Page 54 of Collected By the Crow

They were so deep in conversation that they hardly noticed the chips and salsa be placed on the table and barely glanced at the menu to pick their orders. Cass ordered the chicken chimichanga, and Mark ordered the steak fajitas. Just like in her memories.

“Enough about me. You said you’re in a good place. Tell me about that!”

Cass almost choked as she huffed a laugh. “Dude, actually, I really am in a great place. But I think I just lost my job. Well, probably.”

Mark gasped, covering his mouthful of peppers with one hand and gesturing her to get on with it with the other.

“I did something highly unethical.” She watched him resume chewing, his brows still in his hairline. “Do you want the real truth, or what I told them? You’re not going to believe me either way.”

“Just tell me!”

Cass chewed the inside of her lip and tapped her fork on her plate. Maybe she was still feeling high from that insane meeting, but she was giddy as a teenager at the chance to talk about her broody genius vampire. Now that she had Q’s blessing, she couldn’t resist bragging about him. It’d been hard enough to lie to her peers, she couldn’t keep her mouth shut now.

She knew it sounded wild. Mark didn’t really know her anymore. He could decide she was a liar, or off her rocker, but she didn’t care. She’d been telling lies for the past hour and desperately needed some truth. Either he would stay in her life long enough to see, or he would become distant again. She had a feeling he would be intrigued enough to stick around and find out. So she told him the increasingly unbelievable tale of the recent months. By the time she was done, their half-eaten plates had been abandoned long enough that the waitress had brought to-go containers and the check.

“Now, after that stunt in the meeting, I don’t know if I want to stay here. I mean, dude, you should see the equipment they’re working with in the kingdom! And the impossible creatures there. I mean, it would be a whole new adventure.” She pursed her lips. “And Qadaire wouldn’t have to face humanity’s nasty side just to come out of hiding. For me.”

Mark gave her an empathetic frown and stilled her fork tapping with a hand on hers. “Hon. I don’t know what to say. Whatever’s really going on, though, I know you should follow your heart. Sounds like it already knows what to do.”

Cass nodded. Now that he mentioned it, her heart had been whispering to her ever since they’d visited the realm of mythical beings.

It was time she listened.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Qadaire

Qadaire resisted the urge to visit the ghost of his greenhouse by practicing on the guitar. When Cassandra was around, he had no problem ignoring the grief of his loss. When she was near, he had no problems to think of at all.

“Almost none, that is.” There was always the matter of her mortality.

Right now, with Cassandra off convincing her colleagues of their lies, he had nothing but problems to think of. All he could do was fill his time until she returned with a verdict. He didn’t expect the response to be good, but this was the course she wanted, and he would follow her to the edge of the universe.

He heard Zero’s heartbeat speed up before he barked. Qadaire was at the door in the next breath. He swung it open for Cassandra and took the bags from her hands. They naturally migrated to the back of the castle. To the small room connected to the lab, where they’d spent precious moments of time playing board games and learning about each other.

They reached the table. Qadaire didn’t ask. He watched her until she shrugged.

“It went about as well as you thought.”

His chest tightened. He sagged into the wooden dining chair. “Then we should be expecting pitchforks.”

“Actually, I had an idea.”

“Go on.”

Cassandra grabbed the back of the chair she’d always occupied and dragged it around. She covered his hand with hers and leaned in conspiratorially. Her playful grin was one of his favorites of her smiles, and he couldn’t help softening in the presence of it.

“I’ve been thinking. No matter what, we have to lie. Humanity doesn’t deserve you. I don’t want to think about what would happen when they figure out our lies.”

“Dewdrop, I would submit myself to experimentation if you asked.”

“Yes, and I hate that. But I’ve been thinking.” Cassandra softened. Her hands squeezed his before she leaned back and shook her thighs with her palms. “What if we left?”

“Left?”

“I messaged Dana earlier and asked if there were any plots large enough for a greenhouse. She thinks so. And she said Ryuu wants us back, he could get us jobs with his connections.” She stood, her words taking on an excited lilt as they rushed from her perfect lips. “Think, Q. There are so many things we don’t know. We would take on a whole new side of science, with creatures we’ve—well, at least, I’ve—never heard of!”

“Cassandra . . .”

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