”and stupid—”

”—and selfless thing you’ve ever done.” From afar, the pair looked like they were in the throes of something intimate, a lover’s reconciliation, maybe even a marriage proposal. In reality, what they shared was loss and the physical exhaustion of constantly having to fight the urge to sob and break into a million pieces.

Lauren coughed and shifted deep into in her seat. ”I’m glad you came, Kenzi.”

”I’m glad you called.”

Lauren wrinkled one corner of her lips and allowed her mind to reach for Bo for a few seconds. Even that was too much. Her tongue was heavy with alcohol and she could hear her words slurring, ”I’m sorry about Hale and not being there for you today.”

”You’re here for me now.” Kenzi clinked her glass to Lauren’s then gave her an unexpected peck to her cheek, earning Kenzi a look of surprise. ”What? I lurve me some first class.”

The flight attendant arrived with a second bottle. ”Thank you,” Kenzi’s smile didn’t reach her eyes, ”and keep ’em comin’, lady, keep ’em comin’.”

~~

Midnight. One o’clock. Two, then three. Bo resisted the thought. Don’t I have enough on my plate? God! Dyson had taken off, shifting into his wolf and sprinting at full speed immediately following Hale’s funeral service. He’s surely baying at the moon, mourning his best friend, and possibly for weeks if his state of mind was anywhere near the way it had been when he gave his love to the Norn. Tamsin was still in residency in the attic—not much had changed upstairs, physically, except for the absence of her best friend. Almost four o’clock and Rainier had finally fallen asleep by her side. Did all the phones in the world stop working, or just hers and Kenzi’s? Lauren hadn’t picked up either and Bo sensed it, knew it, for she had been a runaway most of her life, too. Her pulse quickened and for a moment she could see them, shoulder to shoulder, sleeping, blonde hair mixing with hair as dark as night. No, she thought angrily, Kenzi is my bestie. Then, How could they leave me? How could they all leave me now?

”Are you all right,” his dark, honeyed voice cut through the worries of her mind and the silence of the living room.

She was about to tell Rainer about the ache ripping her chest, the pull in her heart. That she had a glimpse of Kenzi and Lauren together but she couldn’t see where. But that was impossible. She was a succubus not a psychic. She missed his strength but Dyson needed the time, and he could take care of himself. Kenzi, ninety pounds if that, knew her way around a katana and the streets but without Bo’s protection, well, the thought of where Kenzi would lay her head at night, or the relentless punishment the Fae would dole upon an unclaimed human—her human—if they found her, she had to stop those thoughts as her mind began to play the screams of a human being tortured. And then Lauren going behind her back to dig up dirt on Rainer, throwing her feelings into Bo’s face! I didn’t ask her to do anything for me. She wanted the break, not me. Now I’m the bad guy here? Bo had to laugh at herself. This is rich, isn’t it—my three best friends are gone. Except Rainer. She observed him, his proud walk, his graceful strides, clad only in pajama bottoms, his smooth, slender and muscular chest an invitation, a distraction during the loneliest hour on the loneliest street and in the heaviest heart in all of faedom.

”Are you all right,” he asked again. She wanted to ramble and curl herself up into a ball as she told him of the dandelions of worry tickling against her sanity. She wanted whatever war that was coming to be over. She wanted her family here. She wanted to finish the conversation she started with Lauren before Rainer walked in on them yesterday afternoon. She wanted to tell him these things and more but thought better of it. So she lied.

”I’m fine. Just couldn’t sleep is all.” She lowered her eyes at Rainer, took his hand and led him back upstairs to the bedroom thinking of Kenzi, thinking of Dyson, longing for her.