Page 9 of Forgotten Monsters
He opens his mouth to speak, but Mallory grazes his arm. “We’ll take you home, Jules. It’s the least we can do.”
“Buckle up, these waters aren’t for the faint-hearted, though I can tell ye’re not as high maintenance as yer sister.” The devilish glint in Barron’s eyes fogs my brain. I swear this man can read my emotions or influence them in some way. Nothing like a Fae glamor would, but his gaze isn’t harmless. It makes me want to cower into his heat and spill my secrets, which is totally ridiculous.
With a satisfied nod, I sit on one of the cushioned seats. I can survive a few weeks on a boat. Nevermind that my stomach turned upside-down the second I stepped foot on the yacht, or that the weather in the Underworld seems to be tailor-made to drown out my fire. I’m a reasonable woman. I can be patient.
In theory.
* * *
I dumpmy cards face-down on the small table. “I fold.”
Mallory raises a brow at Barron. “I raise you my last protein bar.”
In the last few days, the demon has adjusted to her human form. She no longer licks her hands in the morning or sniffs her food. The leather jacket she’s wearing hugs her forms, and her wild brown mane was tamed into an artsy fishtail braid by Allie.
My sister stares at her cards with a giddy smile. “Let’s not play for rations anymore. Let’s play for secrets.”
Barron sinks back into his seat, his legs spread wide, and rubs the angle of his jaw. “What secrets could you possibly have that would be of any interest to me?”
Allie shrugs. “Aren’t you wondering how we ended up in this realm?”
He straightens out his cards with a snicker. “I know who ye are. I figured it out an hour after you stepped on my Lettie.”
Lettie, as Barron calls his sailing boat, is a 2004, 40 foot Catalina yacht that is not made to house four people—as he loves to remind us.
His luscious green gaze flicks over to me for a moment before settling back on my sister. “I’ve never seen her before, but ye…ye look too much lek yer mother.”
“You know my mother?” Allie asks flatly.
A stranger wouldn’t be able to read the fear on her shadow-freckled face, but I know my sister enough to know she’s rattled.
“Nae. But I’ve glimpsed at the news often enough to know who she is.”
The clear innuendo rubs Allie the wrong way because her shoulders stiffen.
She looks down her nose at Barron. “My mother is brilliant and powerful. She’s not at all the prissy, pearl-wearing witchsomemedia made her out to be.”
I bite my lips not to call her bluff. Allie knows how much her mother is downright hated in certain—scratch that, most—spheres of the witches, warlocks, and seer population, and with good reason. She’s the epitome of privilege, and being a woman doesn’t excuse any of her political ploys or ruthless behavior.
The subject is…sore between us.
Allie and I pretended to be twins in the human world, two stubborn peas in a magical pod. Now, I’m not sure what we are. I still haven’t told her about the horn. I can’t bring myself to tell her what I truly am. What Cole did. What I’ve become.
When she finds out the only available remedy for her mother’s illness was used to makemeimmortal, she’ll hate me.
I just can’t let this opportunity to close some of the distance between us pass me by, so I keep my mouth shut and let her defend her mother.
I glance at Barron. “You watch Immortal news today?” I drum my fingers on the table, watching his face closely for tells.
A dark shroud obscures his face. “Not anymore.”
Mallory wouldn’t tell me a thing about our captain’s past, despite my efforts. I’ve tried to piece together her relationship to the elusive, mysterious Scot, but our host has barely uttered two words about himself. Allie sets him on edge, but he doesn’t mind my Fae association. He’s a puzzle, and I need to know if we can trust him.
There’s not much to do on a boat in the middle of the ocean besides sulk and play cards. Oh, and puke my entrails out. Let’s not forget all the puking. I wasn’t meant to live on water—it’s as simple as that.
Over the last few days, I snooped aroundLettieand discovered more than one powerful, dangerous artifact buried in the eclectic cabin. Who knows what else he keeps below deck in the hidden compartments I can’t open without attracting his attention.
Let’s just hope he’s really steering us back to our realm.
