She tried to pass again, but Vesta held firm, her booted feet spread and her arms loosely clasped behind her back. Unlike Atria, she apparently had no trouble balancing as the old caravan bounced and swayed.
Her voice was high and her inflection flat when she said, “You do not like me, Doctor Le Roy.”
Atria’s neck warmed as curiosity swelled in the caravan. If they didn’t already have the attention of every elf crammed into the kitchenette and living space, they did now.
Swallowing back her knee-jerk reaction ofduh,she took a breath and braced one hand on a cabinet. These people,Vesta,were important to Kaz. They clearly cared about him, and she knew from what he’d told her that most of Kaz’s life was spent making sure these broken, violent elves were not simply kept busy, but cared for.
They were essential to the security of the EVP, but they were also people who had been horrifically mistreated. While he never said as much, Atria got the impression that they were another one of Kaz’s families. He loved them. He looked after them. He was their protector and advocate.
So as much as she wanted to grab Vesta by her pale green hair and toss her out onto the road, she knew she needed to make peace with her.
“I don’t have any reason to not like you,” Atria replied, “except for the fact that you held my mate at gunpoint.”
Vesta cocked her head to one side. “I had no plans to shoot him.”
“I didn’t know that, did I?” She leveled a hard look at Vesta before she swept her gaze over her shoulder to meet the eyes of the other elves, most of whom sat rigidly, their attention focused on her without a hint of shame.
I’m surrounded by a pack of predators,she realized.I need to establish my place or else I’ll get trampled.
“Listen,” she began, slow and firm, “I understand that all of you could snap my neck in a heartbeat. I also understand that my mate does notneedmy help staying safe. I’m just an empath and a scientist. I’m not a fighter.” She moved her gaze back to Vesta and, infusing her voice with as much menace as she could muster, continued, “But let’s get one thing straight: That man is my mate. Ifanyonethreatens him, there is nothing on this Earth that could stop me from protecting him. I don’t give a fuck what you or anyone else thinks they can do to me, got it? I willkillyou.”
She half expected someone to laugh, but there wasn’t a flicker of amusement in the emotion that popped in tiny bursts around her.
“You’re very fierce for someone so small and soft.” Vesta nodded approvingly. “That’s good.”
“Is it?” Atria snorted and elbowed her way past the elf. Vesta allowed it and trailed behind her as she made her way over to the table. There was a spot open. “Scootch,” she muttered, waving her fingers at the youngest elf, Cesare.
It was startling to see his youthful features go from complete blankness to a stunning, fanged smile in the blink of an eye. He moved without hesitation, giving her ample space to slide into the booth seat with him.
“Itisa good thing,” he told her. A deep, achy yearning pulsed in his aura. He was a grown man, but there was an odd innocence to him that gave his emotions a raw, unformed feeling. It was like hefelt,but those feelings were… too big?No, they’re unmanaged.They were like fireworks going off every few seconds — loud and bright but momentary. When they faded, he was left with long, empty stretches of cold quiet.
Atria shook her head, realizing that she would probably have a lot of time to try and uncover exactly how unique each member of Fracture was. “Where I come from, it would be considered unhealthy to want to kill someone.”
“An elf would slit the throat of anyone who looks at their consort wrong,” another female elf, Johanna, muttered. “That’s the right way to be. The fiercer you are, the more you care.”
Atria raised her eyebrows. “I’m not an elf. I’m a witch. We’re not exactly bloodthirsty.”
Vesta shared a look with the other members of the team before she shrugged. “Then maybe you’re a little bit broken, like us.”
Cesare leaned in close. In a soft, eager whisper, he told her, “You’re Fracture now, Doctor. Captain says that means we’re broken, but we belong. That’s not bad, right?”
You’re Fracture now.
Was she? Looking around the caravan, she didn’t see anyone who looked like they wanted to dispute it. There was only a knowing sort of look in the eyes of the elves, a feral kind of acceptance that both filled her with pride and made her wary.
What would it mean to be accepted by this vicious pack of elves? It wouldn’t be easy, certainly, but she could feel the bonds humming between them. They were a family.
Now they were extending that family to her, no questions asked, because she’d proven herself to care as much as they did.
Atria looked into Cesare’s gentle, midnight-blue eyes and found herself murmuring, “No, I don’t think it’s bad at all.”
ChapterForty-Eight
They drove for two days,primarily through empty countryside and avoiding major cities. When they could, they joined other caravans on the road, blending in with vehicles streaked with paint and bursting with happy orcish families. They rarely stopped, and when they did, they switched drivers.
When Kaz wasn’t behind the wheel, he spent some time with his team before he dragged her into the nest for some shut-eye. They didn’t speak much, seeing as all those sharp elvish ears would have no trouble listening through the thin walls, but they held each other tight in the soft darkness of their makeshift nest. When he was driving, she either sat as close as she could to him or with his team, who rotated between the caravan and the car trailing behind it.
She wouldn’t say they ever truly relaxed, but she eventually came to understand that their stiffness was their default, not a result of her presence. After a while, she grew more comfortable around the strange, threatening elves who watched her every move. When they bothered to speak at all, they tended to ask invasive questions, and she never could manage to accurately predict how they would react to her answers, but she didn’t mind that so much.
