Chapter Thirty-Watching You

I smiled at the blue-eyed angel striking down demons with his flowing blonde hair trailing behind him on the church wall. “Well, Michael, isn’t this some shit?”

Believe it or not, I like churches. I’m not always a naughty witch; I like having good conversations with interesting people.

Haldir has been to the other realm many times, so I knew without a doubt that there was life beyond this one and that someone was watching over us. Maybe not the same kind of thing that these folks believed in, but it wasn’t that far off.

See, we supers have a whole other world waiting for us. It’s not heaven; it’s like another reality. Our lives here are more like a vacation, memories that we can look back on during the long unending years of our lives in the other realm. That life in the realm, that is our real life, but it’s hard to remember that sometimes when you’re wrapped up in the kind of three-way drama that I am.

The voice that delivered the funeral came from over my shoulder. “It’s just beautiful, isn’t it?”

“Very.” I pushed out my lips and nodded. “But I know that fella personally and” — I pointed at the mural and shook my head as I glanced back at the priest— “he sure as hell don’t look like that.”

His eyes narrowed at me, and he shrugged. “No, I suppose he wouldn’t.” He mirrored me as I inched along the periphery and studied the renderings. “I didn’t think witches came to churches, not that you’re not welcome.”

I lie pretty much every day of my life to everyone except Teddy and Haldir, but it didn’t sit right with me to bullshit a priest. “I’m a believer Father, it just doesn’t believe in me.”

His hands clasped behind his back, and his eyes moved over my face. Not in a creepy way. I think he’d just never met one of us before. “How so?”

My fingers uncurled as I recounted my life story. “My parents were murdered in front of me. I’ve been poisoned. Raised by a sword-wielding alcoholic. Lived in hiding for my whole teenage years. Now forcibly mated to two men I didn’t want.” I tipped my head and twisted my lips as I raised my eyebrows at him. “You’re going to tell me that someone up there gives a damn about me or what I want?”

He nodded, and his hand covered his mouth as he tried to think of something that would fit the particular situation I found myself in. “The glory is in the struggle.”

I chuckled and slapped his back. “Let’s hope so. I’m counting on all this trauma paying off someday.”

I glanced away and saw Logan standing in the doorway. I have no doubt he heard what I said to the Father, and my heart sank a bit. I didn’t say anything that wasn’t true, but I knew that part about being forced to live with two men I didn’t want was hurting him. I could feel it in the way he looked at me.

The whole ride home to our house, Logan didn’t speak to me or look at me. It’s not my fault that he has super wolf hearing; I was just being honest.

Jacob, being Jacob, tried to break the icy tension in the air. “You know what we should do? The three of us should go out tomorrow. To dinner or something and get out of the house. It’s been a tense couple of weeks, and we could use a distraction.”

I looked out the window at the orchards and pastures as we passed by. “That does sound nice.”

He turned around in his seat and peeked back at me. “Where do you want to go, Darlin?”

My lip curled, and I shrugged. There was nightlife and restaurants everywhere in my neighborhood back home, and I’m sure whatever this town had couldn’t compare. “These are your stomping grounds; it doesn’t matter to me.”

His cheeks puffed before he blew out and rolled his eyes across the ceiling. “Wilson’s has a private room we can use.”

“Private?” I laughed and smoothed back my hair. “We may as well stay at home. If I know you two at all, we’ll never make it through the meal.”

The light shifted across the SUV as the garage door lifted, and Jacob held up his hands. “I swear I’ll keep my hands to myself until we get home.”

Logan opened my door to let me out, and Jacob followed us inside. The house smelled like sex, and I decided I should clean since there wasn’t really anything else to do, plus I didn’t feel like being the one to break the silence.

I’ve never used a washing machine in my life, so I pressed at the buttons until something happened and I saw Logan in the glass. “You reckon it’d be alright if I brought my housekeeper here to live with us. I can’t be doing this shit on the regular.”

He leaned against the doorway, and his arms crossed his chest. “You know, I thought we were past all this stuff Tess.”

I trilled my lips and turned to face him. “I told you I don’t do housework.”

He waved me off with his hand and pushed out his lips. “You know what the fuck I’m talking about. This whole we’re forcing you to be with us shit. You want to be here as much as we want you here.”

I stopped in front of him and poked my finger into his chest. “I said what I said. If you don’t like it, then you should’ve done different.”

Before I could get more than a few steps, his hand was around my wrist, dragging me back. “So, you want to leave?”

I shook my head and leaned into the other side of the doorway. “I didn’t say that, but you can’t rewrite our history, Logan. What happened, happened, and I’m not going to sugarcoat it just to make you feel better about it.”

My hands flung up in the air beside me. “I don’t know if I’d still be around if you two hadn’t marked me. None of us will ever know if any of this is real or not. But I’m at peace with that. I’m happy here. Just let this go.”

“Not real?” His hand wiped his mouth, and for the first time since I met him, he didn’t have a comeback. He was speechless. He stormed away down the hall, then turned on his heel and rushed at me. “It’s hard to let it go when you just keep throwing it up in my face.”

If he thought I was about to back down and apologize, he had another thing coming. “It was a private conversation, Logan; you weren’t meant to hear it. I didn’t mean to stir the pot, but if you want me to tell you that I’m thankful now that you marked me, well, I’m not. It was a shitty thing to do. I know it’s tradition, but I’m not a fucking werewolf.”

I flicked my fingers against the scar on my neck. “This thing doesn’t protect me; it’s a fucking chain. Even if I wanted to leave, I couldn’t. That’s not love; that’s slavery. You’ll never know now if I love you because I chose to or if it’s just because this bite makes it so.”

I pointed my finger gun to my head. “Doesn’t that even bother you in the slightest?”

I knew it did. Why he was constantly looking for something in my eyes, it made him crazy. “You were wrong, Tess, what you said about no one watching over you. You coming here was proof of it. Everything that happened before you came here was just terrible, but that’s over now. If no one else on Earth or up above is watching over you, just know that I am whether you like it or not.”