Page 117 of Gift from the Stone

“We’ll have to practice. It’s going to take some concentration, but we’ll work on it later, I promise. For now, just block out all the noise,” he says, running his hand down her throat. With a short nod and a kiss to his palm, she links their fingers together.

“Fuck, little wanderer, I can’t wait for you to hear all the naughty things I think about you,” Draken cheers, claiming her other hand.

The smile on his face screams he’s thinking about something right now. I swear it’s an extra gift Draken has to be able to detect when tension needs to be broken up. Sometimes he says some inappropriate shit at the wrong time, but for the most part, he always knows what to say.

“Draken,” she playfully scolds, laughing at his words.

Her previously gloomy, panic-ridden face is gone in a flash and by the way he smiles down at her, it’s obvious he did it on purpose before we step out in front of this room full of people.

As the dark shadow that’s been concealing us comes down, the noise in the room comes into focus before it silences as all heads turn toward us. It’s no surprise when Oakly attempts to bulldoze her way through us to get to Willow, her Nexus right behind her, each of them approaching us with stricken looks on their faces. No doubt their Primary was giving them hell about being shut out when Gaster wasn’t.

“Are you okay? What happened?” Oakly bombards Willow, examining her body, searching for signs of injury.

“Later,” Willow responds.

She and Oakly seem to have a silent conversation that only they understand, apparently. I can’t help but raise a questioning brow as they go back and forth, raising eyebrows, nodding, and grunting. Caspian’s wearing a shit-eating grin, watching the two of them, his fucking telltale signs he knows something the rest of us don’t, and that pisses me off.

“Fine,” Oakly grumbles, not pushing anymore.

I make another mental note to ask Willow what that was about later as I steer her over to the table where Lucas and his team and the palace team are waiting for us to begin. Tillman approaches and speaks for both of us, while I dial Lyker, so his Nexus and Rhett’s can listen in.

“Corentin. I was getting concerned,” he says seriously the moment he answers. The tone in his voice makes me pause instead of putting him on speaker. I hear Aria’s voice in the background going a mile a minute, and my princess can’t help but take notice, hearing the commotion from how close she’s standing to me.

“Everything’s fine, just had something come up,” I tell him vaguely; not that I’m worried about him knowing what happened, I’m just not announcing it.

“Can you give me a second? He just called…message her yourself…” he growls, cutting the flurry of Aria’s inaudible questions off. “Fine, fine. Fuck. Corentin, sorry, is Fortune Teller okay? Aria is having a damn fit and is convinced she felt a disturbance from her… How the fuck do you think you felt a disturbance? That makes no sense,” he growls again at Aria, but now my mind is back to racing. Willow, who’s been eavesdropping on this entire conversation, stares at me in both shock and understanding.

What the hell now?

“It does make sense. Ask her how she knows,” I order gravelly.

Elementra, I swear if this is another bond…

“She says because her gift is tuned into Willow’s from their dream-walking adventures,” he replies and I blow out a subtle breath of relief. Not another bond, just Aria’s Ethereal abilities.

“Tell her she’s fine and will call her later. I’m putting you on speaker now so we can get to the briefing,” I say more forcefully than I meant, but I’m almost to my fucking cap in surprises today and I’m ill I have to hear these details along with everyone else since Tillman had something better to do last night than fill me in.

There’s that jealousy of yours showing.

Cutting the communicator on speaker and tossing it on the table, I drag Willow onto my lap as we all sit down. I avoid Tillman’s gaze like it’s the plague because I feel it burning into my skin. I know I’m a jealous asshole, but deep down, I’m a happy jealous asshole.

Loud scraping draws my attention to my right, where Draken is dragging his chair as close as humanly possible to me and Willow. The noise makes my eye twitch and I sneer at him, telling him with my glare to cut it out, to which he just grins, placing his hand on Willow’s thigh.

Tickling around my wrist pulls my scathing look from him, to where Willow has her hands lying on my arms. Caspian’s shadows are trying to push their way between our skin so they can wrap around her hands. I shoot him a dark look, earning myself a satisfied smirk.

I’m going to kill them both.

Five…four…three…two…one…

Why they choose this exact moment to mess with me like they used to when they were un-fucking-ruly teenagers, I don’t know, but it’s both pissing me off and bringing me joy. We found Draken after what happened to Cas, but out of all of us, even me, Draken’s able to pull Caspian out of the darkness the most. Their unsustainable need to cause trouble, play pranks, and just bring chaos has always fed off of one another. Why I have to be their current target, though, I don’t know.

“Let’s proceed,” I command after Tillman finishes giving a brief to Lucas and his team on what happened in Terravile, up to the point of the Elders. I grip Willow’s hips tightly to stop her squirming, and that’s when I realize Draken’s trailing his hand up and down the inside of her thigh, and Caspian’s discreetly tracing her body with his shadows. Giving them both one last warning glare, they snicker, like this shit is pleasing them to no end.

“None of the nine Elders knew the identity of the Summum-Master. They’ve only met him once when he visited Jarod’s father. He keeps his face concealed, but there’s no doubt he’s male. One of their biggest beliefs is that males are of higher standard than females.” Tillman sneers. His hard eyes seek out Willow’s, then soften.

“Of fucking course. Makes perfect sense,” she mutters, crossing her arms, no doubt thinking about how her worthless father and that rapist scumbag called her a useless woman more times than she can count.

Vile idiots.

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