I woke the next morning alone but resolute. Somehow while I’d slept, my subconscious had come up with a brilliant plan, and I bounced out to the kitchen, excited to tell the guys my idea.

As I entered the room, a heated argument cut off abruptly, and all the guys avoided looking at me. Not even Wesley would make eye contact with me, and I got a sinking feeling. I wished I had been paying more attention coming down the hallway so I might have heard what this was about, but I had been too caught up in my amazing plan to listen.

“Hey guys...” I greeted them, suspicion threading through me. Hard to miss that I was the topic of the argument. “What’s going on?”

Seemingly as one, all of them turned to Austin, who jutted out his jaw stubbornly.

“Ask him,” Caleb ordered while pulling out my coffee mug and filling it for me. Such a nice boy. Austin narrowed his eyes at his twin then met my gaze unapologetically.

“I did nothing wrong,” he glowered. “We all voted and agreed. I simply acted on it.”

“We also agreed to speak with Kit when she woke up, seeing as she wasn’t in the vote,” Cole barked, his neck muscles seeming to strain.

Austin shrugged. “I didn’t want to give her the opportunity to flit around here, batting her eyelashes at you guys, looking like this”—he waved a hand towards me, and suddenly I was aware of wearing only Cole’s massive T-shirt and tiny boyshort undies—“and changing your minds,” he finished, folding his heavily inked arms. He was wearing a T-shirt, and I’d never seen him in anything less than long sleeves before. “I took necessary preemptive action to ensure the safety of our group. An action that we all, as a team, agreed on last night.”

Wait a minute, what the hell…? “What did you do?”

He didn’t give me an answer, the tension in his jaw suggesting he had no intention of giving me one either.

Caleb handed me the mug of coffee and said, “My fuckstain of a brother took matters into his own hands and declined Dupree’s offer for you.” Anger underscored his words, but it didn’t compare to the rage curdling in my gut. They took a vote? They decided my future? And Austin had acted on it

“You did what?” Please tell me I’d heard them wrong.

“You heard,” the asshole spoke. “It was a stupid offer and was only going to get more people killed. We all voted, and it was unanimous to decline the trade.” He seemed smug and confident in the fact that they outnumbered me.

“Give me the phone,” I snapped, holding out my hand.

Austin had the grace to look a tiny bit guilty. “I destroyed it after sending the message. It’s standard protocol not to keep anything that might lead the enemy to your base of operations.”

The ringing in my ears amplified, and I slammed the coffee cup onto the marble counter. I’d pictured Austin’s face, and my beautiful cup shattered with a deafening crack, spewing coffee everywhere. It wasn’t just my cup breaking, but the marble countertop that cracked beneath my fist.

Still furious, I took one look around the stunned men then pivoted on my heel and stalked out of the house.

“Kit!” River, the first to recover, barked after me. “Where are you going? It’s not safe to be alone right now.”

I didn’t bother answering and headed outside to the garden where I plonked my butt on one of the outdoor couches overlooking the empty pool. I wasn’t a total moron; of course I knew it wasn’t safe to be wandering around aimlessly, but I needed some breathing room to process the latest hairpin turn in the train wreck of my life.

It was freezing outside, and dressed as I was in just a T-shirt and panties, it wasn’t long before my teeth were chattering. Still I refused to go back inside and face the guys. How could they do that to me? More, how could I have lost it in there like I did? What if it had been one of them and not the countertop?

An image of Finn punching his fist right into a man’s chest flashed across my mind’s eye.

What the hell was happening to me? More and more these days I seemed to be acting on impulse, and it scared me.

A heavy warmth dropped around my shoulders, and I whipped my head up to find Wesley awkwardly tucking a comforter around my trembling shoulders.

“Hey,” I whispered, giving him a grateful smile. He smiled back and sat beside me, saying nothing and simply staring out at the empty pool with me.

“Are you okay?” he eventually asked, watching me from the side of his glasses, and I shook my head.

“No.” There was no point in lying. “How could he do that? It wasn’t his call to make—it wasn’t any of your calls.” Though I was still angry, the cold seemed to have taken the edge off, but I was close to tears.

“I know,” Wesley murmured. “He—we? We decided because we care. He did what he thought was best, because he cares.”

Who was he trying to fool? “Cares? About you guys, sure. Austin couldn’t care less if I got killed in this mess.”

“That’s not true,” Wesley argued, though he lacked any real force in his tone. “He’s saved your life, what, twice already?”

“Three times,” I muttered, remembering the ditch. Ugh, such a dick. “Did you all really vote on this behind my back?”

He shifted uncomfortably, an answer without words. Great. They were just as guilty as Austin. Okay, probably not as guilty but my anger didn’t see well in shades of gray.

“You don’t understand, Kit. The shit they were doing to those other ‘test subjects’... we can’t let you volunteer for that.” A shudder ran through him. He believed what he said.

“It was my call to make,” I said. I’d been the one trapped in the foster home from hell. I’d survived that nightmare. I had these abilities. It was my damn life. “That crazy bitch knows who I am. She knows what I am. You have no idea what it’s like to not know what you are.” Tears burned my eyes, but I refused to shed them.

He shifted closer, easing under the edge of the blanket and giving me a hug.

“I’m sorry.” His whisper carried every element of sincerity. “We will find the information another way, I promise.”

I set my head to his shoulder and hugged him back, grateful for the comfort he offered. His body seemed perfectly built to fit mine, and he squeezed me with just the perfect amount of pressure, making it impossible to stay mad at him. Fucker.

We stayed like that for a while, not speaking, just hugging, until the cold penetrated the thick blanket and I began shivering again.

“Come on,” Wesley said, standing and offering me a hand. “You can hang out in my room today if you want. I’ve got a ton of work to do on my computer, and the others know not to disturb me.”

I took his hand and kissed him on the cheek in gratitude. “Thanks, Wes.”

He blushed scarlet and awkwardly cleared his throat before heading back inside. I hesitated a moment, watching as he made his way back to the house, and noticed for the first time what a great ass he had.

Jesus Kit, all this stress is making you loopy. Quit thinking about Wesley’s ass when you have bigger fish to fry.