Echoes of Fire (The Mercury Pack #4)(73)

Bracken raised a brow at him. “You gonna tell me why you and Shaya trekked all the way up here so early in the morning?”

“We wanted to talk to you,” said Nick. “Both of you.”

Figuring it was about Kathy, Bracken sighed. “Give us ten minutes, yeah?”

Shaya nodded. “Sure.”

“There’s coffee in the pot.” Bracken took the cat upstairs and into the bathroom. She shifted without much coaxing, thankfully. Pulling Madisyn into his arms, he kissed her. “Morning, baby.”

She hummed. “Morning.”

“My wolf was disappointed that your cat was gone when he woke up.”

“I tried to encourage her to stay with him, but she wanted to explore and mark the land.” Madisyn shrugged. “There’s really no getting her to do anything she doesn’t want to do.”

“Kind of like you.” He kissed her again, smiling when her stomach rumbled. “Let’s get showered so I can feed you, and we can see what Nick and Shaya want.” A short while later, he had his mate curled up on his lap on a porch rocker eating the Pop-Tart he’d made her. Shaya was lounging in the other rocker while Nick leaned against the wooden porch post.

“So what brings you here so early?” Bracken asked the pair.

“Two things,” said Shaya. “One, we wanted to check that you two were okay after the little confrontation with Kathy.”

No surprise there, thought Madisyn. It was really kind of sweet that they’d come first thing in the morning to check on her and Bracken. It showed that they considered him important, and she liked that a lot. “I’m fine,” she answered truthfully before taking another chunk out of her Pop-Tart.

Bracken nodded. “Same here. Never been better.”

Shaya’s mouth quirked. “I see that.”

“As for the second thing that we wanted to talk about,” began Nick, “we had a long conversation with my mother. My gut was right. There’s more to this whole thing than she told you. I managed to drag the truth out of her, and what she did now makes a lot more sense to me, though it was still stupid, uncalled for, and absolutely unacceptable. We had a long talk, and then she got upset because she realized how badly she’d messed up.”

“She’d like to talk to you both,” said Shaya. “She’d like to apologize. I’m hoping that, out of simple curiosity, if nothing else, you’ll both agree to hear her out and let her explain why she acted that way.”

Bracken shrugged carelessly. “Can’t say I really care why she said the things she did.”

Madisyn pursed her lips. “Yeah, me neither.”

Shaya’s shoulders sagged. “I was afraid you’d say that.”

Bracken lifted a brow. “Would you want to hear excuses from anyone who tried coming between you and Nick?”

“None at all,” replied Shaya. “Because there isn’t an excuse for anything like that. I’d have no inclination to give them the time of day, but I’m sort of mean that way. I wouldn’t ask this of you if it weren’t for the fact that Kathy is one of us. We have enough shit going on outside the pack. We don’t need shit going on inside it too.”

Madisyn turned to Bracken, who was busy rubbing the claiming mark on her neck as if it soothed him. “I’ll hear her out if you will, but I can’t tell you that I’m in any rush to forgive her.”

“No one expects you to forgive her,” said Nick. “She was totally out of line—something that Greta hypocritically felt necessary to communicate to her in front of pretty much everyone right before she left.”

Madisyn’s lips parted in surprise. “No way.”

“Oh yeah.” Shaya’s mouth curled. “When Kathy pointed out that Greta was worse than she could ever be, Greta gave her the most patronizing look you’ve ever seen and said, ‘That’s a little thing called displacement. Don’t shift your shame onto me.’ Taryn was almost crying with laughter. Jaime recorded the whole thing with her cell phone.”

Nick shook his head. “Allen remains as oblivious as ever. He’s convinced the woman is a saint.” Pushing off the post with a sigh, he asked, “So you will talk to my mother?”

“Not yet,” said Bracken. “I’m still too pissed at her to really hear anything she says, so there’d be no point in it.”

“I get it,” said Nick. “But don’t leave it too long. If you’re honest with yourself, you’ll admit that you’d rather get this sorted. The longer you leave stuff like this, the worse it can get.”

“Because you give it the time to fester,” mused Madisyn.

Nick nodded. “Exactly.”

Bracken rubbed his jaw. “We’ll speak with her tomorrow.”

Nick gave a short, satisfied nod. “I’ll let her know. Thanks for being prepared to hear her out.” He puffed out a breath. “Listen, hearing what Madisyn said to my mother about treating you like you were broken . . . it got me thinking. Aside from Madisyn, we were all guilty of doing that. Handling you with care. It must have felt to you that we were tiptoeing around you like we were walking in a minefield. We shouldn’t have acted that way, even though we meant well by it. No more of that shit,” he promised.