Page 42 of Mortal Shift
“Talking to yourself? Not a good look.”
I turned round at the chirpy voice. “Oh, hey, Ling.”
She arched a brow at my state of semi-dress. “Something you want to tell me?”
“Yeah.” I tugged at my t-shirt, trying to hold it together, and only managed to tear it further. “My one true mate is an asshole.”
“Yes, I think we had already established that.”
Annoyance rattled in my chest, and I glared at her.
“Uh… Cali? Did you just growl at me?”
“Um… I think I did.” Which was weird as all hell, because since when did I give a shit about Ling insulting Cole? Hell, I did it all the time. “Yeah, sorry about that.”
She shrugged. “No big deal.” Her brow furrowed though, and she opened her mouth, then snapped it shut again like she’d thought better of whatever she’d been about to say.
I arched a brow and cocked a hip, planting one hand on it and then quickly snatching it up again and using it to hold my t-shirt mostly in one piece. “Come on, out with it.”
“Oh, um, nothing. It’s just… Never mind.”
“Ling,” I said, a note of warning creeping into my voice. I tried to bury it before I scared my one actual friend in this place off completely. “You know you don’t need to keep things from me. My mind is pretty much already blown wide open by now.”
“It’s just, well… growling’s a shifter thing, normally.”
“This again?” I rolled my eyes. “I already told you, I’m not a shifter.”
“Are you, um… sure?” She bit her lower lip and her eyes slid off to one side. I laughed, and they snapped right back to me.
“I’m sure. Trust me, I’d love to have some sort of supernatural power—I’d sure as hell sleep better at night if I did—but I’m just plain old me.”
“Well, there is one other thing that might make you act that way, I guess.” She looked even more anxious than when she’d suggested I was a shifter.
“Which is?”
“You might actually like him.”
Aw, shit.
Chapter Fifteen
“Well, well. Fancy meeting you here.”
The words crawled up my spine and I turned slowly on my heel, immediately regretting my decision to take a late-night stroll through the grounds.
“Thaden. What do you want?”
He tutted. “That’s not very friendly, now, is it?”
“The human has such poor manners.”
I flinched, and Thessalia seemed to materialize from the shadows, her face drawn in disdain. She turned to Thaden.
“You promised that we would discipline it.”
“And so we shall, sister,” he said, his lips curving into a trace of a sinister smile beneath the pale moonlight.
“If either of you touches me, I’ll scream.” I recognized the stupidity of my words the second they left my mouth, because one, anyone who heard me screaming was more likely to break out the popcorn than to actually help me, and two, screaming would make me sound like prey.
