Chapter Twelve

Rosie

She wanted to be angry at him.

Well, truthfully, she was angry at him. Yet even through all that, she still felt bad for Kassian. He hadn’t deserved her rude sendoff. She should have talked to him and told him about what he’d done.

Instead, she’d just told him to get out. Now he was off doing reconnaissance, trying to determine how he might better kill an innocent human. It broke her heart. She knew he was under all kinds of pressure. He hadn’t truly opened up to her about what was going on in his head, despite the increased closeness between the two of them. It hurt a bit that he didn’t trust her, but Rosie understood. They barely knew each other after all. It wasn’t fair to expect him to just tell her everything already. It would take time.

Now though, she wondered what to do. She couldn’t just sit in her room until he returned. That was a little too ridiculous. She wasn’t mad at the others.

“Hi.”

Rosie jerked. She’d been sitting in silence for so long the single word sounded like a gunshot to her. Looking over at the hole in the wall, she saw Mila tentatively poking her head through.

“Hey,” she replied, motioning for the other women to come in if she wanted.

Mila stepped through, followed by Madison, and even Lena. The trio of women came over to the bed and sat on it with her without saying a word. Rosie wasn’t sure what to do. Did she start speaking? Did they start? What was going on? Were they going to ask her something?

“I don’t do cults,” she said abruptly.

“What?” Lena asked, looking utterly confused.

“Cults,” she repeated. “If you’re coming in here to offer me initiation, I don’t do them.”

There was a moment of stunned silence, and then all three women burst into laughter at the same time. Rosie sat in the middle of it, stunned by the reaction.

“Was it something I said?”

This only brought on more laughter, punctuated by a sputtering Mila trying to apologize, only to dissolve into more fits of laughter. Eventually the women managed to get themselves under control, taking deep breaths to calm their giggles.

“Sorry,” Madison said at long last. “It’s just that we were on the other side there talking amongst ourselves, saying we should come over here, have a girl chat sort of thing, and Lena pointed out that you’re probably going to think we’re trying to make you a part of our cult or something.”

Now it was Rosie’s turn to laugh. “Oh, I get it now!”

The other women nodded, smiling along with her.

“Why did you come over?” she asked at last, eyeing them.

Mila spoke first. “Because we think you could use it. Because you’re going through a lot right now. We’ve all been through something similar, so we’re kinda used to it. To a degree at least. It’s not easy, and we want to help in any way we can.”

Rosie shrugged. “I’m not sure there’s much to help with other than figuring out a way to prevent Kassian from having to kill this human.”

The mood immediately became more somber.

“I’ve yet to come up with a good plan for that,” Madison admitted. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t be here for support. Besides, Kassian…isn’t like the others,” she said with a frown.

“What do you mean?”

Lena chimed in. “Haven’t you noticed how he doesn’t really interact with his brothers? Even Gavin is more talkative. Kassian just sort of stays to himself. He won’t open up to them, no matter what they try and do.”

“Kassian is the oldest without Maximus around,” Mila added. “And he and Maximus were always the closest. I’ve seen the way the two of them worked. They’re used to having each other around. They lean on each other without even realizing it. Kassian needs Maximus around. He’s not used to functioning without his brother, and he’s not reacting well to losing him.”

Madison and Lena nodded in agreement. Rosie knew Mila had been around the brothers longest, so she was the one most apt to see the complete picture. Maximus had been gone for some time now. They’d all assumed he’d been heading back to Cadia to get help, but now they knew he’d actually been captured.

“What does that have to do with me?” Rosie asked.

“We can tell he’s been leaning heavily on you,” Madison said. “But today we saw him treat you like you were Maximus. He was stressed and just lashed out. We want you to know that he didn’t mean it, and if he was made to see what he’d done, he’d be horrified.”

“We don’t expect you to just forgive him,” Lena added. “Just give him a chance to atone for his mistake.”

Rosie frowned. “I was going to do that anyway. Did you think I wasn’t?”

The women exchanged looks. “We don’t know. We don’t really know you. You’ve sort of kept to yourself and with Kassian. Which we totally get. But with him not here, we thought maybe this was a good time for us to come over and get to know you ourselves.”

“You want to be friends?”

The trio exchanged looks between themselves, then as one nodded. “Yes.”

“Interesting. Okay, I can try that I think,” she said. Internally she had to repeat to herself the fact that these women were not like the ones she’d known from back home. They weren’t going to backstab her just for a leg up. They had all they needed in their mates. From her, all they wanted was friendship.

Friends. It was a concept she hadn’t really known for a long time. But it was one that she was eager to try again. She missed having people to just talk to and hang out with, who she could trust not to betray her. Rosie just hoped it didn’t hurt as bad as it had in the past.

“So, what should we talk about?” she asked.

The girls giggled, and Rosie got a sudden idea of just what it was they wanted to discuss…