“You would never believe she took Last Recruit Standing.” Dairen grinned as she reached for the platter and he pretended not to notice, handing it over to Asrael.
Asrael looked confused and passed it to Maura, as if he didn’t understand the game.
Maura grinned at me. “You can’t actually trust Anayla. She looks sweet, but she’s savage.”
That was an unsettling thought. Anayla rolled her eyes. “You’re never going to get over the fact I knocked you out that day, are you?”
Maura was about to protest, when Asrael abruptly locked eyes with me. “You need to learn from Anayla.”
“Learn what?” I asked.
“How to survive when you are…” He trailed off, probably mercifully.
“Going to be beaten into, well…” Maura picked up the raspberry jam jar and tossed it in the air.
Fieran snatched it from her before she could catch it, his reactions lightning fast, and dug a spoon in to smear it on his toast. “Asrael is right. Everyone else has trained for years, but you’ve got an advantage. You’ll learn from us.”
“How?” I demanded.
“Dirty tricks. Magical cheats. They’re a specialty of our clan,” Anayla told me. “I’ll help you!”
“You are the biggest cheat,” Dairen told her.
“He’s mad I knocked him out too,” she told me with a grin.
As their banter washed over me, I was torn between smiling at in-jokes I didn’t understand and sitting in silence. Worst of all, I could feel Fieran watching. I left a piece of bread and cheese at the edge of myplate, untouched by the eggs and meat and fruit, so perhaps I could pilfer it later.
Something warm brushed against my leg.
I stiffened, setting down my glass wrong on the edge of a knife, so it rocked dangerously. Asrael reached over and set it down properly, glancing at me curiously.
Under the table, the shadow of something massive loomed.
Rees.
Fieran’s monster of a dog—or wolf, or hellbeast, or whatever he actually was—padded slowly beneath the table like he owned the place. As far as I was concerned, he did. When his nose bumped my thigh, I froze, my entire body locking up.
Across from me, Fieran’s gaze sharpened. “He won’t bite you.”
“That’s a big promise,” I muttered, barely breathing.
“Rees has better manners than Fieran,” Maura said, smirking into her glass.
Asrael casually dropped a slice of sausage under the table. Rees’s wet nose withdrew from my leg in an instant and the entire table thumped upward as he dove for Asrael. I exhaled in relief.
“Az!” Fieran warned.
“What?” Asrael said innocently. “He’s hungry.”
“He’s always hungry. Or so he makes you think. He’s also supposed to be well-trained despite your best efforts.”
Rees gave a soft huff under the table. I wondered if a dog could be smug. Fieran glared as Asrael fed him another piece.
I stabbed a piece of fruit with my fork, feeling like a ghost pretending to sit at the table of the living. They weren’t related—not by blood, anyway—but even when they tried to include me, they felt like a family that was already complete.
It was uncomfortable being the outsider at their table, and it was worse because part of me admired the way they all fit together.
But I’d never be one of them.
