He swats it again, and it dislodges and vanishes. Gone.
Because, Shade, you’re losing your mind, and there is no such thing as creatures who are shadows.
Right, too much wine. I need a distraction.
I nudge Seth, and the guy leans down to me.
“Hey, if I tell you something, will you whisper it on to the next person?” I ask.
“Sure,” he says, a coppery tang of mischief in the air.
“I went for a job as an echo the other day – still waiting to hear back.”
He chuckles at me then leans over in the other direction and repeats what I’ve said, before adding, “Pass it on.” Then he leans back to me. “What is the point of this? I don’t understand?”
“You’ve never played Whispers?” I ask, eyebrows lifted in false shock.
“Whispers?”
“Just wait and see.”
As the message moves on, each person’s face shifts a little more into confusion. Killian looks like this is utterly demeaning, and Pax refuses to play, waving the message past him.
After it’s shared with Roarke, he leans forward to me, but I point up towards Seth.
“No, no, tell him. He needs to know I didn’t change it,” I say.
“Change it?” Jada demands.
She played, but she looks downright angry at the suggestion that she’s failed. I guess it’s because she’s a SealSeed and her job is to pass messages from the Crown to the Sabers and seal the Sabers into assignments. Getting that wrong could be deadly.
Oh, I’m going to enjoy this.
“I bet you the rest of the wine you muddled up the message along the way,” I say.
“We’re Elite Sabers. We don’t muddle anything,” Teegan snaps.
“You’re not drinking a crate of wine,” Pax says over the top of her.
“Then you’d better hope your Elite Sabers can pass on a message,” I say, waving a hand between Roarke and Seth. “What message did you get, Roarke?”
“Wet a soggy gecko on the way – put him in your sack?” Roarke says, his voice raised so everyone can hear him clearly.
Seth cracks up. All out, too funny, you-people-are-crazy hysterics.
I thought the message that came back was funny, but watching Seth laugh is so much better.
“That’s word-for-word the message the mortal had. Exactly,” Teegan says.
Seth shakes his head, which makes Teegan’s face heat.
Jada’s jaw is set in hard fury, her lips pinched and her head turned a little on the side so she can glare at me on an angle.
“The message was – I went for a job as an echo, and I’m still waiting to hear back,” Seth says, then his eyes light up, and he looks down at me in shock. “Echo,” he says, pointing his finger around the circle, from himself back to himself. “Hear back!”
“Did you just surprise the trickster?” Roarke asks me.
“I suppose I did, but it was unintentional,” I stage whisper – I’ve never seen Seth so shocked.
“Well, he’s not so bright. Word games might be his weakness,” Roarke says.
“I had no weaknesses,” Seth whispers, hooking his finger under my chin then leaning down until his forehead is flush to mine. “Now I have one, Vexy.”
I lick my lips… then realize we have an audience and turn my attention sharply to Jada.
“I believe you owe me a lot of drinks,” I say. “Because I believe you are wrong. Winner gets the wine, loser shuts their pie hole.”
Pax snorts. Sudden, hard, and getting everyone's attention.
“Um, explain,” I mutter out of the side of my mouth to Roarke or Seth, or both of them.
Roarke leans down to fill me in while Pax chuckles and shakes his head. “Alphas dominate, they don’t do petty jealous bickering. Hard and to the point. He was impressed when you tried to put an apple up Jada’s nose.”
Oh, well I’m happy to try that again.
“And he loves pie,” Seth adds, cupping his hand between his mouth and my ear to keep the words between him and me.
They straighten at the same time as Pax inhales deeply and makes a commanding gesture between Jada and me.
“You made the bet, you honor it,” he says.
Which surprises the chuck out of me.
Jada gets up, grudgingly, and collects the crate of wine from beside Roarke. She moves it all of two feet and sets it down directly in front of me. It’s not really a fair bet, given the wine doesn’t actually belong to her. But I think the fact that she’s serving me – Jada, Elite Saber who thinks the sun shines out of her ass, is serving the soot-servant sitting on the ground who has laid claim to the men she clearly fancies – is adequate torture. For now.
She retreats with confidence and a sway in her step. It’s all rather petty really.
Pax gives Roarke a nod, and before I can claim the crate, Mr. Sexy-can’t-button-his-shirt-up pulls the thing back out of my reach. I dive forward, but Seth grabs the back of my shirt and yanks to set my ass back on the ground.
“I’d love to see what you’re like after a dozen drinks, but I’ve been warned mortals don’t always survive when they consume too much alcohol,” he says.
“They survive just fine, who told you that crap?” I demand, but there’s no point struggling since he has me pinned by my shirt.
Stuck.
That’s it. All over.
Nobody loves me.
I mean, pretty sure Pax has feelings for me, but love might be pushing it, and he’s the one with the teeth and temper and the hard ‘don’t get Shade drunk’ rule. Everything about him is hard. Sure, he can keep the hard muscles. But his gaze is hard. His rules are hard. His view of the world is hard.
Here’s little me just trying to keep myself as far from trouble as possible, and way over there on the other side of the fire is my magically-bound mate who looks at
