Page 9 of Voyage with the Reclusive Billionaire

He winks. “Yeah, alright. I do.”

Eliza laughs and gazes up at me. I don’t try to hide the gratitude that is probably shining in my eyes. She single-handedly diffused the topic. Turned it into something else. Because she saw how uncomfortable I was.

Hope fills me again, but it’s different this time.

I’m hoping like hell she doesn’t ask me about this later.

The other couple, Elena and Alex, spend most of the dinner murmuring to each other. They contribute to the conversation when questions are asked, where they briefly turn their heads toward us, answer thoroughly and ask another question, listen, and then duck back toward each other to keep whispering and giggling and talking.

At one point, Sylvie asks them, “Where did you two meet?”

Elena answers, “Well, we met a while ago, in our hometown. And then we lost touch for a little longer. But I always carried a torch for him, you know?”

Alex nods his agreement. “Same here,” he says. “She was always the one who got away.” A pause. “Until she wasn’t.”

Elena smiles fondly at him. “We… reunited, I guess you could say, here.”

At this, Sylvie’s jaw drops and she slaps a hand over Ryker’s. “You’re shitting me. Like, on the boat?”

Elena nods. “Seriously,” she says. “We’ve been getting to know each other as the people we are now.”

“Forgive me if I make things overbearingly awkward,” Sylvie says, one hand braced under her chin, “But that’s quite possibly the cutest thing I’ve ever heard in my life.”

“And you guys?” Elena asks. “Where’d you meet?””

“At a bed-and-breakfast, actually,” Sylvie says, smiling over at Ryker. “We got stuck in the same room together. Got to know each other pretty well, pretty fast, I’d say.”

“You just got locked in together? And didn’t want to kill each other at the end of it all?”

Sylvie leans back in her seat and shrugs, smiling broadly now. “Let’s just say it was a… magical experience. We didn’t have much time for hating. But love is a lot easier to foster.”

That smile softens with fondness when she looks at Ryker. Then she looks back at Elena and Alex. “You two seem to share a similar… lifestyle to Ryker’s. He’s too shy to ask himself, but has been dying with curiosity: what—” her eyes flicked to mine, a knowing look in them, and then Eliza’s, seeming to weigh her words as she studied her before turning her gaze back to the pale blonde girl, “ —is your spirit animal?”

Alex chokes out a laugh. Elena manages a blush.

Alex says, “Elena and I identify with bears.”

I realize, then, exactly what they’re saying here without saying it. They’re shifters. And it sounds like Ryker is, too. That explains the energy I’ve been feeling at the table since we’ve sat down. I haven’t been around many strange shifters lately though, so I must be out of practice sensing them. I wouldn’t guess Sylvie to be one, given how she worded it, but she does seem like she’s something not-quite-human. It’s more a feeling than it is anything else. More about the way she holds herself.

“Interesting,” Ryker murmurs.

Eliza laughs lightly and says, “You both identify with bears? I mean him I get.” She gestures to the giant of a man sitting beside the smaller, lean Elena. “But you?”

“It’s my spirit,” she says simply, a barely suppressed smile on her lips.

“What about you, Corey?” Sylvie cuts in, probably to keep Eliza from pressing. Eliza, who appears to be the only damned human at this table.

“What do you mean?” I say stiffly.

“Oh, you can trust us. We won’t say anything. To anyone,” she emphasizes, eyes flicking to Eliza once more.

Eliza, who looks up at me, mildly confused. “I feel like I’m missing something here.”

“You’re not,” I lie. “Just… what’s your spirit animal?” I deflect.

She laughs and thinks. “Hm. I’d probably be a bird, if I could. I’d give anything to be able to fly.”

“Good pick.” Ryker nods enthusiastically. “Having wings would be fucking awesome. I wish I had wings.”

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