Both hungry, we eat in silence for several minutes. The companionship is… nice. I never realized how much I’ve come to take it for granted that these men don’t try to get away from me as quickly as possible. Dragons, sensing my fractured magic, don’t like to be around me any more than they have to. Or at least most don’t. There’s one exception.
“I need your help.” I pull out a piece of gold. “I want to hire you.” The cat sith, with their ability to walk the shadow roads, have long been the messengers of Faerie.
“Who do you want to contact back in Alarria?” he asks, the gold coin disappearing into his pocket.
“Jacenrevener.”
“The ice dragon?” Shadow’s eyebrows rise. “I didn’t realize he had friends.”
“He has me,” I growl and pull out parchment and quill,writing out a series of queries. When I’m done, I roll it closed and seal it with my mark.
“How quickly do you need it delivered?”
“Tonight, after we’re done here.”
“I will not stop until I reach him.” Shadow takes the parchment and tucks it away.
For all his teasing, I take his word seriously. For important matters, you can depend upon him. Shadow will run the shadow roads of Faerie and carry my message to my friend in a fraction of the time it would normally take to cross such large distances. And Jacenrevener will be able to fly back in record time.
By the time we finish our dinner, Rune and Severin have joined us.
“Gotta love Sundays,” Shadow says, toasting all of us with his ale before taking a drink. “Only time I’m guaranteed to see all of you.”
“The Witch Bitch Spicy Book Club meetings,” Severin says with a sigh. “I’d protest, but Hannah loves them too much.”
“Autumn too,” Rune says. “Though she does admit they rarely get to talk about books.”
I grunt. If I can discover which books they pick for these meetings, it would give me a clearer idea of the romance books I should read. “What do they read?” I ask, trying to sound casual.
Severin pulls out a human phone and shows me the picture of a book cover. A tall orc holds a human woman in his arms, her feet kicked up off the ground, both of them staring at each other with adoration. “They read this one amonth or so ago.”
“An orc book.” Shadow chuckles, his mischievous eyes flicking toward Thorvinn. “I wonder if Jasmine enjoyed it.”
“What’s that about?” Rune asks, rubbing at his jaw, the stubble making a rasping noise.
“Our friend here has woman trouble.” The werepanther hooks a thumb toward the bartender.
“Leave him alone,” I growl. Woman trouble is enough of a pain in the ass without Shadow making things worse.
Thorvinn tips his chin at me in thanks.
But Shadow turns in my direction, a cat unwilling to be denied the ability to play. “And how about you, Luke?” He claps me on the shoulder, just a little too hard. “How are things going with you and Skye and being sucked into one of these spicy romance books?”
“You know about that?” I fight to keep my face from reacting, but my tail lashes, giving me away.
Shadow’s gaze flicks behind me to note my misbehaving tail, and his grin grows impossibly wider, showing off far too many teeth. “We all do.”
“You didn’t think you could keep it secret, did you?” Severin smirks.
Rune gives me a sympathetic glance, and that’s almost worse than the others’ smiles.
Everything in me wants to turn away and storm out of the pub, to fly home to my castle where no one will dare to question me.
Yet Skye’s hurt face flashes through my mind. It didn’t register last night when I was caught up in research mode. But after reading several of the romance books today, I mademyself recall her expression, only then realizing what it meant: hurt and disappointment and embarrassment.
And I did that to her.
I need to understand human women and romance, and I have before me two fae who can offer me the knowledge I seek. I can either ask Rune and Severin, or I can continue to read an entire library’s worth of romance books to try to find an answer among all their varying permutations.
