Captive of Wolves (Bound to the Fae #1) - Eva Chase Page 0,87
in on me. He leans forward on the sofa, his golden eyes gleaming and intent. When I pull off a double jump and push a switch just in time to leap to the goal ahead of him, he rocks back with a little cheer. “You’re a natural!”
I aim a teasing kick at his leg. “Don’t go easy on me now.”
He laughs. “Oh, I’ll give you a run for your money.”
He does, dashing through the next course so swiftly I’m breathless trying to keep up, even though the only part of my body that’s moving is my hands. August wins that level, and we launch straight into the next.
As I sink into the flow, my mind creeps back to those long ago days when I played with Jamie—not this game, but plenty of others. He’d get so excited when he was winning that he’d hop right off the sofa in the living room and bounce up and down on his feet, as if he could propel his character faster that way.
I’m never going to see that gleeful smile again. Never going to trade joking challenges as we try to one-up each other.
The loss is nine years old, but the grief wallops me as if it’s just happened. When have I really had space to grieve? I’m not sure I can even now, when I have no idea what happened to Jamie after Aerik wrenched me away, who found him, what was done with his body…
My hands shake where I’m clutching the controller, and my character collides with one of the chomping beetles. I’m sent back to the start of the course.
August glances over at me and presses pause. “Are you liking the game all right?” he asks, studying my expression.
I don’t want to talk about what’s really on my mind—about the carnage left in my wake, the blood spilled because of me. My throat has choked up, but I manage to swallow the emotions down. My stomach aches with them, but that’s okay. I’ve had a lot of practice at tuning my discomforts out.
Instead, I focus on everything that’s good about this moment I’m in right now. “Yeah, it’s perfect for taking my mind off that Tristan guy and his ‘surprise’ visit.”
August sets down his controller. “You must have been terrified last night. Sylas couldn’t find a way to dissuade them from going upstairs without making them suspicious, which would have been even worse. You did a good job, hiding away as well as you did. As far as we could tell, they didn’t catch on at all.”
I’m glad I didn’t screw anything up for them, at least. “Do you know why they came to see you? Was it really just a coincidence that they decided to after you brought me here?”
“Not exactly.” August makes a face. “From the questions they asked, we got the impression Kellan must have said something that caught their attention. He handled most of our trade with the other packs when we needed anything we couldn’t get or make in the domain, which is a lot more here on the fringes, and pretty much every lord has spies here and there listening for anything… interesting. I’d imagine the arch-lords have men scattered all through the domains keeping an eye on things too.”
My shoulders have tensed. “He mentioned me?”
August shakes his head quickly. “No, nothing as specific as that, or I’m sure they’d have been asking a lot more pointed questions. Probably it was a more general discontented muttering… He might have given away that Sylas had some sort of plan in the works, one that Kellan thought he was handling badly, something along that line. And as soon as an arch-lord catches a hint that there are plots afoot, they tend to be wary of the worst. Understandably, since there are plenty of lords who’d like to add ‘arch’ to their title. And—”
He cuts himself off and shakes his head again, more emphatically this time. “In any case, they seemed satisfied that we weren’t in the process of preparing a coup and decently impressed by the state of the keep, so that’s all good. Sylas came up with a story about why Kellan wasn’t here that should also have hinted at a reason he would have been irritable for reasons unconnected to treason—or any thefts we’ve committed.” He shoots me a smile.
Even dead, Kellan has left more trouble for Sylas and the others to deal with. I nibble at my lower lip. “Everyone’s going to find