Page 30 of Home: Posy 5

"With an assist from Beta Ty," Archer said, reaching around Wayne to offer his fist. "Thanks, man."

With a grin, I smacked my knuckles against his.

"Just thought it's better to keep him under our supervision than let him wander around loose." I shrugged.

"Yeah," Landry laughed. "Because you know he's not going to miss any of our games."

"Facts," both boys said with a grin.

5: Relax and Breathe … Or Not!

Wyatt

Because he'd pissed Mason off more than me, Ash was stuck on incinerator duty. Sure, there were plenty of guards to make sure King Julian's prisoner did the job properly, but we wouldn't have peace of mind about it without one of us there.

If you wanted a job done right, you did it yourself.

Period.

So the king told one of the guards to give Ash a ride back to the palace once the witch's remains were burned, and the rest of us swung by the guest house, cleaned up, and changed. We grabbed clean clothes for Ash, then rejoined Posy for the last twenty minutes of the queen's tea.

I wasn't impressed. I didn't like tea, and I would have had to eat about a hundred of those little tiny sandwiches and petit fours to make a dent in my appetite.

Thank the Goddess we're going to Grandma's for dinner, I muttered.

Grandma!Granite hooted.So nice to have a grandma!

I smiled at him. He'd never known any of our grandparents. They'd all died either before I got him or soon after I did.

Once Ash joined us at the palace, we pried a tearful Posy away from her friends, then we piled back into the SUV and headed for the Everleighs. On the way, Lark very excitedly showed us how Posy got Jay to spit water all over himself.

We laughed, but Posy didn't, and a bad feeling settled in my gut.

"Weren't so sneaky as we thought we were, huh, cutie?" I murmured while my brothers shuffled uncomfortably in their seats.

"I don't like you keeping things from me," she said, still not smiling. "I don't like you thinking I'm too fragile to handle it or too slow to pick up on it."

"Neither of those was the reason," Mase said for all of us. "We didn't want to trigger Lark, and we wanted you to enjoy your time with the queen, not ruin it with worry or a panic attack. And you are not slow. Do not say that about yourself again."

She squinted her eyes as she studied his face, then nodded curtly, and we all held our breath to hear how she responded to that.

"Thank you. I appreciate your thoughtfulness. I know you're coming from a good place." Just as we were about to heave out a sigh of relief, though, she added, "Next time, please have enough faith in me to tell me the truth. Especially if you're going to bethat badat being sneaky."

"We can up our sneaky game," I boasted.

"Oh, really?" Posy crooked one eyebrow up. "Then I guess I'll up mine, too."

I broke out into peals of laughter, Cole choked himself holding back his chuckles, and Ash snorted.

"Princess, you don't haveanygame, sneaky or otherwise."

Mase and Jay frantically linked us to stop, but we ignored them.

"If you think that, then I guess my sneaky game has been sneaky enough to fool you all this time." Posy's lips curled up in a smile that had nothing to do with amusement.

That shut Ash up and left me stunned.

She's duped us before?Ash asked in the alpha link.When? Where?

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