Wicked Ties (The Tether Trilogy Book 2)

Caz doesn’t trust Danica to be inside the castle again. It makes no sense, seeing as she got in once and could easily do it again, but he makes an agreement to let her and Warren sleep in the guesthouse.

Warren remains on the bed we collected from The Trench. I wasn’t aware that one side of the guesthouse’s wall could lift like a garage door until Rowan pressed a button to do so. They carried the bed Warren was on into the guesthouse in one piece.

I now watch from the corner of the room as Maeve sets up the folded bed, places a sheet on it, and tells Danica it’s where she can sleep if she prefers not to lie on the Trench bed. She then waltzes to the kitchen, returning with a spoon. She hands it to Danica, and Danica opens the elixir from Beatrix immediately, pouring the blueish liquid onto the spoon and force feeding it to Warren.

The liquid dribbles down Warren’s chin, and Danica wipes it away with her fingers. She presses her hands to my brother’s shoulders and lays him back on the bed. Relief fills her eyes and sinks into my veins as we watch Warren finally close his eyes and fall asleep. I move closer, stroking some of his locs away with a smile.

“You don’t mind if I stick around until he wakes up, do you?” I ask, side-eyeing Danica.

“No. Just stay in your own space and I’ll stay in mine,” she mutters.

I take it she has to warm up to me. Well, same here. I need to warm up to her. After Manx, I can’t trust a single soul outside of the clan. For all I know, this woman isn’t even Warren’s mate, but is pretending to be. A bit farfetched? Possibly. But people have lied about things much smaller than mating.

“You also won’t mind Juniper popping in, right?” I inquire just as Juniper walks through the front door.

Danica stands up straight, her eyes going up and down the length of Juniper. Juniper has changed from the black bodysuit to jeans and a fitted dark-green T-shirt. Her platform boots thud on the floor as she enters. A belt is around her waist with guns and other weapons strapped into separate sheaths.

“Might as well get used to my face ’cause you’ll be seeing a lot of it,” Juniper quips before raising a blackfruit to her mouth and chewing.

“What is this?” Danica demands, a deep frown taking over her. “I don’t need babysitters!”

“No one said you did,” Maeve interjects, raising a hand. “But you infiltrated before and lied about who you were. You’re lucky we don’t cut you down where you are. After all we’ve been through, we can’t take any chances.”

Danica huffs, folding her arms and taking a step back. As she does, Maeve holds out a hand. “What?” Danica snaps, glaring at it.

“Your Katana. Monarch Harlow says he’d like to keep it inside the castle under his watch until we get more information on you.”

Danica scoffs, her frown morphing into pure shock. “Are you serious?”

Maeve’s hand remains steady while one of her brows shift upward.

“My Katana is sacred. It is bound by my blood and the blood of my mother. I never let it out of my sight,” Danica declares.

“We understand, and we promise to take very good care of it.” Maeve gives her a smile that doesn’t reach her eyes.

“Look, if you want to stay here, and if you really care about my brother, you’ll hand it over,” I tell her, standing. “It’s your only option. You’ve met Caz. He’ll take your rejection as a reason to kick you out of Blackwater completely.”

“Don’t make this difficult, dear.” Maeve blinks at her, waiting, that hand still firm. Danica looks at each of us, and her eyes may as well be on fire, even her scarred eye. She’s livid, but Caz is right to do this. Danica is a vanisher, and she snuck inside once. She could have some ulterior motive that we know nothing about.

With pure reluctance, Danica unstraps her Katana from her body and shoves it into Maeve’s hand. “If I find so much as a scratch on—”

“Careful with your threats, dear,” Maeve interrupts. “I may seem kind, but I’m much older than you are, and believe me, what I can do is much more lethal than what your Katana can.”

Danica’s mouth clamps shut and she backs away, folding her arms again and facing the window.

“Killian and Rowan will keep an eye out as well, make sure no one leaves the castle grounds.” Maeve saunters toward the door as Juniper plops down on the sofa, crossing her legs and biting into the blackfruit. “I will have dinner sent down by our new house maiden in just a bit.”

