Mathieu (White Flame Trilogy) - By Paula Flumerfelt Page 0,94

heating the leftover stew. It gave his hands something to do.

Solomon eventually wandered back to them, looking significantly less cold.

“Are you hungry, Solomon?” Nathan asked the blond.

The blond shook his head, and laid on his bed roll, his back to them.

Mathieu sighed and dished up a bowl for himself and Nathan, then sat down and watched the fire as he ate. The impromptu meal went by in relative silence before the redhead offered to do the dishes. Thanking him, Mathieu wiped his hands and face down, then lay down to sleep on the grass so that he didn’t have to be near Solomon.

Chapter

Thirteen

“So how did it go?” Kiev asked from her position on the bathroom counter. It had been two days since they had gotten back from the Sky Pillar, and he hadn’t seen hide nor tail of Solomon since.

Mathieu rolled his eyes. “Oh lord, the usual. I messed up big time, Solomon avoided talking to me, we came home. The end.” He leaned against the wall and flicked his bangs out of his eyes. “Jerk…” He murmured.

On a more interesting note, however, Mathieu had met the oddest pair of people who were also now in his bathroom. Ayame and Akira were their names, and they were siblings. Ayame was a spy in the Unithian Court for Korinth, posing as the right hand of one of the top brass. He was tall with black hair that he kept short and greatly resembled his sister who was the feminine version of him. To say that Akira was pretty, though, would have been incorrect. She was stunning, but not in a traditional way with a rather oval face, a button nose and eyes slightly too big for her face. But she was apparently beautiful enough to land the King. After all, Akira was the man’s mistress.

“Solomon is so temperamental.” Akira said as she stood beside him, primping her hair and wiping the corners of her mouth, cleaning up any residual lipstick. Her tone was light, yet slightly stuck-up and fit her personality well. “So when you kissed him, was it like full on or not really?” She batted her lashes at him, curious.

Ayame rolled his eyes. “Akira, it’s not your business.” Despite the six year age difference between the siblings, they got along incredible well. “Just because you’re a succubus doesn’t mean that everyone else’s sex is your business.”

Wrinkling her nose and throwing her brother a tart look, Akira turned to Mathieu. “If Ayame doesn’t want to hear the gossip, he can ran away and go play with the boys. But I want to chit-chat.”

Ayame pulled his little sister into a headlock, tugging on her ear. “If you’ll remember, you insisted upon me coming into this dinky little place; I didn’t volunteer.”

Kiev laughed at them and poked Mathieu with her toes. “Seriously though, tongue or not?” Her eyebrows wiggled.

“Jeez. No tongue. And I doubt it’ll happen again, so don’t bring it up, ‘kay? I don’t need him to glare at me any more than he does.” Mathieu did a very bad impression of an angry Solomon.

“Not that it’s my business, but have you tried, you know, talking to him? He’s generally pretty reasonable.” Ayame said, folding his arms. He was thin and tended to look at people through his bangs.

“That stupid ass is avoiding Mathieu like the plague. I’ve witnessed it.” Kiev said derisively, nodded in agreement with her own words. “It’s like that time that Mina lost his riding boots. Remember that?”

Akira laughed, tossing her head back in a way that made her practically sparkle. “That was such a great night!”

Rolling his eyes, Ayame caught the other male’s eye. “So, I got in contact with Venee, as supposedly requested by you.. She was devastated to hear about Avian and says that anything she can do to help, she will. Then, she passed the news on to Narrie and she says that as soon as she can get the money together, she’d headed here. I gave her directions on how to get here, so she should arrive in a week or so.” The spy shrugged one shoulder. “Just thought you’d like to know.”

“Thanks. I know that I’m asking a lot of you, but I need you to find one more person for me, if you can.”

“I can find anyone. Who is it?”

Mathieu looked away slightly. “Well, it’s an old man that goes by ‘Grandpa’ and works in a knick-knack shop in the industrial district. Tell him that you know me and what