Page 42 of Out of My Flocking Mind

Except…

I’d yet to spot Trey.

My phone rang, so I pulled it from my pocket and glanced at the screen.

Ignis?

“Hello,” I answered, holding the cell between my ear and my shoulder.

“Hey—where have you been?”

“Working.”

“Really?” Her voice held an edge of suspicion. I couldn’t blame her for that. I’d done plenty of deliveries in the past, but I rarely called them work and sure as fuck had never treated it as a job.

“Yes, really. I do work, you know?”

“Uh-huh. And here I’d started to believe the rumor I heard about people seeing you around with Harrison.” The sly tone of her voice sounded like one hell of a gotcha. The bitch knew the truth to that, then, and she just wanted to catch me in the lie.

“Trust me—dealing with your brother is work.” I sat on the edge of a planter, ignoring the dirty looks from a teacher as she walked by. “And who told you that? I swear, you Spirits are no better than teenage girls—and I know a lot more about teenagers than I did before, so I can say that.”

Ignis chuckled. “Well, to be fair, no one sees other people with Harrison. If he even got a dog, I think it would start up the rumor mill. It’s why hearing he was seen with some blue-haired girl was enough for me to take notice. What’s that all about? Are you two besties now?”

A flash from the other night hit me, the sensation of Harrison’s lips, the way his cock had sunk into me. No, not friends. Thankfully, our conversation occurring over the phone meant Ignis couldn’t read my expression, the nosy bitch. “Not exactly,” I hedged. “I’m helping him with a problem.”

And there it was, the silence that screamed of disapproval. Why was it that no one seemed to believe that? Was it that they didn’t think I could be helpful or just that they thought I must have caused the problem? “Please tell me this isn’t about the Cloud…”

“How did you know about that?”

“I’m a Mind, Grey. I may stay out of clan business, but that doesn’t mean I don’t hear what’s going on. Harrison has been tracking Cloud for months now. I just didn’t think he’d be stupid enough to get you caught up in that mess.”

“He didn’t. I found my way into it all by myself. Trust me, I don’t need any help to find trouble.”

“Well, I can’t deny that. At least tell me that you’re safe.”

“I’m as safe as I ever am,” I answered. “And Harrison is keeping an eye out for me.”

“That’s the only reason I’m going to let this be. If it were anyone else, I’d try to haul you back by the nape of your neck. If there’s anyone who can keep an eye on you, though, it would be Harrison.”

“Really? He doesn’t strike me as a real caretaker type.” I thought about the cold way Harrison spoke, the way he seemed uninterested in the entire world around him.

“Yeah, that’s how he wants to look. I’ve known him my entire life, though.”

“Who’s older?”

I could almost see Ignis smirking at the question, at the fact that I was curious about them—and because of that, curious about him. Still, I couldn’t help it. Harrison was so tight-lipped, I felt like I knew almost nothing about him.

Well, I knew what his cock looked like—and felt like—but that wasn’t something I planned to tell his sister.

“I am,” she said. “I was five when he was born.”

“Why is he the way he is, then, but not you?”

“Ouch. Are you really asking me why my brother is so much more powerful than I am? Don’t you think that’s a sort of rude question?”

“You know I don’t mean it like that. It’s just that you’re normal, and he is very much not. Is it just random?”

Papers shuffled on the other side of the line, suggesting she was in her office, still working. Not that it shocked me—Ignis was one hell of a hard worker, after all. I could picture her at her desk, reviewing files while she made a call between clients. “The power that Minds hold follow bloodlines, but like anything, there’s a lot that seems like random chance. Think of it like having good genes, but the mixture of those genes determine exactly how useful. Our parents are powerful, which set us up for being powerful as well. Believe it or not, I’m not considered weak. It’s just that my skills are less obvious.”

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