It was lunchtime in the hospital, and the food trolley was making its rounds somewhere along the ward. Jess had been fed already. I'd snuck as many of her chips as she had been able to spare, so I wasn't exactly starving, but the smell of food was making my stomach think otherwise.
Five days had passed in the timeless, distorted world of needles and relentless cleanliness. We'd had a lot of visitors. Maggie had brought Bran over twice a day because we both missed him to death. Alex and Evie had diverted their visit to the hospital instead and spent a good few hours playing Monopoly with us. And Eira had been in and out whenever she felt like it, naturally. She'd been sharing the tapping workload, so I wasn't as tired as I might have been.
And, now, finally, Jess had been discharged not five minutes ago, so we were gathering her belongings for the long trek back to the car. I'd been back to the castle to fetch clothes twice. There was enough stuff to fill a duffel bag, which was slung over my shoulder as soon as it was full. Jess slipped a few stray packets of biscuits into my jacket pockets. She was sat on the end of her bed.
"Back to the castle?" she asked.
"No, actually," I said, setting Lee's scrap of paper into her lap. "If you're feeling up to it..."
She looked at the address for a long moment. "Rhodric?"
We'd been basking in the mate bond these last few days, so this wasn't confusion. She knew exactly what Scott had been up to.
"What is it?" I asked.
Jess crossed her legs and peered at me. "Maybe if we leave him alone, he'll forget about it. I mean ... he's angry enough as it is. You've already threatened to kill him, and it hasn't put him off, has it? Short of actually killing him, there isn't a damn thing we can do to make him stop."
She ... she had a point. I couldn't just do nothing, though. There wasn't a bone in my body capable of doing nothing. "I could have another go at his mind. Take Eira this time."
"Yeah, because that went so well last time. He nearly killed you, didn't he? The whole hallway went pitch black."
"That wasn't us, Jess," I said slowly, trying my best not to laugh at her. "That was just the electricity. The mind-link can't do that."
She scowled. "Oh. Well, whatever. I felt you slipping, and it's not worth the risk."
I sat down beside her. "Not even if you were standing by, ready to shank him?"
"No. I don't want to be a single parent, thank you very much," Jess murmured, kissing the side of my neck. It was quite distracting, and that was probably her intention. If I hadn't been on the brink of caving already, that would have pushed me over.
"Then we'll just look. Is that okay?"
She thought about it for a moment, and then she gave me the tiniest of nods.
***
"It's so ... ordinary," Jess murmured. "His car isn't here, though, so maybe he's moved."
I stared at the house. It was a modest-sized terrace with chipped paint and a battered red front door. "Let's find out."
And I opened the car door. I was out before Jess could catch my sleeve, and I was halfway up the driveway before she could shout at me. There were no houses opposite, so it was safe enough to peer through the windows without even making a show of ringing the doorbell first.
There were kids' toys strewn all over the floor. I could even see the edge of a highchair in the dining room. Either we had the wrong address, or Scott didn't live here anymore. I gave Jess a thumbs-down and trudged to the neighbouring door. I wasn't giving up so easily.
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YOU ARE READING
Unhappily Ever After
Manusia SerigalaRhodric Llewellyn is the grandson of a rogue folk hero. When he arrives in Snowdonia, he becomes a rallying point for the outcasts of the shifter world. They're all thieves and murderers, but thieves and murderers make brilliant friends when everyon...