Page 68 of Gambling with Time

“It is called Magic Lake,” Sam said. The five of us stood near the door ready to go.

The blue-haired man dropped to the couch and kicked his feet up on the coffee table. He stared at something before muttering something about, now not being the right time. Was he crazy? I mean, everyone was when you looked close enough. Even me. So I wasn’t judging, but the guy was talking to himself, and no one else was batting an eye.

He lifted his clear, very lucid gaze to me. “Your skin is the same color as my hair.”

“Uh–” I rubbed the back of my neck. What did you say to that? Thanks? I noticed? My tail twitched, and I immediately wrapped it around my calf when his eyes dropped to it with curiosity.

Brook laughed as she dropped next to him. “Don’t mind Caspian, he really has no filter.” He rubbed his palm over her leg in soothing circles, and she relaxed into him. “You guys should relax a bit. Time is different here, and if we go through another portal right now, you might be sick for a few days.”

Lex sucked in a deep breath as he brushed past Alastor further into the room. He tapped the edge of the pool table. “Who plays?”

Auberon glanced at him. “All of us. Don’t make a deal with my brother, though, he always wins.”

“Not always,” Brook said with a cheeky grin.

“When I’m not playing someone that pretended not to know what they were doing,” he grumbled. “I always win.”

“Want to play?” Lex fingered a sleek, black pool stick.

“Partners?” Lumi asked.

When Lex glanced my way, I shook my head. Not really my thing. Samantha grinned and moved over to them. “Only if Brook plays too.”

“It is going to be a really fast game if we both play,” her best friend quipped as she pushed to her feet before going over and selecting her stick. She grabbed the chalk and rubbed it on the tip, as the others grabbed theirs.

With a sigh, Alastor moved over and perched on a stool against the wall to watch. I guessed if we ween’t going anywhere anytime soon, we should stop hovering at the door. I shared a glance with Raiden, and he shrugged as if he could hear my thoughts. We both moved into the room and sank into opposite chairs.

Caspian eyed me again. “Your energy is interesting. In a lot of people, you can see swirls of it, but yours is still, yet deep. The shades say you were touched with darkness at a young age.”

“The shades?”

He lifted a shoulder and looked back at the spot he was focused on earlier. “They are like Fae who got stuck and never moved on after dying. They didn’t get to come back. So now they are sort of like ghosts. I can see them.”

“Well, I’m a demon, so–”

He nodded like that explained everything. Then he turned his attention to Raiden. “You have that same darkness. Actually, all of you do. I suppose that is why you are soulmates. The light in Samantha pulls you all together. It was the same for us with Brook. Because what are the shadows if there is no light to reveal them?”

“Just darkness?” I asked.

“Yeah, lifeless and dead, never to experience everything life can offer. Hold on to her.”

“That’s the plan,” Raiden replied. His fingers tapped over the arm of the chair he was sitting in, and I was sure he wanted to run through the house and find the portal room himself to get it over with. I felt the same.

“We could help,” Brook said, and I glanced over to the others still around the pool table. “You helped us when…when everything happened.”

“No, we have to do it alone.” Sam shook her head and took another shot.

Her friend pressed her lips into a thin line and looked at Auberon. He lifted a shoulder and twisted his mouth as if to say, we can’t force them to take our help.

“Why do you have to do it alone?” Kellan asked, breaking his silence. The dagger he had been flipping over his knuckles paused as he waited for a response.

“The prophecy basically says we are supposed to,” she said as she straightened.

He nodded in understanding.

CHAPTER 39

Samantha

---