Page 159 of The Final Cut

Her arms cross over her chest, a mirror of mine, only colder. Better trained, or maybe it’s just that she’s better at shoving the feelings down. “I couldn’t tell you about her. Not yet.”

“Why the hell not?”

“Because then you would have demanded to see her.”

“Yes. I’m funny that way. When my dead mother turns out to be alive, I develop a mild interest in conversation.”

“And Isabel would have had you right where she wanted you.” Delia’s voice tightens. “You would have walked right into her web because you thought blood meant answers. She would have killed you before you finished asking the first question.”

I hit my own chest with my fist, hard enough that pain blooms beneath my knuckles.

“That was my choice to make.”

Delia’s face goes pale.

“You took it from me,” I say.

Her eyes flash. “You have to stop being pissed at everyone who tries to protect you with the information they actually have, Reva.”

“Don’t make this sound reasonable.”

“It is reasonable.”

“It’s cowardly.”

The word hits. I see it. For half a second, Delia is not polished or cold or cutting. She is my sister in a chapel with raw knees, a little girl grown up in a bad dream no one rescued her from in time.

Her lips press together in a hard line, then part, but the door opens before she can answer.

Ever steps in first, broad shoulders filling the doorway, face unreadable in the warm lamplight. Shiloh is behind him, hair damp from a shower or the rain or both, eyes tired and too sharp. They look at Delia. Then at me. Then at the space between us, which probably has smoke curling off it.

Delia exhales through her nose.

“Maybe y’all can make her see sense,” she mutters, and slips between them into the hall.

The door shuts behind her.

I turn on Ever and Shiloh, arms locked tighter across my chest. “Are you here to lecture me about how I shouldn’t be mad?”

Ever starts unbuttoning his shirt.

My mouth goes dry before my anger understands why.

“No,” he says. “We’re here to fuck you.”

The room goes dead silent.

I blink. “Excuse me?”

Shiloh’s smile appears slowly, dangerous at the edges. He grips the back of his shirt and pulls it over his head in one smooth movement, baring golden skin, lean muscle, ink, the wicked line of his hips. His boots come off next. Then his hands go to the button of his jeans.

“Until you’re too tired to think,” he says. “You need sleep.”

My body reacts immediately, going liquid between my legs and softening. Traitor.

Heat spills low in my stomach, humiliating and immediate. Ever’s shirt hangs open now, exposing hard chest and dark ink, and Shiloh is watching my face like he can see every inch of the fight slipping out of me and turning into something wetter, needier, just as sharp.

I hold up one hand.