Unstoppable (Their Shifter Academy #6) - May Dawson Page 0,56
you’ve already marked me as yours sufficiently, McCauley,” I said, which made him smile, although he answered, “Never.”
“So, Silas,” Alfred asked as he was working on precisely pasting photographs onto paperwork, “what did you think about Dirtside?”
“Have you ever been?” Silas asked.
“No.” Alfred’s tone suggested that Silas had just asked if he ever enjoyed a vacation to Chernobyl.
It hurt my feelings. Our world was a mess, but it was still home.
“The worlds all have their good and bad,” Silas said absently. Alfred had put him to work, and he had a jeweler’s glass over his eye, carefully forging an ID. “There’s a lot I like about it.”
Alfred let out a laugh. “Oh? Like what?”
Silas seemed to consider. “For one thing, they’re innocent of magic. No one is guarded there the way they are here, expecting that any face might be a trick. They believe that what they see is actually…what they get. Also, I love Starbucks.”
“You’ve spent a lot of time there,” Alfred observed. “So where in the world feels like home now?”
My breath froze in my chest, hoping that Silas would say home was where our family was.
“A rebel magician has no home,” Silas said.
He didn’t even look away from his work.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Tyson
* * *
Raura, Arlen, Lake and I rode together through the Fae forest; we were just crossing the border between Spring and Summer, where the lands seemed to merge into one another in ceaseless beauty. Lush greenery spread to either side of us, broken by occasional shimmering blue mountain streams. It doesn’t matter how beautiful the scenery is when the company sucks.
None of them were talking to each other, which made me uncomfortable.
So I decided to pull a Silas and make everyone even more uncomfortable. I said to Lake, “I know why Arlen and Raura aren’t talking. Why aren’t you talking?”
Lake’s eyes widened. Raura huffed a sigh, and shot me a look that should technically have caused my immediate immolation.
“I never talk,” Lake said, although I was pretty sure it was actually Arlen who usually kept to himself. I was pretty familiar with grouches. Lake wasn’t one of them.
“Come on, let’s go scout ahead,” Raura told Arlen. “You can glower at me just as well.”
“I’m not glowering at you—” Arlen began, his tone acidic, but Raura was already rising in her saddle, moving into a gallop. He frowned at her, frowned at us, and then galloped after her.
It was just Lake and me, who shook his head.
“Those two,” he said.
“They’re both emotional idiots,” I agreed.
“But they love each other,” he said. “Whenever they wake up to it.”
Was that what he was afraid of, being left out? I knew from my time in the Fae world that different pairings, including ménages and harems, was not unusual here.
“And?” I prompted, when he seemed unwilling to go on.
He flashed a stubborn look my way. “Eventually they’ll realize.”
“Lake, I was there when Turic told Raura you loved her, remember?” I said.
“Turic was an evil warlord.”
“That doesn’t mean he didn’t have eyes. Everyone can tell you love Raura.”
“Yeah, and I always let her down.”
“Really? Have you ever asked her what she thinks about that?”
He shook his head.
“Maybe you should try,” I suggested. “It might be more effective than hoping she notices, because Raura has many amazing and kickass abilities, but I don’t think emotionally healthy is on her list of attributes.”
“What’s the point of that?” Lake demanded. “As you pointed out, everyone knows. She knows how I feel about her.”
“No, she heard it from the mouth of the man who murdered her mom. Declarations of love might be a little more effective coming from the source.”
Lake stared at me, then cocked an eyebrow. “Declarations of love?”
Apparently, the Fae found me embarrassingly romantic.
“Fine,” I said. “Then at least kiss her.”
The odds were relatively low she’d punch him in the face, weren’t they? Well, maybe not. But that was Lake’s problem to deal with. Even if she did, maybe they could work through it.
Lake seemed to stew over my words, before he said, “I’ll try it.”
“Good,” I said. For some reason, as well as straightening out my court and making sure my people were safe, I wanted to see Raura at least start down the road toward her own happy ending.
No matter how tough she was, she still needed someone to look after her. We all do.
Just then, I heard horses moving fast through the woods ahead of us, breaking branches. Lake and I traded glances as we drew our swords.