Page 58 of Forgotten Arcane

Navy:And me.

Neera:Awesome. I’ll see you guys then, I’ve got to go and open the coffee shop.

Me:I need to go too, bye guys.

After showering and getting dressed, I head downstairs. As soon as I walk into the kitchen, the guys all stop what they're doing and stare at me, their eyes heating and making me feel absolutely beautiful.

River whistles, “Fucking hell, you look edible.”

“I second that,” Coen agrees with a smirk as his eyes travel up my legs.

There are murmurs of agreement from around the table, as they all watch me with desire in their eyes, and quite honestly, I have never felt quite as beautiful as I do right now.

Evander smiles as he hands me a coffee, “You look beautiful, Nene.”

He gives me a kiss, and I smile, “Thank you.”

I really missed all of this when we were at the Choosing. They were only just beginning to give me kisses regularly, but since we’ve gotten back, they seem to be doing it a lot more, and I’m loving it.

Taking a seat, I load my plate up with an array of breakfast food that I found out yesterday is still good, despite us going to the Choosing for a week, because it was all frozen, and is just the kind that you chuck in the oven to heat up.

While we eat, we talk about what everyone is going to do this morning before we have to go to the compound to have dinner with Van’s parents and the rest of the compound.

It is really nice to share breakfast with people, and it definitely beats eating alone. When I think back to how different my life was a few months ago, the contrast is pretty fucking extreme.

Even with all of the complications and the near-death experiences that I’ve had in and out of the Choosing, I wouldn’t change it for the world, and I am incredibly grateful that everything has worked out how it has. I finally feel like I’m where I’m supposed to be.

“The only thing that would make it better would be if Dimitri and Kyrous were here,”my mind whispers to me, and the thought pisses me the fuck off.

Kyrous is dead and will never be able to join us, and that makes me really fucking sad. From what we have learned about him from Ty, he never let anyone get close to him, because he had a pretty traumatic past, and although I actually understand the reasons why Kyrous would have done that, I did it for quite a while. I kept everyone at arm’s length and never let anyone get close to me.

Hell, that’s what I was doing when the guys showed up at Bobby’s and turned my world upside down.

But I know from experience how fucking lonely that way of life is, and while I was only doing it for a couple of years, he was doing it for decades, possibly centuries. That’s a whole new level of being alone. I bet that he had gotten so used to it by that point, that letting people in was even harder for him.

He obviously didn’t trust very easily at all, not with personal things, and not with himself. He trusted Ty to help run the armies, he obviously had some sort of relationship with Draith, judging from Draith’s reaction to learning that he was missing, and he clearly spoke to the others that were in themeeting room in the vision in Ireland, but it seems like it was all surface things.

But we’re his Warrior Bonded team, he would know better than anyone what that kind of bond is like, and maybe that would be enough to allow him to begin to trust us.

Sadness swells inside me as I realize that now he will never even get to try, and he lived most of his life in self-isolation.

I am mad as hell that the fates, or what the fuck ever it is that is in control, denied him that chance, and he died before he could experience what being a part of a Warrior Bonded team is really like.

Then there’s Dimitri.

That’s just a whole load of fucked up and explains itself, I refuse to think about it for a moment longer.

I take a bite of my bacon a little too aggressively, and Doc raises his eyebrow at me from across the table. All of the guys are lost in their own conversations or have gotten up to take their dishes into the kitchen.

“Are you okay?” he asks me quietly.

“Yeah, I’m good,” I reply, hoping that it’s convincing because explaining it is going to take a while, and I really am okay, I’m just mad at circumstances that I can’t control, and I hate that.

He narrows his eyes slightly, but clearly decides to let the conversation drop, and smiles instead, “If you need to talk about anything, I’m here.”

“Thank you,” I reply, and blow him a kiss because he’s too far away to kiss properly.

“Ready?” Raiden asks me as he rounds the worktop island that separates the kitchen from the dining area.

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