
“Thank you.”
“Thank me by taking better care of yourself,” he grumbles, and with that he turns and marches out of the room, letting the door close behind him with a slam.
5
HALO
Iwant to punch something.
No, I want to punch someone.
Preferably the douchebag of a husband Arianne has. Little thing is cute as a fucking button and doesn’t deserve what he’s done to her. I don’t even care if she fucked his best friend in their bed—a man should never lay a hand on a woman unless it’s the way her kink floats.
But the mosaic of colors, and now stitches, on her face steps way beyond that.
I push the image of her in my T-shirt from my memory because there’s a piece of me that wants to keep her somewhere safe. Which is not here, not with this club, and not with me.
Spark steps out of his room. He’s bent over while Lola clings to his fingers, doing the cute bob-and-wiggle walk she does. She’s laughing, and I hear Iris joke about Spark looking like a croissant.
“Hey,” I say. “Thanks for looking out for her.”
Spark looks up, lifts Lola into the air, then hands her back to me. “Can I say something? Real talk?”
I nod. “Shoot.”
“She’s your kid now. I know, not biologically. But she’s yours until you follow through on that plan to hand her off to someone else permanently. Iris is always going to say yes to you every time you ask. She’s a kindergarten teacher, so of course she’s going to. But she’s thirteen weeks pregnant and fucking tired. It’s okay that she’s your plan B when you need some help, but you’re treating her like she’s your plan A.”
“Spark,” Iris says, coming to the door of their room in the clubhouse. “That’s not fair. Halo’s doing his best.”
“Is he?” Spark asks, looking straight at me.
The wings of shame flutter in my chest. “I’ll get it sorted. The woman who just came through here? She’s Mercy’s sister. Just met her. But hopefully I can get her set up to take on Lola.”
“You think?” Spark asks.
“It would be good for her to be taken in by family, even if it’s not you,” Iris says. “But are you sure? I know it can be hard to look after family. I love my brother Michael to pieces, and, yes, he requires extra commitment and effort with all his needs. But that window of time when Uncle Cillian kept me from him was awful. And look how Clutch misses his brothers. Don’t make decisions in grief that you can’t undo later.”
Spark puts his arm over her shoulder and tucks her into his side. I envy their dynamic. In the unthinkable event I were ever to take on an old lady, I’d want a woman I can really take care of. One who’ll let me make decisions for both of us. Maybe it’s all those years spent doing work where lives were lost if my team didn’t do exactly as I ordered, but I find it hard to live my personal life in a world so wild.
More than that, my kinks lean to a woman needing me to do that for her.
Control makes my world make sense.
“Understood.”
Spark steps back into his room, leaving Iris, who glances up at me apologetically. “I’m sorry.”
“I got it,” I reassure her.
When the door shuts, I look at Lola. “I’m really fucking this up, aren’t I?”
She babbles in reply.
“Yeah. I think you’re right.”
She babbles some more, then punctuates it with a squeal.
“You don’t need to be so rude about it,” I joke, even as I wonder what she’s saying.
