Free Monster Mine by Meg Collett

change
out of the stiff, scratchy scrubs someone had dressed me in when I
came here, Sunny and Hatter went across the hall to their room to
grab their jackets. Luke stayed behind, standing between the door
and me. While I changed, I kept my eyes averted from the large
mirror above the simple porcelain vanity. No frills, I noticed,
just function. The only thing in my mother’s bathroom that
resembled comfort came from the antique claw-foot tub with an array
of dusty candles and half-empty bottles of bath wash. I imagined
her in here, soaking after a long hunt, with her feet propped up on
the tub’s edge and her hair piled into a messy bun on top of her
head.
    To distract myself, I called out to
Luke through the bathroom’s open door, “You’re sick,
then?”
    “ She
exaggerated.”
    “ You’re full of
shit.”
    No response, but I could picture his
grumpy, brooding face, his brow creased into tanned wrinkles. If
we’d been back at the university, before all this, he would’ve
snapped something back at me, likely calling me some name, and I
would’ve called him something else. It would’ve gone on until one
of us kissed the other and we ended up in bed. Instead, after a
long silence, during which I’d buttoned up the jeans, which fit
well, and pulled on the red coat, I said, “You should let her treat
you.”
    “ There’s no
time.”
    I leaned over and pulled on the boots,
zipping them up over the jeans. When that was done, I yanked my
hair into a ponytail and walked out of the bathroom. In front of
Luke, I leveled a hard stare on him. “I know what you’re going to
do.”
    His eyes narrowed. “What’s
that?”
    “ You’re going to make Thad
pay for waiting to get me.”
    The way his face went carefully
neutral told me all I needed to know. Luke was never neutral. But
this wasn’t his fight. I didn’t even know if it was mine. Things
between Thad and I were shaky at best, but if I was right about the
reasons he’d changed his name and how he’d regretted having to
wait, then it wasn’t him Luke should hate.
    It was my father. The man I was
moments away from meeting.
    “ Don’t do it,” I
said.
    “ He deserves to hurt as
much as you did—and more.” His fingertips started tapping against
each other in their odd rhythm. I heard his calluses scraping
against each other.
    “ You’re not going to touch
him. I mean it. It wasn’t his call. I’ll deal with
this.”
    Luke rounded on me as I tried to step
around him, but he didn’t touch me. “You mean you’ll deal with your
father. How are you going to do that?” His brows spiked. He was
mocking me. “By helping him hunt? You shouldn’t go out there with
him. He can’t be trusted. He’s proved that.”
    “ Maybe you should have
thought about this when Sunny offered to treat you. But you didn’t.
So now you’re in no condition to stop me, are you? And you’re in no
condition to take on Thad in a fight or whatever you had planned.
Next time, you might want to consider not being such an asshole and
listening to Sunny, huh? And stop taking the saliva. You’re going
to kill yourself.”
    I stepped around him and headed toward
the door. Luke followed me, his teeth gritted against the words I
knew he wanted to say. Just outside the door, Hatter must have
heard our exchange, because he huffed out a laugh. “Do you want
your balls back now or later, brother?”
    The fuming vibrations coming off Luke
made the hairs on my arms stand on end. I used to crave this
feeling from him, of pushing him to the brink. It excited me, and
it terrified me now to realize it still did.
    Luke Aultstriver still got to
me.
    “ I don’t think this is
what Hex intended,” Ghost said to us as we converged on him in the
hall.
    “ We don’t give a fuck,”
Luke growled.
    “ Language,” Sunny snapped
and led the way down the hall.

 
     
     
    S E V E N
    Ollie
     
    W e separated at the stairs leading down into the warehouse. No
one was around to stop Sunny, Hatter,