Lowering her voice, Mom sniffs back a tear.“How will you survive without me to protect you, Aila?This feels wrong.”
Flopping back against my pillows, I stifle a laugh.“We can’t be paranoid forever, Mom.Go to bed.”
Again she hesitates but moves away when I place a pillow over my ear and close my eyes.
I’m not going back to sleep, though.I’m too excited for that.A whole world of opportunities has opened up before me.Now that I don’t have to worry about my mom anymore, I can go anywhere and do anything.Shacking up with Theron is off the table as I think long-term about travel.
Europe to work as an au pair.
South America to hang with my father, his wife, and my three half-siblings.
Working my way around the world on a cruise liner.
Teaching English in China.
Picking grapes in New Zealand and Australia.
How did the Riders motto go again?The dead travel fast.Quite prophetic.Only I am very much alive.
For the first time in my life, I feel free.Landslide can be my launching pad to global exploration.
ChapterFourteen
Theron
Inever needed to lurk under Aila’s window to know the outcome of Ben’s and Amelia’s brief courtship.The second it went on her finger, Amelia was parading the ring under Celia Heiner’s nose while Ben called for champagne all around.
The pub was packed with locals.I could see a few of the men shuffle Ben aside to whisper jokes in his ear.I think Carson Regan put it best.
“Why rock the boat, Magoo?We have our choice of ladies every summer.The internet is a buffet loaded with sexy dames.”
Landslide’s isolation from the mainland is very evident when I listen to the dated way the local men speak.Since we allowed them a little bit more access to the internet, they have started to lace their conversations with a few modern phrases.But they still use some of the strange expressions the Midnight Riders brought with us from Europe.
Satan’s grandfather,Satanas perkele,is the one they use the most.It derives from a Norse curse we picked up a thousand years ago and took a liking to.I mean, why curse the devil when you can talk smack about his grandfather, am I right?
But Ben was not put off.“Bed hopping is not for me, boys.I was always going to put a ring on the first lady who was sweet enough to love me.And needless to say, I won’t be thinking of you players when winter comes around.Y’all will be eating out of cans and shivering in your single beds alone.”
I couldn’t have put it better myself.Still, I have to get something straight with Luna.We are sitting at the end of the bar and listening to the conversations around us.
“Gotta move my girl to another room.Can’t have Aila sleeping single in the double room.”
Luna smirks.“Will she, though?You’ll both be”—Luna makes air quotes with her fingers—“‘working’ during the day and fucking at night.But I don’t know how you’ll be doing that together.All the double beds are booked.”
Luna knows about Aila and me becoming intimate.Shadow judging me for it can’t be far behind.My Get Out of Jail Free card is that Aila’s not an archetypal holidaymaker anymore, not now that she has to work here.There ain’t no rule about me getting with one of the staff.
Shadow and Luna have her aunt’s old house for privacy.Shadow doesn’t sleep with the coven in the special hidden room in the basement very often, because Luna and he use the attic space whenever the inn has guests.
From behind the cutesy flower boxes and slatted window shutters the guests admire so much, the inn’s two monstrous innkeepers keep an eye on things from their dark lair.
For the first time, I feel a certain kinship with a human when I look at Ben’s proud face.
Ben has been on the hunt for a mate for a long time.It doesn’t take more than a moment to know when you have found her.
I watch Amelia moving to show her ring to Mikey Farmer’s wife Fallon.Like Amelia, Fallon visited Landslide for a vacation after meeting Mikey online.When they decided to get married, that took Fallon off the menu.After decimating the island’s female population with our ravenous hunger before, we are never going to make the same mistake again.
Amelia O’Hara is off limits as a midnight snack for the Riders now.
Luna and I look at each other.Then we turn to make eye contact with the other Riders.
