Page 20 of One Winter Knight
“Wait, he interrupted the same job twice?” I glanced over at them.
“On two different continents.” Fiona giggled. “Saoirse only wants to murder annoying people. Oh, I can’t wait to find out how he made it up to her.”
“Hate sex?” I blurted, remembering her look of loathing at him.
“Pumpkin.” She shoved me laughing. Her look went thoughtful. “Huh. She does hook up with guys sometimes. Usually, she’s not into alphas. Though Dusty doesn’t seem like the stereotypical alpha.”
Dusty was small for an alpha, and very easygoing. He’d also grown up in a pack of beta mamas with alpha personalities, so he tended to hide his dominance. But he could absolutely alpha up.
Her fingers ran through my hair. “You need a haircut.”
“Probably.” I just hadn’t had time.
“I’m so glad I get to spend some time with you. You weren’t kidding when you’d told me back in August that your schedule got busy during the season,” she said. “Maybe you can think of something fun we can do together? Like a hobby besides watching telenovelas?
I thought for a moment. “Feel free to saynoif it crosses a boundary, but could you teach me to shoot?”
She looked up at me. “Not what I expected. But, sure. It’s a goodskill to have. You don’t know how to shoot at all?”
“Do laser tag and paintball count?” I sighed. “When my friend Gwen was kidnapped at the Christmas party and we went after her, I felt so useless.”
Fiona sat up. “Your friend waskidnapped?Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Um, you were away with Saoirse. Really, her family saved her, but we couldn’t just sit and wait around, so we tried to help,” I explained.
Her frown deepened and her scent grew salty. “You and your friends just went off to save someone who was kidnapped?”
“Yeah.” I kissed her. “Don’t be jealous, Mi Reina. Gwen isjusta friend. Not only is she not my type, but she’s with my friends Clark and Tenzin. She’s also that person that if I went missing, she’d come after me armed with only a hockey stick, ready to break some kneecaps. You know, if you were kidnapped, I’d go after you. I just feel like I have zero skills for situations like that. Not that I ever thought I’d need it.” My brow furrowed. “I didn’t take that class in college.”
“I’ll get to meet her? It’s hard not to get jealous sometimes. But I can get behind a girl who likes to break kneecaps.” She grinned. “I’ll teach you to shoot. I can teach you other things, too. We might want to keep my friends away from Hale?”
“I’m curious yet horrified about what he and Arya could come up with,” I replied. That was her friend, the poisoner.
“Me, too.”
Fiona laid back down on my lap. “I know the chairs in the lounge become beds, but can I just nap here?”
I stroked her hair. “Of course you can. There’s no place I’d rather be.”
Chapter Five
Saoirse
Shite. If I’d known that we were going on a tripwithBroKen, I would have stayed behind. I knew that he was performing at the festival, but it would be easy enough to avoid him.
But no. We were hisguests.
I’d thought Dusty was just some rich-boy friend of Carlos’. After all, in Fiona’s friend-circles, someone could absolutely organize a trip like this.
However, that annoying musician had interrupted a ridiculous number of my ops in the past few years. At this point it felt intentional.
Only it couldn’t be.
I’d had my brother, who was a fixer, and my hacker cousins, look into it multiple times. Any ops I went on for the Company were airtight.
Order ops… well… they could be a little less airtight. But given I was a delta, I never officially made mission rosters for anything by the Order of the Black Dahlia–the omega assassin society Fiona belonged to. I was just Fiona’ssupport delta.Which was fine. Given deltas were often used as security, me being with her never garneredmuch notice.
Since it wasn’t some sort of leak, he was finding me by sheer luck. He was always so happy about it. Sometimes he even had the audacity to try to find me and reach out to me.
