Escaping Death

Chapter 23

Hunter

"Do you want me to come with you guys?" Dean offers and soon I can feel my anxiety dulling away into the background of my mind.

"No, I'll be fine. They'll need you more than we do." He nods with understanding. Days like today are the toughest, the ones where we're all multitasking. But that's how we've grown to operate – always fighting wars on multiple fronts.

My challenge today is getting our payout and not getting killed by Solana. With any luck I may even be able to get her to hear me out, but judging by the way she reserves her scowls exclusively for me I doubt she'll make it easy on me. Not that she ever has, and not that she is even now. I know she knows I'm watching her, though. I know she knows I see Eli standing behind her at the sink with his arms around her as they wash dishes together. I know she knows I see the looks she and Tate share from his position seated on the counter next to the sink.

"You know she still loves you, right?" Dean says, dragging my attention away from Sol and back to him.

"Don't be ridiculous," I scoff at him and slam down the last of my morning caffeine.

"Think about it, Hunt. Would she still be this hurt if she didn't still love you?"

I huff out a grunt and turn my head towards Solana, making sure Dean can follow my line of sight. "Looks to me like she's moved on," I sulk.

Dean shakes his head and chuckles, "that's harmless. That's a game that started at Caligo well before we knew who she was."

"Somehow, Dean, knowing they're betting on who can get into her pants faster doesn't make me feel better. But thanks." I walk over and place my mug in the sink making sure my hand brushes against hers and harpooning Eli with a warning look. Eli backs off of her immediately but remains next to her.

The air is tense with unspoken anger – Sol's anger towards me, Dean's anger towards his brother and Eli, and my anger towards pretty much everyone in this house.

"Time to go." Ace's voice is like a boom of thunder against the static charge building in the air around us. He studies each of us with discerning eyes but says nothing more.

Tate jumps off the counter and disappears into the shadows.

Pussy.

Eli drops a chaste kiss to Sol's shoulder and then follows Dean out to the cars.

"I'll send her out in a minute," Ace dismisses me and I make my leave but before I turn the corner I look back and catch Ace whispering something in Sol's ear. His cheek is pressed to the side of her head and his mouth grazes the top of her ear.

To anyone else it might seem like an innocent enough sight but Ace doesn't do gentle, so for him this act is almost...intimate.

I can't blame him. Sol is just like her mother, she's magnetic to everyone around her and she doesn't even have to try. I'm not sure what about it angers me — is it the fact that every guy in this house knows who she is to me and yet they're courting her like fucking peacocks, or is it that she's letting them?

A few minutes later Solana climbs into the passenger seat of my car and from the lack of heat radiating off of her I'd say that whatever Ace told her calmed her down.

Our ride begins silently, the only sound to be heard is the cool wind whipping through our open windows. It's killing me to be this close to her again and not be able to touch her. I'm fighting against muscle memory to keep from holding her hand, or squeezing her thigh, or tucking the stray strand of hair behind her ear.

That's another thing I wanted to ask her about — her hair. Every woman in her family has the same pearlescent white hair. Her grandmother, Ianthe, her mother, and her sister, Calla. Solana was no exception. The only thing more singularly stunning than her hair were her eyes — another dominant trait passed down by her mother — bright green flames, always burning. Evergreen.