Page 448 of Flirting with Darkness

4

The school buzzed with nervousness and the sound of hundreds of voices excitedly talking.

“You have everything you need?” I asked Caleb as we stood in front of the doors leading inside the main building.

He nodded, hugged me, and waved as he headed inside. “See you at three!”

Ezio stood guard at the front door, his stoic expression turning soft as he high-fived Caleb as he walked inside.

“Our little boy sure has grown up fast, hasn’t he?” Deryn asked as he hugged me against his side.

I sniffled to try to keep the tears in my eyes from falling. “He has.”

After his epic speech, I’d needed time alone to decompress. It had helped alleviate some of the worry I’d had about sending him to the school. I smiled softly, proud of my little cub.

“He’s going to talk our ears off when he gets home,” Rhys said from my left.

Nico set a hand on my shoulder and squeezed. “Don’t worry, Jolie. He’ll be fine.”

I turned and looked at my four mates with a wide smile. “I know. He’s much more grown-up than I realized.”

“I think we all deserve a warm breakfast with bottomless mimosas,” Fox said and sniffled.

“Yes, please!” I shouted.

“Um, that’s a Sunday brunch thing,” Deryn reminded us.

“I know a place that does brunch every day!” Fox announced.

“Of course you do,” Rhys said and chuckled.

The restaurant sat us immediately, one of the perks of being mated to royalty.

Fox wouldn’t let me look at the menu and ordered my drink by pointing to the waiter so I would be surprised.

Surprised didn’t begin to cover it when a two-foot-tall glass with a bendy straw came out.

Fox had the same glass, but while I’d gotten strawberry mimosa, he had gotten blueberry. He clinked the top of his glass against mine and yelled, “Cheers!”

Although everyone else had gotten normal-sized drinks, they clinked theirs against mine as well.

The five of us laughed and teased each other as we drank and ate. It felt like everything had gotten back to normal.

Yet…

“Did you find their base yet?” I asked. The kidnapper had given us a lot of information, but some of it was unreliable.

Nico shook his head. “We think someone must have escaped that day and warned them we were going to come after them.”

“I’m surprised anyone was missed by Vlad the Impaler over there,” Deryn teased.

I hung my head. “I’m sorry.”

“We’ve all dealt with bloodlust before,” Rhys said.

I shook my head. “It wasn’t bloodlust. This was a darkness, a hatred, a loathing that I couldn’t let go of. The only thing that I wanted was them dead. It wasn’t about making them bleed, it was about eradicating them.”

None of us had ever heard of it before, but they didn’t seem worried. I was. I wanted to make sure that I didn’t get overtaken by that darkness again in the future.

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