Page 53 of Rogue Familiar

The woman could sure take the wind out of his sails in a trice.

Before he could summon an appropriately scathing answer, she continued. “How do you know you’re the wizard and I’m the familiar?” she asked in a falsely sweet tone, eyes wide with mock innocence. “We have no paperwork saying so.”

“I see what you’re doing there,” Jadren ground out. “And your ridiculous argument and baseless logic won’t sway me.”

“How about the argument that your desire to go to House Hanneil is entirely about your ego and possibly your ongoing self-destructive tendencies?”

“If so, that’s my problem.”

“Is it?” she asked with quiet intensity. “Seems like that’s our problem. What happens if they throw me off the cliff with you? I can’t survive that fall.”

“They won’t kill a valuable familiar.” Though the image of Seliah, smashed and shattered at the bottom of that cliff made his blood run cold.

“Oh, right.” Seliah rolled her eyes and cocked one hip. “They’ll toss you off again—and this time there won’t be anyone coming to drag you off those rocks—and me, they’ll just capture and bond to whatever wizard they decide I’d serve best as a living asset.”

“They won’t be able to, since I can’t die,” he replied before thinking.

“If that was meant to be reassuring, it fell far short. Not even as far as you fell off that cliff.”

“I didn’t fall, I was thrown,” he retorted before he realized he’d just taken another dive, falling for that bait. Seliah could twist him up until he couldn’t see straight. “At any rate, my decision is final. I’m going to House Hanneil. You can either go home or come with me.”

“Or I could go to House Refoel,” she said, thoughtfully tapping a finger against her lip. “Or I could report to Convocation Center for testing and training. Really, if I’m free to do as I like, I have all sorts of options.”

“You are not free to do as you like,” he replied, setting his teeth. “I gave you two options, which is more than most familiars get. Pick one.”

“You’re not the boss of me.”

“I am the boss of you,” he fired back, part of him in the back of his mind observing that this sounded like a children’s argument.

She turned her back on him, hair rippling in a dark wave with gleaming blue highlights that reminded him of moonlight on still water, the curling tips pointing at that enticing rear end, just to taunt him and make him even more miserable. “Vale is my horse,” she was saying, then looked over her shoulder at him with a narrowed gaze. He hastily yanked his own avid stare off her pert bottom. “If we part ways, he goes with me.”

“He’s your brother’s horse,” Jadren retorted, mostly to annoy her. And because arguing with her was like a drug he couldn’t quit. Vale swung his head around and blew out an equine remark between grass-slobbered lips that Jadren couldn’t interpret.

“Vale is his own horse,” Seliah amended, scratching under Vale’s forelock. “But he’s on loan to me.”

“Fine. I’ll take my things and walk to House Hanneil.”

She spun around, fully exasperated. “Do you seriously have a death wish?”

In truth, he probably did. Just as everyone wished for the one thing they could never have. “I have a gut feeling I should go to House Hanneil. Call it my wizard’s intuition.”

“Your wizard’s idiocy and stubborn short-sightedness more like,” she grumbled. “Do you want to walk or ride first?”

“What do you mean?” he asked, feeling a bit stupid.

“Only one horse.” She pointed to Vale, as if he might’ve failed to notice the big gelding. “Despite what the romantic novels say, it’s not all that feasible for two people to share one horse for any length of time, especially not with this much baggage. We’ll have to take turns riding.”

“Who are you accusing of having baggage?” he quipped, unable to resist the joke. It helped to justify the smile widening his lips, even though the real reason for it was the sheer giddy relief that she’d decided to come with him. It meant far more than it should that she chose him. Yes, it called her good judgment into question, but that just showed how alike they were.

“I fully own my baggage,” she replied with an answering smile. “Even if most of the literal baggage here is mostly what Gabriel foisted upon me.”

“We could make an argument that a fair amount of the metaphorical baggage is, too.”

Her lips twisted ruefully and she dipped her chin to acknowledge the point. “Family can be that way. How about we start out walking? We’re both rested and that will keep Vale fresher longer. Maybe we can buy another horse along the way. Who knows? Maybe we can even talk your murderers at House Hanneil into giving us your mare back. She does belong to House Phel after all. There have to be Convocation rules about that, as there are for every other cursed thing.”

She was probably right, though he didn’t know what they were. “Then you’re coming with me?” he asked, with a sense of relieved gratitude.

“Where you go, I go, Wizard,” she answered with a hint of a smile on her naturally grave face. “Besides, you need someone to keep your skin intact. I like it the way it is.”

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