Bonded to the Rakian Berserker (Rakian Warrior Mates #3) - Elin Wyn Page 0,14

it could be.

“You’re not listening to a word I say, are you?” Adena chuckled. “Come on.” She linked her arms with Esme and led her back to the castle. “I can’t tell if he thinks he’s protecting you, or you’re protecting him,” she added.

“I think we’re all in trouble if I’m expected to protect any of those men,” Esme answered. “I can’t imagine they’d need to be shielded from anything.”

“You’d think,” came the dry answer.

Before they reached the castle door a fluffy black-and-white cat came sauntering out.

“Why hasn’t anyone bothered to introduce me to our new guest?” the cat said.

Esme stopped, startled.

It looked like a cat, sounded like a person, and felt like, not exactly like nothing, but like something she’d never encountered before.

And was something to focus on beyond her discomfort of being inside.

She’d agreed to the plan, after all. As a townswoman, she’d be inside quite a bit.

It was time to get used to it.

Adena scooped the fuzzy bundle into her arms and after a moment two white paws peeked out over her shoulder, framing the round head.

“This is entirely undignified,” the cat grumbled.

But Esme didn’t need her gift to hear the purr underneath his voice.

“It’s been a little busy,” she said, wondering if there was a particular kind of protocol for meeting with talking cats. “I’m sorry I didn’t meet you earlier.”

“It’s not your fault,” the cat said, head butting Adena’s chin for more scritches behind the ear. “You couldn’t have known.”

“If you’re done having a fit,” Adena said, “Why don’t you come and help us get our guest ready for her journey?”

“Why isn’t she staying here?” the cat said as they entered the castle. Ship, Esme corrected herself. “She just arrived, didn’t she?”

“Because there are children to be saved,” Matilde answered.

“Kittens,” the cat said, slithering out of Adena’s arms and walking down the corridor in front of them. “Always getting into trouble.”

“Lucky for the guys, I’ve got a better idea of what a new householder would be taking with her,” Adena said. “Even with Ship helping it’ll take some time to build it all, so we better get started.

Esme focused on the cat. Or rather, where the cat had been. “Did it just walk through that wall?”

“Him,” Matilde corrected. “Coracle’s fussy about that. And probably he did walk through the wall. He does that.”

The women started their work in a large chamber that looked like every other still room Esme had ever seen, in any town or village her clan had travelled through.

Bundles of dried herbs hung from the ceilings, bottles and vials of crushed leaves, tinctures from the petals of a dozen different flowers.

Everything in its place, and everything entirely out of place, just by existing here.

“With everything that the ship can create for you,” Esme said, studying the well-used workplace, “why do you still do this?”

“It’s who I am,” Adena said. “Nic can’t change that. Ship can’t change that. Besides,” she grinned. “for all of their technology, they don’t know everything.”

Matilde grabbed a small notebook from Adena workbench, flipped to the back and started making a list. “About some fairly basic things, it seems they don’t know anything at all,” she grumbled. “Seriously. How Declan thought that by tomorrow morning we’d be able to outfit the two of you completely to look like traders is beyond me.” She stopped writing, scribbled out a line. “And he’s the smart brother.”

Esme settled onto the floor next to a gracefully shaped urn, filled with tall plants with dark glossy green leaves and bright fuchsia flowers.

She wasn’t sure what she’d be able to do. But she had little doubt that either of these bustling competent women would let her know as soon as something was ready.

So, she’d focus on what she could do for now. Get whatever information that was available.

“It sounded you’d been to Raccelton recently,” she said, fingers tracing the outline of a fallen leaf. “I’ve never been. What should we expect when we get there?”

Adena stopped where she’d been tapping something into a glowing panel set into the wall, chewed her lip. “I didn’t like it,” she admitted. “Not just because they were completely pigheaded, unable to even admit they’d asked for help from the Alliance.” She did something else to the wall, and a faint hum emerged as it changed colors from gold to green.

“The whole set up made me uneasy. The town is set up in a series of rings,” she explained, perching on the edge of her bench. “Each ring walled off