Page 15 of Wanted: A Roommate Who Isn't Evil

Pathetic that his family hated him and wanted him gone and wished he was dead.

Yet… he still loved them.

The girl’s throat moved as she swallowed. “Dranian,” she said in a softer voice this time. Her tone was rich with a story Dranian didn’t want to hear. A story about a young boy who, even after all these years, was still waiting for his family to love him back. A boy who would be waiting forever because they never would.

A tear slipped down her fair cheek, running to her jaw and dripping off onto her dress.

Dranian could not believe his eyes, his ears,her. How could she cry over a story that wasn’t even her own? He couldn’t fathom the idea that she could relate—no one could relate. He’d never met anyone who understood what it felt like to be an outcast to an entire village with not a single exception.

Except… He had been around since the beginning, too. And it killed his faeborn soul to realize he had watched the village avoid the girl with no name like she was diseased for all these years. Somehow it had never crossed his mind that he wasn’t the only one. That maybe there were others, even beyond her and him. That reaching out to another outcast had been an option all this time on his lonely journey, and he’d never thought to do it.

Dranian turned his back to her. He felt a brush of wet warmth on his face, then cold as the wind chilled the tears he knew mimicked hers.

“Why in the faeborn Corners would you ever want to protect me?” he growled quietly.

It took her a few moments to answer. “Many want me to die. But no one has ever wanted me to live,” she said.

It took several moments to muster the courage to move, but when Dranian finally turned back, he looked at her differently. He wondered why anyone had ever decided to fear her in the first place. He couldn’t find a single speck of evil upon her.

She approached, extending his half-spear toward him. He didn’t take it.

“What is your name?” he asked her instead. “No one seems to know.”

The shadow of a smile returned to her face. “I have no name. My father left the day I was born, and my mother is mute. They never gave me one.”

Dranian thought about that. Then he glanced down to the half-spear she held. “Keep it,” he said. “You shouldlearn to use it if you’ve decided to become my fairy guard.”

“I already know how to use it,” she said with a smile. “Didn’t you see me kill the hogbeast?”

He blinked, then he snorted. Apparently, he hadn’t been hallucinating by the river. “That was luck,” he said, certain.

She laughed, and every part of his cold, steel-hard soul began to warm.

7

Dranian Evelry: the Dog and the Fox

Dranian couldn’t hide at work a second time. He’d taken his reasonable one day to process the horrible decision he’d made in signing Beth’s contract. To accept the fact that Beth was too motivated by coin to let him get out of his binding agreement. Now that there was no going back, Dranian decided he was ready to fight.

On his own.

Dranian began the day washing his face in the bathroom. When he spotted Luc’s toothbrush resting nicely in a cup by the sink, the notoriously grumpy fairy got a fabulous idea. His ever-scowl wavered, tugging up just a little as he lifted the shiny green toothbrush and carried it over to the toilet. It seemed the basin neededa good scrub.

He came out of the bathroom with his head held high, knowing that to defeat a cunning fox, he mustn’t lose his cool lest he be bested by his own wavering emotions. Mastering emotions was a thing he had learned day and night in the Brotherhood of Assassins training camps. He was not as good at it as Shayne and Mor, but he was not the worst, either.

Dranian entered the kitchen and slowed his step at the sight of a lazy trail of muffin crumbs sprinkled over the kitchen counter. His gaze narrowed on the little vanilla-coloured bits, all leading across the room and into the living space. Dranian followed the horrific trail around the corner and nearly threw himself at Luc when he found the fool finishing off a muffin on the couch. A pile of crumbs was littered around him, and a heap rested on his lap. Luc shoved the rest of the muffin into his mouth. Then he glanced down at the mess on his legs.

He wiped it all off onto the floor.

“I will kill you!” Dranian growled, going for his spear handle. The buzz of his forming weapon filled the apartment.

Luc didn’t even stand to face him. The fox turned himself a little in his seat, raising a brow at Dranian above his chubby, muffin-filled cheeks, and he drew a finger up to his lips to hush him with a dramatic scold upon his face. “Shhh!”

The fox spat wet muffin bits everywhere with the sound, and Dranian’s fist tightened around his weapon. But his mind unwillingly filled with the contract rules regarding ‘no loud noises’, andhe heaved in a lungful of air.

He let it out slowly as he retracted his spear and slid the handle away in one rigid movement. He couldnotbe the one to break the contract.

“Where did you get that muffin?” he asked through his teeth, forcing himself to think of something other than the collection of crumbs on the rug that would bring in ants, mice, and all manner of pests. At least Luc was sitting in the middle of the couch this time, and not on Dranian’s favourite cushion on the end.

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