Page 290 of Of Sins and Sacrifice

“What’s going on?”

The soldier lets out a loud whistle and more men in uniform come out of their outposts, all of them with their weapons raised.

“Minnie,” Mine starts in a tense voice. “Can you get the car to fly over the barricade?”

“Yes, of course.” Though that will require quite a bit of energy.

“Good. And a shield. We’ll need a shield.”

“I can do that,” I say and create a shield around the car.

His lips are a thin line of tension.

“When I give the signal, we fly.”

I nod and gather my energy, letting it surround the car.

The soldier who’d left before comes back, confused to see everyone pointing their weapons at us.

“Repos,” he calls out, his voice thundering. The he follows with, “Il est le fils de Ciel de Vitry.”

The soldiers look at one another for a few more tense seconds before they holster their rifles.

“Apologies, Mr. de Vitry. You may go,” the man says with a salute.

“Thank you,” Mine replies.

The barricade is raised, and our car continues on.

A mile or so after we’ve crossed into French territory, I turn to him.

“Explain! What just happened?”

Mine shakes his head, his lips curled up in amusement. “You saidpousseinstead ofépouse.”

“So?”

“It means sprout. You said you were my sprout.”

“Oh,” I whisper.

He laughs.

“At least now I know your vocabulary mishaps extend to languages other than English.”

I glare at him. “I hope you’re not laughing at me.”

“I am not. You are just too adorable. Even when you’re about to get us shot at, you’re adorable.”

He might have said something else in that sentence of his, but all I can hear is adorable.

Mine thinks I’m adorable.

I smile to myself. He’s a smart one, all right.

In fact, I’m so happy at his praise that I forget everything I wanted to ask him about—like who Ciel de Vitry is.

It takes us another three hours to get to the mysterious location he calls his safe haven.

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