Page 69 of Blood Oath
Being in his presence never fails to make me twitchy. Even the alcohol in my blood doesn’t dampen my irritation. “Before you go stalk her in Limbo and leave us hanging as usual, shut up and let Baelfire explain his plan.”
“Touchy, touchy,” he smirks. “I already have my own plan.”
“No going lone wolf here,” Bael snaps. “This is about bonding with Maven together for the first time since we’ve clearly been fucking things up on our own. As much as I’d love to wrap Snowflake in bacon and toss him into a hydra’s lair?—“
Everett looks heavenwards as if he’s petitioning the gods for patience.
“—when push comes to shove, we need to start working as a team. After all, we’ll be bound to the same woman for the rest of our lives. She doesn’t deserve to be stuck with a bunch of fucking toddlers who can’t play nice.”
“I can play very nice if she’d only let me,” I mutter.
Everett snorts.
Fine. Even I can admit that I sound like a petulant child.
Crypt pulls out his lighter, flicking the flame on and off impatiently. “Fine. What’s the plan?”
Baelfire looks momentarily surprised, and he’s not the only one. Crypt has never been a team player. From the start, I’ve assumed he would contribute very little to our quintet.
He’s the oldest of us and I remember being fascinated by him when we all first met as children. After all, I’d heard so much about Somnus’s bastard son from my mother, ever the gossip. To me, he had seemed stoic, unflappable, stylishly rebellious. But I’d quickly learned that he was a sociopath who lacked all empathy and would happily watch the world burn.
And that was before he messed up my family.
“The plan is to sweep Maven off her feet,” Bael says, drawing my attention again. “I overheard Kenzie mention she’s going to Pennsylvania for a wedding. We’re going to hijack her trip and turn it into a fun getaway. Maybe she’ll be more willing to open up to us in a human environment like the one she grew up in. We can do normal human shit with her, take her on a date or something. I’m sure adjusting to Everbound and the way legacies do things has been hard enough on her, and we’ve been making it worse by giving her no space to adapt.”
For a beat, that sinks in for all of us. He’s right. She only discovered she was an atypical caster, and our culture and world are utterly foreign to her. While I suspected she might be trying to reject us because the idea of a quintet was odd to her, I didn’t consider how her life turned upside down when she manifested her magic.
It makes me want to soothe her somehow, to hold her hand as she comes to terms with being lumped in with the legacies now. But if I tried, she would probably tell me to fuck off.
Again.
“I’ll book transportation for us and somewhere nice to stay,” Everett mutters, studying the floor. For a fraction of a second, he looks torn. “I mean…I’ll book somewhere for all of you, somewhere Maven will be comfortable, but I won’t be go?—“
“Shove it, Snowflake. We’re all fucking going.”
The professor scowls, loosening his tie. My brows bounce up when I see the silvery frost at his fingertips. That’s a definite sign that he’s panicking about something deep down. Whatever it is, there’s little chance he would ever share it with the rest of us.
“Have it your way,” the ice elemental finally mutters before leaving the apartment.
“Moody fucker,” Baelfire shakes his head, and then he checks his phone and growls. “Not much time left before midnight. I’ll be back.”
No doubt he’s going to go hunting to appease his curse.
Disbanding now is a good idea. The slight buffering of the fae mead I had is wearing off, quickly giving way to oily suspicions slinking through my veins. My head throbs and I walk out of the apartment before Baelfire does, intent on returning to my private dorm’s uncontested safety before the voices in my head get too loud.
But my feet have a mind of their own, directed by the longing that’s strangling the core of my being, and soon, I find myself standing outside of Maven’s dorm, staring at her door.
The door that I warded to keep out everyone but her…
And me.
When weaving the spells, I gave in to the twisted temptation to be the only one with access to her space. After threatening both Baelfire and Crypt not to cross Maven’s lines and to give her privacy…now here I am.
I’m a possessive, obsessed, fucked up hypocrite.
But I’m not sorry for it.
Laying my hand on the door, I can sense through the magic wards that no one is in the room. It’s disappointing, and I’m immediately wondering where on earth she could be. Spending time with her lion shifter friend? Some secret anti-legacy meeting? Simply trying to avoid us?
