Page 36 of Taste of Danger

“Do not tell me you’re going home.” He descended the porch and headed toward her. She backed up a few steps.

Elvine wasn’t afraid he would do something to her. She just really didn’t like his expression. “You know I have to go home, be seen around my village, visit neighbors and tell them how much fun I’ve been having with you.” She smiled sweetly at him. “They love hearing about the shenanigans we get into.”

That was the truth. Before they’d come to live at the Frosts’, she and Raidh used to have so much fun, and her parents and neighbors loved hearing her embellishment what she and her best friend had done.

Since being in the human realm, she’d had to fabricate stories, because the two no longer ran off to have…anything.

Elvine couldn’t tell them about the battle with Vicino and his army of vampires or how Raidh had died and his soul had to be retrieved. Or how Damon had been transformed into… She wasn’t exactly sure what he was now. Or the onslaught at the restaurant where she’d discovered she had two mates, one of which had been attacked by a ghoul.

First, even if she could find a way to make the stories sound hilarious, her family and neighbors would have still been horrified she’d been in any kind of danger.

Second, she would have given away the fact she’d been in the human realm. In their eyes, Elvine was mischievous, but she wasn’t a lawbreaker.

“Why didn’t you ever tell me about the guard, Elvine?” Raidh looked genuinely hurt. “And why did you try to go off on an adventure without me? I could have watched our backs, preventing the guard from catching you.”

The one time she’d tried to go by herself and she’d gotten busted. “Because you would’ve never taken me with you again if you’d known.”

Raidh let out a heavy sigh, disappointment in his lavender-gray eyes. “All I’ve ever done is try to protect you, dewdrop.”

“That’s my line,” she argued. “You’re the one who constantly finds trouble, Raidh. Then I have to get you out of it.”

“Elvine, I haven’t gotten into trouble since our youth. You just use that as an excuse to play big sister to me.”

She huffed. “Have you forgotten you were nearly drained from a vampire the first four days you were here?”

“Stop.” He scowled. “You’re getting off track in hopes I’ll forget about the guard.”

Coconuts. It hadn’t worked.

“You can’t go home, Elvine. If he finds you, he may enact his own brand of punishment before he arrests you.” He gripped her arms then hugged her. “Best friends forever, dewdrop.”

She closed her eyes as she hugged him back. They used to live a distance away from each other, but they’d always hung out. Now they lived in the same house and aside from a few early morning breakfasts together, they didn’t really talk anymore.

Elvine missed her best friend badly. She really needed him right now, but Raidh was always with Jaytee. Not that she blamed him for wanting to spend time with his mate, but dang it, why did things in life have to change?

“I’m sorry I’ve been neglecting our friendship.” Raidh brushed his fingers through her hair the same way he used to when they were younger and she’d needed comfort. “You know I would never purposely ignore you.”

“A lot has been going on,” Elvine admitted.

He pulled her down to the grass where they sat cross-legged. “I can’t believe Jax is your mate.” Raidh cracked up. She knew he was trying to lighten the mood, and she let him. “The way you two always bicker.”

“I know, right!” She snickered. “I felt my connection to Arion as soon as he showed up to warn us, but it felt like I was being yanked sideways toward Jax at the same time.” She rested her palm against her chest. “I’ll let you in on a little secret since you were too busy with Jaytee to notice. I was attracted to Jax from the moment we met.”

Raidh glanced over his shoulder then back at her before whispering, “I think every last Frost is smoking-hot.”

“Me too.” She giggled. “But your mate is a twin. Don’t you ever get them confused?”

“For a split second sometimes. But if I don’t feel our connection, I know it’s Damon and not Jaytee. A few times I felt panicked because I didn’t feel it until I realized why.”

“You know I have to go back, Raidh,” she said softly. “If I’m gone too long, people will notice. I can’t have my parents taken to the king to be questioned. You know as well as I do they’ll never be seen again.”

Raidh knew about her sister and brother. How the darkness had consumed Henry and made his temper dangerous. He’d gotten upset with Lily one night and, in a fit of rage, had cast an instant death spell on her.

Unseelie had no laws about using dark magic, but murder was illegal. Her brother had been sentenced to death and executed on the spot, killed right in front of his family.

It had been seven hundred years, but her papa and mama still mourned the loss of both their children.

Elvine was the only offspring they had left. And they were all she had left of her family as well. She wouldn’t allow them to suffer because she was in the human realm with her mates.

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