Darling Wildfire (Red Rabbit #2)

17

NYX

As soon as North started arguing with Graham, I went back inside the house.

That was not my business and even though I agreed with Graham, North was not going to listen to anyone in regards to this and I had to respect that. I walked inside and found Kaelin trying to scrub the spray paint off her french doors.

“I have someone coming to do that,” I said.

“I need to do something,”

she said, dropping the brush back into the soapy water.

“Understandable,”

I said. “Do you have another one of those?”

We scrubbed in silence for a few minutes but from the scrunched up look on her face and the furious strokes of the brush; I knew I was in for a barrage of questions.

“Why is he such an asshole?”

She muttered.

I laughed out loud. “He is—but he means well.”

“Why won’t he tell me what’s going on?”

She threw down the brush.

“North is a complicated man,”

I put my brush down as well and pointed her to a barstool. “I’ll make some coffee—I take it you’re not going to be sleeping anytime soon.”

She gave me a small smile and sat down while I moved around the kitchen.

“How come you know the way around my kitchen so well?”

She asked suspiciously.

“Do you really want to know?”

I asked, winking at her.

She frowned but didn’t answer. She was quiet the entire time the coffee was brewing and when I put a spoonful of brown sugar into her coffee; she sighed as though she was resigning herself to something. I slid the mug across the counter to her.

“Sometimes I feel like I know you and Atlas better than I know Theron and I’m not even intimate with you guys,” she said.

“We can change that,”

I winked. “All you have to do is say the word, baby girl.”

She blinked and then laughed, taking a sip of her coffee. I watched some of the tension bleed away from her face.

“Not going to lie, I have thought about it.”

Her cheeks tinted an adorable pink as she buried her face in her mug again and warmth spread through me at the thought of her fantasizing about Atlas and I.

“We’ve thought about it too,”

I chuckled. “Regardless of that though, when you belong to North, you also belong to Atlas and I.”

“You guys are all close,”

she stated.

I nodded. “Circumstance brought us together but now I can’t imagine my life without either of them.”

“He still is such a mystery to me,”

she said in frustration.

“Like I said, he’s a complicated man,”

I shrugged. “But I will tell you this: he is the best leader I’ve ever had the honor of following.”

“But that doesn’t tell me who he is,”

she sighed.

“Sure it does—a good leader is dependable, adaptable, takes care of his people and is ruthless in the pursuit of their goals.”

“That sounds almost—honorable? I thought you guys killed people for a living?”

“A good leader doesn’t have to be a good person,”

I chuckled. “And I want to be clear, we are not heroes even though we can be selfless for each other at times.”

“You’ll burn the world, but only for the people you love?”

“Exactly—fuck everyone else.”

“I guess I just have to settle for that?”

She looked down into her mug of coffee, frowning in thought.

“Is it settling?”

“I just don’t like secrets…”

“He’s just trying to keep you safe.”

Kaelin looked up at me, and her eyebrows raised. “That’s keeping me safe?”

She gestured behind us at the french doors. “And I really hate what that implies—keeping me safe—from what? And why can’t I be included in helping to keep myself safe? I’d like to think I wouldn’t be that much of a liability.”

“I think it has more to do with the fact he didn’t anticipate having you be a factor in his life right now,”

Nyx said carefully. “I don’t think—no I know—he doesn’t know what to do with the feelings he has for you at a time when all of his energy needs to be directed elsewhere.”

“I don’t want to make things harder for him,”

she grumbled. “But I also don’t want to sit here and wait for shit to go down. It makes me feel like a possession of his.”

“Is that so bad?” I teased.

She hit me playfully on the arm but I could see the past lingering in her eyes.

“It just—scares me a little I guess because I was a possession to Cooper…”

she said. “Not that it’s the same at all—I don’t know…I’m not making sense,”

she finished lamely.

“I get it,” I said.

And I did. I understood exactly what she was feeling.

We’d been possessions to Vetticus. His toys he liked to play with—in all ways. We had been his obsession and it was not something I wanted to repeat.

I didn’t know what was going on in North’s head, honestly, that would be scary—but I did know I’d never seen him look at anyone the way he looks at Kaelin. It was like looking at a break in the storm that usually raged in his eyes. Anyone who could make him come out of the shadows, at least for a little bit, was important.

“How about I make us some pasta,” I said.

Kaelin’s eyebrows shot up. “You can cook?”

“Why is everyone always so surprised by that?”

I grumbled in exasperation.

Kaelin giggled. “I just usually only see you holding a gun, not a wooden spoon.”

“Well, let me show you one of my many skills then.”

I dug around in the fridge.

“You have more?”

I turned towards her, my arms full of supplies and gave her a cheeky grin.

“Baby, you’ll have to ask Daddy North for permission to see the other ones.”

Kaelin burst out laughing. I winked and vowed to spend the rest of the night pulling more of those from her.