Page 94 of Sparks Flying

“All accounted for. You’re the first to wake, but I suspect the others won’t be far behind you.”

She was so cool and calm under pressure. It was impressive.

“When you’re back on your feet, we’ll make arrangements to get you home. I’ve been in touch with Kyle Westin every day to update him on your progress. He’s quite worried, as you can imagine.”

“Thanks.”

He was getting stronger by the minute and asked for help to sit up and a glass of water. We were happy to oblige.

“Hey, you two are out of quarantine. Did Doc ever figure out what was going on?”

Bailey and I looked at each other. She shook her head.

“Nope,” we said at the same time.

“I’m not buying it. What was it?”

“Fine, but only because you were going to find out eventually anyway. We weren’t sick at all. We were mating,” she blurted out.

“Come again. I don’t think I heard that right. I thought you said mating.”

“You heard right,” she insisted.

“Mating does not equal quarantine. Besides, he’s a raven and you’re a wolf.”

“And Chase is a wolf, but Jenna is a panther. You, of all people, know it’s possible,” she reminded him.

“True mates? A wolf and a raven?”

“Yup. And Doc is old and a bit kooky. He was convinced that we were like an old mythological prophesy or something,” I tried to explain. “And he fabricated the quarantine thing. We’re both fine.”

“Norse mythology.”

“That’s it,” Bailey confirmed.

“A raven and wolf are seen as an omen for luck in a coming battle.”

“Crazy, right?” she said.

“Not when we had a battle, and I’m assuming came out victorious since I’m still here.”

Bailey opened her mouth to protest and then shut it again.

How the hell could we argue with that?

“Do we know who was behind the attack?”

“Three Collectors and three scientists. We don’t know the connection yet. Bailey and Archie were able to get word out to all your teams around the world.”

“Bailey will make a great asset on any of our Westin Force teams. Maybe even Bravo someday.”

She took a deep breath before speaking. “Actually, I won’t. I would very much like to finish out the internship, butonly if I can do it remotely. I feel like there’s a lot more I could learn to help out, but I’m staying in Ravenden. I’ll be taking online classes through the ARC next semester and working on Ravenden security with Dean. We make a pretty great team and I think they need us here more than you need me there.”

“True mates. That’s so hard to believe.” He considered that for a moment. “Wait a bloody minute. The quarantine was all bullshit, wasn’t it?”

Patrick was a little slow, but recovering quickly. We’d already confessed that, yet it seemed to just be fully sinking in.

“Yeah, it was.”

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