It was maybe another ten minutes before the all-clear sounded—and we didn’t leave the tunnel before that moment, either. There was fear in Phelan’s eyes, a nameless worry that tightened his expression and stretched in taut.
Maybe I had the same expression, but I doubted it. I hadn’t been doing a dangerous dance with the Hecate for centuries, managing to stay one step away from her grasp or going toe-to-toe with her when I couldn’t. Still, the idea that she’d go after one of us in order to get to him—or Seamus—was more than a little troubling, more than enough to make me a little sick to my stomach.
What would she do if she somehow managed to get her hands on me and my baby or Neve and hers?
I tried to push the thought out of my head as Thom and I walked back to the fire, his arm tight around my shoulders.
“I don’t want you anywhere near a fight until…” Thom’s voice trailed away and he glanced away. He swallowed hard, as if he was having a hard time with words, though I knew full well what he was going to say.
It just wasn’t something I wanted to hear.
I let him fight for the words, leaning against him. Truth be known, there was a little part of me that didn’t exactly mind the fact that he was going to tell me he wanted me to stay away from fights until after our son was born—there was a part of me that was completely okay with that idea.
It was at war with the part of me that felt like I needed to take care of everyone else, though, and it was hard to say which part of me was winning at any given time.
“I just worry,” he murmured, burying his nose in my hair and squeezing me close. “I don’t want you near a fight until after he’s born. For all of our sakes. Do you know what it would do to me if I lost you?”
“I don’t want to find out,” I admitted softly as we drew closer to the fire. “I hope we never do.”
I wished that was something we had control over, but in the end, we didn’t.
No one here did.
I’m liking Thom better now.
This kind of sucks for Matt but it will probably get one of the camp’s enemies off their backs for a while.
Thom can be difficult, but his major redeeming quality is that he’s loyal as hell to his friends.
I just wish that his loyalty did not include assuming he knows more about want someone else wants than that other person dies.
I guess that if he was perfect, he wouldn’t be fun to write about.