Page 203 of Scarlet Wars
“Hydrate, lightweight,” he chided, tone light but laced with worry. “You look like someone just told you sparring practice got moved to sunrise.”
I didn’t argue, twisted the cap open with stiff fingers and took a sip, trying to drown the fire rising in my chest.
Jackson groaned from the floor, flopping dramatically onto his back. “That is not something to joke about. Rachel asked me to monitor the situation at Sisu every day at dawn for the next two weeks. I swear the universe has a personal vendetta against me.”
I frowned. “What’s at Sisu?”
Jackson shrugged. “Nothing, as far as I can tell. But Rachel has this whole theory the Human World in Greenland is a breeding spot for Collabs. But so far, I have yet to see any evidence of that. Thus, I really don’t see why I should keep setting the alarm for 4 a.m.”
Sean didn’t even look at him. “The universe probably told her you slept till noon three days in a row and asked her to intervene.”
“I was regenerating,” Jackson said, dead serious. “It’s a wellness cycle.”
“It’s a coma,” Sean muttered, but he was smiling.
I took a sip of my drink, letting the citrusy burn distract me from the chaos in my chest. “You two are ridiculous.”
“We’re efficient,” Sean said, now using Jackson’s thigh as a pillow. “He hates waking up early, and I love tucking him in. It’s a symbiotic dynamic.”
Jackson reached down and tousled his hair, which Sean pretended to hate and absolutely did not stop.
I watched them for a moment, this strange, seamless rhythm they’d fallen into—like they were already a unit, even if they didn’t say it out loud.
“Gods,” I muttered into my glass. “You’re one synchronized chore chart away from becoming intolerable.”
Sean raised his drink in salute. “We aspire to greatness.”
Jackson raised his, too. “And to making chore charts.”
“To balance,” I said, clinking my glass against theirs.
We laughed, and for a heartbeat, the room felt…normal. Stupid, safe, warm.
And I realized, I didn’t need anything more.
The next morning,my head felt like it had been split in half by a war hammer.
Drinking? Fun.
The aftermath? Less so.
I decided I’d earned myself a slow day: reading in bed, groaning dramatically, and occasionally crawling to the bathroom to puke my soul out.
A knock on my door changed that plan real fast.
When the object of all my desires walked in, I groaned into my pillow.
Perfect. Exactly what I needed. To look—and smell—like death in front of the one person I was tryingvery hardto be hot around all the time.
“I’m not available today,” I muttered. “Try again when I don’t feel like a corpse.”
“Rough night?” Caden sounded way too cheerful.
“Wow,” I said, without lifting my face from the pillow. “They weren’t kidding when they said you were the smart one.”
“You know you can literally heal away your hangover, right?”
I blinked.
