Free Oracles' Light [PUP Squad Alpha 8] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) by Abby Blake Page A

kitchen.
    “Yes,” Angus replied. He didn’t want to make things worse for Dyson, but he needed to know what had gone on between them. One minute their relationship with Kristen had been fun and amazing, and the next it wasn’t.
    “What happened that morning?”
    Dyson seemed to not want to answer, but then he shrugged as if it were no big deal and mumbled, “I told her I loved her. Apparently, it was something she didn’t want to hear.”
    “Did anyone ever tell you your timing sucks?”
    “The thought has occurred to me,” Dyson said with a self-deprecating laugh. He leaned against the bench, crossed his legs at the ankles, and rubbed his eyes tiredly. “But she was pulling away from both of us before then. I know you felt it, too.”
    “I did,” Angus admitted. Somehow it had been easier to blame Dyson than to look at the situation more objectively. It couldn’t have been easy for Dyson to deal with Kristen’s rejection on the same day that his best friend had been revealed as the traitor, but Dyson had continued protecting Kristen and doing his job. Somehow the man had found the strength to keep putting one foot in front of the other as his whole world fell apart around him. “Do you love her?” Considering the timing of Dyson’s declaration, it was very possible it had been a knee-jerk reaction to Jason’s betrayal.
    Again, Dyson rubbed his eyes before answering. “I think I do, but there’s also a part of me that thinks maybe we don’t know the woman as well as we thought we did. Did you know we got her fired?”
    “How?” They hadn’t even been able to track down where she was actually working. How the hell could they have managed to get her fired?
    “The transport company where we went looking for her. It turns out she worked there for six years.”
    “But the boss and several other employees denied knowing her. Were they protecting her?”
    “No,” Dyson said, shaking his head as if he couldn’t quite believe what had happened. “They literally had no idea who she was. It’s like she was invisible. None of them ever noticed her.”
    “Do you think that’s why she often seems to do the exact opposite of what her instincts tell her?”
    “That’s my guess,” Dyson said, glancing up at the ceiling as if he could somehow see into the bedroom upstairs. “She probably lived in the apartment we had listed for her as well. She just somehow never made an impression on anyone.”
    “How is that possible?” Angus asked as he tried to imagine going through life without anyone noticing he was there. “She’s an amazing woman with an incredible heart. How the fuck didn’t anyone notice?”
    “I think maybe she’s been going against her nature ever since she met us. You know the way she is when she cooks? She just gets in and does the job. She doesn’t ask for thanks, or expect help, or even think she deserves it. She just does it and then goes on to the next task. I think that’s who she really is. The argumentative, stand-up-for-herself woman that we’ve seen is her trying to break out of that biddable personality that basically left her invisible to others.”
    “So what changed? Surely you telling her you loved her shouldn’t have caused this sort of reaction.”
    “I’m not sure it did.” He laughed again in that self-deprecating sound that suggested nothing about this situation was funny. “My timing could have been better, but I think it was learning that the other Oracle’s receptacles had extraordinary powers that she doesn’t have that changed everything.”
    “I guess that makes sense. Being one of the six women we’d been searching for made her special, a part of something, part of a group. Learning that she didn’t share their skills must have felt like she was invisible once more.”
    “Exactly.”
    “So the fact that she wants her own room…”
    “Is her pulling away from us.”
    Now Angus could feel a headache forming behind his eyes. When he’d thought