Page 23 of Seduced
Aiden gets up and paces the length of the small clearing. “I don’t know what to do with her,” he bursts out finally. “She’s got both of you, and she’s probably used to guys bending over backwards for her, and I—” He stops and shoots us an embarrassed look.
“Aw,” Ty coos. “Our mighty clan leader, losing it over a woman.”
“Shut up,” Aiden shoots back, but there’s no heat in his words.
He genuinely seems confused, so I take pity on him. “You have to show her how you feel, man.” If we were drinkers, this is the point where I’d take him out for a beer, but since alcohol has about as much effect on us as apple juice, it’s a waste of money.
“Thanks, if only I’d thought of that myself,” he snaps.
Ty sniggers, then says, “You gotta show her you care. It’s like…” He gestures with his hands as though trying to find the right words. “You have to woo her.”
“I have to woo her?” Aiden repeats skeptically.
Ty gives an eager nod. “Yeah, like courtship. You fucked up, so now you need to make it up to her.”
“What, bring her gifts and stuff?” Aiden asks.
“For sure,” Ty agrees.
Aiden’s expression goes thoughtful. “My dad used to bring my mom flowers.”
“That’s a great start.” Ty slaps Aiden on the shoulder. “But think big.”
I don’t like where this is going. “Guys, I’m not sure Skye’s big on gifts. If you justtoldher…”
“Tell her after,” Ty advises. “When she’s all mellow from the gift you brought her.”
I rub my face with my palm and hold back any comments. I haven’t known Skye for long, but I’m a good listener. She appreciates honesty and affection more than anything, because it’s clearly something she missed when she was younger. Aiden’s a big guy, so he’s capable of making his own decisions, but that doesn’t mean I won’t have fun watching him fail spectacularly.
Eleven
Skye
Jack takesme to Anchorage several days later. I received a message from Pete, the assistant manager from the computer store, that our shipment of equipment has arrived. I thought Aiden would be the one to fly me there, but he disappeared from the Lodge in the early morning, and I hadn’t seen him at all. It’s still unclear whether the overwhelming feeling washing over me is relief or disappointment. These days, my emotions are on a massive roller coaster, which isn’t at all surprising. Even one guy can be a handful at times, but three? I constantly feel like I need a drink.
Unfortunately, sea dragons don’t seem to drink much, and there’s a woeful lack of rosé in the village. Maybe I could stop at a liquor store while we’re in Anchorage and pick up a bottle—for a special occasion. But nostalgia grips me when I think about that. My sister had been the one who introduced me to rosé, on a warm summer evening after my junior year in high school, and it had become a little ritual of ours to unwind over glasses of wine on the back porch of her home.
Now, I’m dealing with her complete inability to trust me. She refused to hear about the life I’m building here and panicked about me using magic. The tracker she sent in the box was a gross violation of my privacy—and it potentially endangered an entire species of mythological beings.
If witches realize they didn’t do a good enough job ‘cleaning up’ the dragonkind, they might descend in masses to deal with the last remnants of the ancient civilization. No dragon will be safe if it gets out that they survived.
“Do you want to get lunch first or grab the equipment straight away?” Jack asks as we touch down in the Anchorage airfield where the Amber Bay clan has its hangar.
I peer out of the windshield as though expecting my sister to pop up any second. “I don’t know. Do you think it’s safe to linger?” I fidget with my seat belt buckle. “What if they’re keeping watch on the hangar?”
Jack covers my hands with his large palm. “Hey, we discussed this. We’re always careful to keep up the pretense that we’re human. If they are keeping watch, all they’ll see is you and me, a human and a witch, getting supplies for our remote village.”
“Yeah, okay.” I’m still not happy with the plan, but for me to put up the defense spell, we need those routers I ordered the last time I visited Anchorage with Aiden. We agreed to load the boxes on the plane as though we’re completely oblivious to the fact that there are trackers inside. Then I’ll root through them during our flight and toss anything suspicious from the plane while we’re flying over the endless Alaskan forests.
I hate that we’ll be littering, sure, but in the grand scheme of things, it’s a small misstep compared to the safety of the clan that took me in.
The idea is to confuse whoever is monitoring the trackers—presumably my sister. If she can’t pinpoint my exact location, she might give up after searching the Alaskan wilderness. The area around Amber Bay is so sparsely populated, it would take her weeks to look through it. Unless, of course, she resorted to magical means of searching. My blood runs cold at the thought, and I bite my lip in alarm.
“Jack,” I breathe. “If Alice is here…”
He gives my hands a reassuring squeeze, then touches the controls with deft fingers to guide the small bush plane inside the hangar. “It’s okay. You don’t have to speak to her if you don’t want to.”
“No, that’s not it.” I turn to face him, terrified of telling him about this new development. “If she’s here and she has something of mine, she could use it to track me. It wouldn’t have been effective from a distance, so she must have used the trackers to narrow down my location. But she had some of my hair, she told me so when she banished me from her house.”
