“Nothing,” I mumbled, glaring at my coffee cup.
He murmured something unintelligible before he grabbed a cup of coffee himself and came to sit next to me. “Does it have anything to do with”—he started in a soft whisper, looking pointedly at the corridor—“him?”
I scowled and sipped my coffee without a reply.
Thayer sighed and leaned back against the sofa. “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” he said quietly, and I turned to look at him. His gray eyes were piercing, as if he could read my mind. “But know that I’m here for you.”
There was a deeper meaning to his words, I could tell. It was like he was apologizing again for not being there for me when I needed him the most. Like he wanted to make up for it.
And that made my throat constrict and my chest squeeze. “Thank you.”
For a few minutes, we drank in silence—until the cabin door opened and Anais walked in.
She gave me a nod before her eyes snapped to Thayer and narrowed. “Good. You’re both here.”
Thayer seemed tense all of a sudden, narrowing his eyes in the same manner. “What is it?” he asked, voice lower than before.
Anais sat down on the couch across from our sofa and glanced between us with a little furrow between her brows. “You have the same nose.”
Both Thayer and I snorted at the same time at her comment and immediately looked at one another with a frown. We did have the same pointy nose. Though why Anais felt the need to remark on that, I had no idea.
Thayer’s gaze returned to her, and as if he couldn’t help himself, he sipped his coffee and smirked. “Get to the point, Ana,” he drawled in a taunting manner that made me, not for the first time, question what the hell his problem was with her—and vice versa.
Because she snarled back, “I told you not to call me that,Colter.”
Looking far too smug for his own good, Thayer said, “We don’t have all day, you know.”
Anais seemed ready to kill my brother as she growled deep in her chest, her hands clenched in fists. But then she took a deep breath, and another, before she relaxed and folded her arms. “Tonight is the full moon,” she said flatly. “We werewolves are stripped of our humanity for the entire night, and so we shift into our wolf form before the night comes. Once the full moon rises, we don’t have anything remotely close to a human thought for a few hours.
“That means you two must stay in this cabin.” She gave us a serious look bordering on a warning glare. “If we smell humans in our vicinity when we are mindless animals, wewillkill you.”
Thayer sighed and gave her a lazy look. “Is that all?”
Anais seemed more than ready to kill my brothernow. “You are not allowed to leave the cabin starting at five o’clock.” She paused, then shot a saccharine-sweet smile to Thayer. “Though you are more than welcome to try your luck.”
My brother’s corresponding grin was just as venomous. “I bet I can take a little she-wolf,Ana.”
Her eyes flashed, and she leaned forward, baring her teeth. “Try it.”
“Stop it,” I scolded my brother, who was about to come up with another clever retort, I could tell.
Rolling his eyes, Thayer downed the rest of his coffee and put the cup on the table. “Anything else?” he said, arching a brow at Anais.
She jumped to her feet with one more glare at Thayer. “That’s all.”
But she didn’t leave. In fact, I could see her shift from foot to foot, keeping her glare on Thayer as if she didn’t want to show him her hesitation, despite it being clear.
And my brother, the asshat, didn’t miss the opportunity to needle her. “You want my help again at the Ward, don’t you?” he said in a low, intimate murmur that made me cringe and Anais’s glower intensify.
Yet Thayer’s gaze was suddenly hooded, his lips curled into a flirty smile, and I felt a little ill. There were some things a sister should not see her brother do. Especially a brother who’d never behaved so recklessly and wildly before.
Anais growled again, and she said in a spiteful tone, “Enoch asked for you.”
Thayer chuckled as he rose to his feet. “That’s an obvious lie,” he drawled, smirking, as he walked toward her, towering over her by more than a head, and stopped just an inch away from her. Her body was rigid, her arms folded tightly, and her head tilted back as she continued to growl. But Thayer didn’t seem to care; instead, his gray eyes were alight with some sort of mischief when he leaned down and whispered something in her ear.
I could see her eyes widen, a splash of color marring her cheeks, before he stepped back, grinned devilishly down at her, and gave her a mock bow. “Your favorite human, at your service.”
Her growl was so loud now, it practically vibrated through her body to the parquet floor. “Go fuck yourself,” she bit out, glaring daggers at my brother.