Page 12 of Redemption

“Were you already making soup?” I ask as he fills up my bowl.

He nods. “Yeah. I always want soup when the weather is like this. It’s a happy coincidence that you just happened to want it too.”

“It was. I know that you like to have it doing its thing for hours and make homemade bread. It didn’t occur to me when I said it that you would need to do all that.”

Pete smirks, “I mean, to be fair, you were away with the fairies when you came back.” He holds up his hand, his fingers only millimeters apart. “Just a little bit.”

“Wow,” I say, unable to hide my amusement. “I thought you were concerned?”

He shrugs. “I can joke about it now.”

Rafe shakes his head and kisses me on the cheek. “Eat up, Baby. You need to get some rest.”

I pout, “Only for a couple of hours before I have to be woken up again to be checked again.”

“An hour,” Luc corrects me. “I want to wake you up every hour to check on you. I’m sorry, Ever. I really would rather be safe than sorry though. Especially with you.”

I smile. “I know, I just want to whine a little bit.”

“Fair enough,” Trick chuckles.

The table falls silent for a while as everyone digs in, helping themselves to two different kinds of soup, homemade bread, cheese, meats, salads, and the cookies and brownies that the guys obviously just decided to bring in instead of having to go back into the kitchen later to get them. Although I am absolutely certain that someone is going to want a coffee and need to go back into the kitchen anyway.

That someone is me.

Thunder booms overhead as rain pelts the many windows in here, and the yard lights up almost as if it's daylight for a moment.

I shiver.

I can’t believe that I was out in that.

Suddenly, Runa appears. I have no idea where she has come from. She must have been curled up in here somewhere. She often just appears seemingly out of nowhere. She jumps up onto my lap, looks at me for a moment, almost like she’s checking for something, and then curls up, closing her eyes and promptly falling asleep as her purr vibrates through me and immediately makes me feel calm.

Smiling down at her, all tiny and peacefully sleeping in my lap, I reach down to stroke her. I grimace slightly, she must have been outside when it first started raining because her fur is slightly damp.

I was always called weird for sitting crisscross applesauce even on chairs, but now I know it’s just because I was practicing for when I had Runa, and she fits perfectly. Well, she overflows a little bit, she has rather quickly become quite a large cat.

I absolutely love her.

I’m glad that she’s come to see me, not only because she always makes me feel better no matter what I have going on, but because otherwise I would have been worrying about her, and most likely have gone out to look for her, which definitely wouldn’t have been a great idea.

The food is absolutely delicious as it always is.

“Oh, I didn’t manage to get hold of Jynx,” Pete says.

I nod. “To be honest, I didn’t think that you would be able to. She’s got something going on at the moment.”

“Yeah, that’s true,” Pete replies. “I messaged her so she doesn’t read the first one saying that you’re missing and then panic because I called instead of sending a message.” He pauses, frowning. “That was an unnecessary sentence, but I stand by it.”

I smile. Everyone is tired and in a food coma thanks to Rafe’s cooking. “You’re good.”

“Do you want to stay here?” Riot asks Pete as another boom of thunder rocks the house.

It’s scarily loud, and somehow even worse than when I was in the woods, and I didn’t think that was possible. It was pretty horrendous while I was out there.

Pete shakes his head. “No, I had better get back. Shadow is at home, and I don’t want to leave him all night. The storm won’t have bothered him at all, he loves this kind of weather, but I still don’t want to leave him alone.”

“Yeah, he’s definitely not a normal dog,” Cash agrees with a fond smile.