I pressed myself flat against the wall beside the door, praying to the goddess above that Cornelius didn’t come in after her.
But so what if he did? She had come here with us. She wasn’t ours by any means, but it was our duty to look out for one another. And did the man have no damn respect? He walked around here like Xavier and I were invisible, like the only person he wanted anything to do with was Rummy.
“Good night, Cornelius,” she called over her shoulder.
He returned the salutation, his tone pathetic and a little lovesick, I swear.
Only when Rummy closed the door behind her did I exhale a long breath and step away from the wall.
At the sound of my fluttering wings, she jumped and spun around. She opened her mouth, ready to scream, but Xavier was already behind her, clasping a hand over her mouth to keep her quiet.
“It’s just us,” I said, hands out in front of me. Goddess, she wore a tight black dress that fit her perfect body like a damnsecond skin. Her blonde hair was tousled—it better have been from the wind and not that grimy snake’s hands.
Get it together, Jessiah. You have no control over who does and does not touch her hair.
While I reined myself in, Xavier loosened his grip on her. “I’m going to let go of you now,” he whispered. "Don't scream, okay? We’re just here to talk.”
Rummy rolled her eyes, and when Xavier finally released her, instead of screaming, she snapped, “What in the hells do you two think you’re doing here?”
“Waiting for you,” I answered. Should we have been embarrassed? Maybe. Probably. This certainly didn’t look great for either of us, but we were a team. We were supposed to be figuring out Cornelius’s weird plantogether.
And neither of us would have been able to sleep knowing she was out there with him.
Wolf would murder us if anything happened to her.
“Why? Couldn’t we have waited until tomorrow to discuss whatever it is you want to talk about?”
“Why wait for tomorrow?” I asked, arms crossed. “Were you planning on inviting your date inside for the evening?”
She glared, though the expression quickly turned into a mischievous grin, her perfect lips tipping up wickedly. “Maybe I was,” she said. “Why? Interested in watching?”
Rage washed over me, clouding my vision.
“Everyone, relax.” Xavier stepped between us before I could say anything I’d regret. “We’re all here now, let’s not waste this time bickering.”
Rummy took a long breath.
I did the same, though it came out more like an angry huff. “Fine.”
She squinted at me. “Fine.”
“Good, good. I’m glad we can all be civil, friendly adults.” Xavier clapped once, like he hoped it would break the tension in the room.
But that was an impossible task.
So instead, he shuffled over to Rummy’s massive bed and perched on the edge. “Care to fill us in on the details of the evening, Rum?”
Her gaze flickered between Xavier and me. She didn’t give a shit about filling us in. She was the type to move on her own, to move silently. The strange defense mechanism she had picked up at some point during her life practically required her to lie in just about all situations.
But that wasn’t going to work here. Not when she’d been out with Cornelius until the early hours of the morning. Not when we needed information to take back to Wolf and Huntyr.
She knew something.
“What do you want to know? We ate dinner, including a couple of glasses of wine—which I love way more than the ale in Scarlata, by the way—and then we just talked. That’s it.”
A beat passed. Then another. We looked at her, she looked back, her expression full of challenge.
I was two seconds from absolutely blowing up on her when Xavier leaned forward from his seated position on the bed, and said, “That’s seriously all you’re going to tell us?”
