Only the Strong, стр. 37
“Young lady?” Zoe snorted. “I haven’t been young in a very long time.”
“You’re younger than me and you fit right in with my brood,” he fired back.
“Does that mean you’re going to ground me?”
“No, but I have a dungeon in the basement. I’ll lock you down there until you start making sense.”
“Oh, fun.” Aric took another sip of his drink. “This should go over well.”
Zoe scorched him with a look. “You’re not helping.”
“Oh, I didn’t realize I was supposed to be helping. I thought that, since you went off and did your own thing that could’ve resulted in bloody death today, I was also allowed to do whatever I wanted.”
“Well, great.” Zoe hopped to her feet and strode toward the bar cart. Apparently everyone was going to join in on the drinking fun today. “This conversation is going just about as well as I expected.”
As if things weren’t bad enough, a new sound took over the room when Aisling strode in with a wailing Lily on her hip. If I thought Zoe looked frazzled, that was nothing compared to the look on Aisling’s face.
“Take this,” she announced, striding to her father and extending the baby in his direction. “Right now.”
Rather than argue, Cormack accepted his wailing granddaughter and immediately started patting her back. “It’s okay, sweetheart. Grandpa has you. Everything is going to be okay.”
“She hasn’t stopped screaming for two hours,” Aisling announced to the room, her eyes wild. “Two hours of ... that.”
Baffled, I glanced between the baby and her mother. “What happened to her?”
“The S-H-O-T-S.”
She was spelling again, which made me remember the conversation this morning. “Oh, no. Was it really that bad?”
“What do you think?”
Lily screamed even louder as Cormack readjusted her.
“This can’t be normal,” he said as he pressed a kiss to the baby’s forehead. “She sounds like she’s being killed.”
Aisling merely stood there for a moment and then waved her hand. “Watch her thighs. That’s where she was injected and ... she’s really not happy.”
“Oh, Grandpa’s poor little girl,” he cooed as he straightened her out and pressed her to his chest. “I’m so sorry this happened to you.”
“Oh, don’t look at me that way,” Aisling snapped at Braden who, sure enough, was eyeing his sister as if she were about to go on a rampage and skin puppies. “It had to be done, Braden. We don’t want her dying of some disease that was eradicated a hundred years ago. She needs her shots.”
Griffin padded into the room at this point, his eyes weary as he glanced at Cormack and his daughter. Then, without further ado, he moved to the drink cart. “Baby, what do you want?”
“Vodka.”
“With what?”
“Just the fifth.”
He choked out a strangled laugh but didn’t offer up a word of complaint.
“I think this meeting is going swimmingly,” Zoe offered. “Maybe we should all get drunk and pretend we’re not fighting.”
Aisling perked up. “Who’s fighting?”
“Everyone,” Sami answered with her mouth full of licorice. “Dad is mad at Mom because she went with Izzy and broke into some dude’s house. They found gates in his basement and Mom walked through one. Mr. Grimlock is mad at both of them, although he can’t decide what he should be madder about, so he’s focusing on that screaming baby. This one is mad, too, but he’s decided to wait until later to pick a fight.” She jabbed her thumb at Braden. “As for me, Dad says I can have my phone back and even though he’s turning into a day-drinker, I’m okay with it because I believe people should be free to be whoever they want.”
Aisling smirked at the teenager. “You’re really growing on me.”
“You can keep her,” Aric muttered.
Zoe opened her mouth — to say what I couldn’t say — but she snapped her head toward the door out of nowhere and stared. Her reaction was jarring and had me slowly getting to my feet. I was expecting a fight, some strange enemy somehow attacking out of nowhere, but instead a familiar figure strolled through the door as if he didn’t have a care in the world.
His hair was as wild as I remembered, and he still wore no shoes. His grin was pleasant as he glanced from face to face, and it was Zoe he ultimately landed on. “Hello, mage. I thought I scented you earlier.”
Zoe didn’t bother getting up. “Hello, Bob. Long time no see.”
Twelve
“I remember you.”
Sami abandoned her licorice and got to her feet, her gaze trained on the newcomer. I knew him as Cernunnos, the horned god of the wilderness. Zoe knew him from before, something that he’d admitted to me when we were first introduced on the other side of the gate. I was still fuzzy on their relationship.
“And I remember you, Samantha.” Cernunnos smiled at her. “You’ve grown some since our last meeting. I’m certain your tongue is even sharper than before.”
“You helped me.” Sami seemed to be in awe of him. “You helped me save my mom.”
I shifted my eyes to Zoe on the couch and found her rubbing her forehead. She looked tense ... and then some.
“You supplied the power to save your mother,” Cernunnos replied. “I simply guided you a bit.” He shifted his eyes to Aisling. “Hello, Mistress Mouth.”
Aisling arched an eyebrow. “I would say it’s good to see you again but we both know that’s a lie.”
“Yes, the hours I spent with you felt like centuries ... and I should know because I’ve lived through a millennia.”
“You’re welcome.” Aisling accepted a drink from Griffin and they sat on another sofa together.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, worry overtaking