“So, it did work out?” Juniper asks, elated.

“It did, yes! Makoto is a delight. He’ll be here soon, actually. He’s excited to meet everyone. By the way, Danica, do you prefer sourdough or ivory bread with your soups?”

Danica rolls her eyes, refusing to answer.

“Ivory bread it is.” And with that, Maeve is off, leaving the four of us in the guesthouse.

As soon as she’s gone, Danica whirls around and glares at me. “Just so we’re clear, as soon as Warren is awake, we’re getting the hell out of here.”

I try not to react to her outburst. She’s angry right now, and I get that. She’s full of emotion and not thinking clearly, so I say, “I haven’t seen my brother in two years. We’re twins. I highly doubt he’ll just up and leave when he sees me.”

Her good eye twitches, then she looks around, huffing. She picks up a bag she brought along with her (one that Caz had thoroughly inspected by Juniper) and slings it over her shoulder. “Whatever. Can you two at least get the hell out for ten minutes so I can take a shower?”

“Do you think we were born yesterday?” Juniper laughs. “You can take your clothes into the bathroom with you and change, which, by the way, have no windows. I’m not sure if you’ve figured it out or not yet, but we literally don’t trust you.”

“When I came here, it was only to save my mate. That’s it,” Danica declares.

“The fact that you dressed up as a caterer’s assistant, followed us inside the castle and made tea, and then snuck behind our backs to get to Willow was sneaky,” Juniper snorts. “Why couldn’t you be practical about it and just knock on the fucking door?”

“I considered that, but there were wolves guarding the castle.”

I smile at that. “Silvera and Cerberus.” Yeah, they’d probably have torn her to shreds.

“Whatever.” Danica moves across the room, stopping at the bathroom door. “Like I said, I did it for my mate. Plus, I had to see if Willow was actually his twin. I didn’t want to go to Caz until I knew for sure she was Warren’s sister. When I saw her, I knew. And I waited for a moment she was alone to speak to her.” She enters the bathroom, slamming the door behind her. My eyes slide to Juniper when I hear the shower start up, creating a noise barrier.

“What do you think?” I ask in a low voice.

Juniper shrugs. “I think it is true Warren is her mate, but I still don’t trust her. We have no idea what her background was like before bonding with him. There are so many bad people in Vakeeli, Willow. Liars. Thieves. Manipulators. Rapists. Herders, which are people who kidnap children and sell them to molesters. The bloody Rippies.” She finishes off her blackfruit, tossing the core into an empty trash bin. “Once Caz gets information on her and it’s solid, I’ll feel better.”

“She’s just one woman though,” I whisper.

“Yeah, one woman with a Katana sword who can vanish and has Regal power in her blood. We’ve not seen anything like her before. She’s dangerous.”

I sigh, sitting on the sofa next to her. “We can’t help who we mate with, can we?”

Juniper’s head shakes as she wraps an arm around me and focuses on Warren sleeping soundlessly on the bed. “No, we can’t. Your brother could be so in love with her without knowing a thing about her past. All he could know is what she presented to him when she met him.”

“That’s true.”

“It’s no different than when we took you in, if you think about it. None of us really trusted you, but you grew on us. And if this Danica person isn’t a piece of shit, we’ll know that. Until then, don’t stress about it much. She’ll be okay. At least we didn’t make her pitch a tent on the beach.” She laughs, and I laugh with her.

“Caz would literally do something like that just to piss her off.”

“He definitely would. The asshole.”

We laugh again, leaning back and staring out the window. My hope is that we can trust Danica in the end. She seems passionate about Warren, and protective, just like Caz is about me. What would she even gain by lying to us about being his mate? Nothing, really. Decius is gone (for now, at least) and no one can get to him because they’ll have to go through Korah, one of the strongest beings of Vakeeli. Then again, the only reason I am thinking all this is because the last thing any of us needs is a betrayal. After Manx, I’m not sure I can handle any more.