Page 41 of SIN Bone Deep

“Ah. Who is your tutor?” She seemed as pleased as I to make the friendship. We were both outsiders in a way.

“Dean Ashbourne,” I admitted.

“Seriously?” She raised her eyebrows. At the bar, the four men were taking shots and talking loudly. They seemed to have forgotten us. “That could either be a good thing or a bad one.”

“Yeah, I know,” I agreed. “Mal’s in the same tutor group.”

“He’s cute,” she said with appreciation. “Like, seriously good-looking. Unusual looking too with that hair. I’ve never seen someone with quite that shade of red.”

I could guess why that was. “I know. He is… really cute.”

“Xander has a thing for you, eh?” She added. “Two boys fighting over you.”

Three, I corrected. Was this the start of the Vossen romantic tragedy that I knew lay on the horizon? “I guess,” I said grimly. “That’s only ever good in romances, though,” I told her. “In real life, someone always ends up being hurt.” And usually, that was the Vossen woman involved.

“Champagne?” Xander had left the bar and presented us each with a glass.

“Thanks,” we echoed each other, but he was already returning to the bar.

“Technically,” Fleur said conversationally. “It’s not champagne unless it comes from Champagne. This is probably…” She took a sip. “Yes, definitely. This is just a sparkling white wine from somewhere else.”

“You can tell that from a sip of champagne?” I asked her. “Wine,” I corrected. “Sparkling wine.”

She laughed under her breath. “It’s a talent of mine. My mother’s family are winemakers.”

The men, grasping beers and shot glasses, peeled away from the bar to one of the standing tables near the pool table, making it clear to those playing that they intended to take over. As Fleur and I headed over to join them, a man leaving the toilets almost walked into us, and our eyes met.

I felt a cold chill across my skin.

“You again,” Warren sneered down at me. “You Vossens are like bad smells. I’m still waiting,” he gripped my upper arm and pulled me towards him. “I’m still waiting for your fucking aunts to tell me where the fuck my wife is.”

“Excuse me,” Xander pushed Fleur back and rose to every inch of his six-plus feet. Dawson and Laurie flanked him. “Let her go.”

Warren ran his eye over the three men. Although the three young men were fit and tall, Warren was a big man and had the build of someone who laboured for a living. He had the confidence of a man who knew his strength and wasn’t new to using it to cause others pain.

“You’re going to let her go,” Mal said quietly.

Warren made a sound of contempt as he turned his gaze, and then his expression changed. Whatever he saw in Mal’s eyes - it scared him. “Tell your fucking aunts that this isn’t done,” Warren said darkly but released my arm, and stepped around our group, leaving the bar.

“Well,” Mal stroked his hands over my head, smoothing my hair, before running his palms over my shoulders and upper arms. “That was a bit of fun. You have a singular skill, Nyx, of coming to the attention of the wrong type of man, don’t you?”

FIFTEEN

Harvesting comes to one and all when the Autumn Equinox does fall

– The Wiccan Rede

It was fun. For those few hours, I was part of a group, included in the laughter rather than the subject of it, and it was exhilarating. I could suddenly understand how Nova sought inclusion with the popular kids, and how her recent exclusion from them had caused her so much anguish.

After their match was unsuccessful, with Dawson easily beating the optimistic Laurie, they attempted to teach me to play, and the laughter was good-natured and their encouragement genuine.

The other patrons of the bar faded into the background, and I began to understand how Xander and his group were so comfortable in the bar despite them. They didn’t try to engage with us, nor us them, and if our noise annoyed them, they gave no sign.

Several times, Xander tried to pin me down one-on-one, but Mal always intervened, skilfully casual so that it seemed coincidental, but I was certain it was deliberate. “Damn it, Nyx. Now you’ve gone and complicated things,” he had said. Was this a consequence of that complication? Was Mal the jealous type? Had his teasing about Ender hidden his real feelings?

“Shit.” I certainly had complicated things, I remembered, and Ender would be waiting for me at home. “What is the time?” I asked Fleur.

“Eleven thirty,” she told me.

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