Unstoppable (Their Shifter Academy #6) - May Dawson Page 0,54
Since my Air Jordan collection offends you so much?”
“Nothing,” Silas said. “That’s what makes me good at my job.”
Silas certainly didn’t seem to value any material goods. But I wondered if he meant that he didn’t value anything. That disinterest seemed to be what he aspired to.
But maybe we’d ruined Silas as a good Rebel Magician. I wanted to believe that he cared now.
“If you don’t have any money, you can’t buy Maddie anything,” Jensen commented.
“I don’t need anything,” I said quickly.
The last thing I needed was for these males to get competitive about gift-giving; Chase’s beloved home would explode with overpriced handbags and shoes and jewelry if these guys thought it would make me happy.
“And I don’t need to buy Maddie anything,” Silas returned to Jensen.
Jensen rolled his eyes. “You think you’re the favorite.”
“It’s not a competition,” I said, even though I joked about favorites sometimes. The truth was that I adored them all equally. They all completed me in different ways. I’d be lost without any one of them, and they’d be lost without each other, even if they wouldn’t admit it.
“I’m the one she’s afraid she’ll lose,” Silas said, so bluntly that it shocked me.
I stopped dead, staring at him.
But Silas bounded up a few concrete steps and started to pull open a door.
Jensen took one look at my face, then suddenly shot past me. He slammed the door closed against before Silas could pull it open all the way.
“What the hell are you talking about?” Jensen growled.
Silas tilted his head to one side, studying Jensen. “You know, don’t you?”
“Why don’t you spell it out for me. I’m a shifter, I’m a little slow sometimes.”
Silas sighed, and he looked as if he wanted to check his watch, but he met Jensen’s gaze levelly. “This is my world. I’ll do anything to make sure you get that shield, but after that… I don’t know.”
Jensen stared at Silas, his jaw tight. Silas’s face was tranquil.
“Enough,” Rafe broke in. “We’ve got a mission. Feelings can wait.”
“Right,” Jensen said, bitterness in his voice. “Standard.”
Rafe stared at him, tension written across his own face, but Jensen just pulled the door open. He gestured Silas through, curtly.
Silas muttered a word, changing his face back, and suddenly he was once again my blond-haired, cheerful looking man—who had proven to be so easy for people to underestimate. Maybe that was part of why we were so close. We had so much in common.
We entered an art gallery, full of beautiful paintings all of scenes from mythology. It was familiar mythology, all with a twist, from the Greek gods—like a female Poseidon rising from the waves with her trident in hand—to Camelot, including scenes with abandoned swords in the foreground, and Guinevere, Arthur and Lancelot entangled on the Round Table.
“Well,” Rafe said, his tone disapproving, even though he seemed to study the painting a bit longer than someone would if they didn’t like it. “The artist is very...gifted. Are these all done by one person?”
“Don’t,” Silas said. “It will make him even more arrogant than he already is.”
“Really? The incredible Silas Zip is talking about arrogance?” An amused voice floated from the back of the shop, and then a tall young man, not much older than Silas, sauntered into view. He had paint smears on his white linen shirt and on his cheek, and his coppery-colored hair was wildly disarrayed.
“I wish no one ever gave me that nickname,” Silas said. “It’s raised expectations terribly high.”
“You gave yourself that nickname.”
Silas shushed him, right before the two of them hugged.
“I’m not introducing you,” Silas said a moment later. “It’s better if you can’t name anyone, and you’ll never find your way back here anyway.”
“In case we get caught?” Rafe demanded.
“Sure,” Silas said easily.
“He’s just dramatic,” the forger assured us. “You can call me Alfred.”
Who chooses to be called Alfred?
“Tell me about your latest scheme,” Alfred said, gesturing us into the back of his gallery. “I assume you didn’t come here to buy some artwork for your home because you’re finally settling down.”
“No,” Silas confessed.
“No happy ending for you until there’s a happy ending for the Rebel Magicians, I imagine,” Alfred said.
I was glad Silas’s back was to me, so he didn’t see the look on my face as we headed into the enormous space behind the gallery, which was unexpectedly bright—with sunlight that seemed to come from nowhere—and filled with paintings in progress. There was also a long desk cluttered with cameras and equipment.