Page 77 of The Alpha’s Unclaimed Mate

“Yeah, yeah.” Cole gestures with his head. “Now stop looking so serious. Your girlfriend is watching.”

They head for the house, bickering over the last of the food, the weight already lifting off them the second there’s a task to chase. I hold back in the dark a beat longer.

Four of us stand between my family and everything closing in, a syndicate of hunters, a poison that shouldn’t exist, whatever crew put my brother in the ground. It doesn’t feel like enough.

I keep seeing the signet ring, curled in a dead girl’s fist so far from home. I’ve grieved Daniel a whole decade and never once thought to ask the right question. I trusted my uncle to oversee the investigation, so mad in my own grief that all I could see was Bella and how to hold on to her. I should have taken part in the investigation. I should have pushed.

My eyes harden.

Whoever is behind this won’t stay hidden for long. They made one mistake, leaving that ring in the ground, and I’m going to dig the whole thing out until I’ve got them by the throat.

Chapter Sixteen

Jessa

Zaheela says my daughter is mending, and I still can’t unclench my hands.

Two mornings after the festival, I’m holding up the doorframe of the spare room while the gray-haired healer bends over Mia, working her fingers along the small jaw, pressing behind each ear, tipping the girl’s chin up toward the lamp. Through the whole exam, Mia sits patient on the cot, one socked foot swinging.

“Better.” She straightens with a hand pressed to her lower back. “Much better than the child you brought me. Her color’s back, her pulse runs steady.” She studies Mia’s eyes a beat longer. “You’re doing well, little one.”

Relief loosens my chest, though I don’t let it show. “So she’s all right then.”

“She’s on the mend,” Zaheela allows, packing her satchel without rush. “I’d keep her in the same surroundings a while yet. Familiar walls, familiar faces, no upheaval. It helps the body recover.”

Mia’s head lifts. “Does that mean I can’t go to school?”

“You can go to school.” Zaheela starts on something more, then bites it off, her gaze cutting to Marcus at the window.

He answers with a small nod, and she starts over. “You can go to school,” she says and leaves the rest unsaid.

Marcus pushes off the sill. “The girls stay close to the house for now. I’ll be here with them. So will Jessa.”

I come off the frame. “Both of them? Here?”

“For now.” His eyes stay on the healer instead of me, which sets my teeth on edge.

Zaheela slings the satchel over one shoulder, pats Mia’s knee, and lets herself out into the hall. I wait until the front door clicks shut. Then I turn on him.

“Is there something you should be telling me?”

Marcus meets my look without flinching. “I’ve told you what you need to know for now.”

“That’s not an answer.” I cross my arms. “You’re keeping half of this from me, I can feel it. If it touches my daughter, I get to know everything.”

He crosses the room and stops an arm’s length off. “I asked you for a few days, and I meant it.”

“You keep asking me for things.” My voice climbs, and I drag it down before it alerts the girls. “Days. Trust. I hand them over, and I’ve gotten nothing back.”

“You’ve got a roof over your heads where neither of you has to look over your shoulder.” His voice is quiet. “Mia’s here because nowhere else is safer for her. We don’t know who slipped her that poison. Until we do, it could happen again.”

“That was at a festival, though. She won’t be near another one for—”

“It won’t be a stranger with cotton candy next time.” He cuts across me, and my breath stops in my throat. “Next time it’s a needle in a crowd, a package left at your door. The hand could belong to anyone, Jessa, and the only place I can watch every door at once is right here.”

Blood drains out of my face. I feel it go.

“Why would anyone go after her? She’s just a kid.”