“Of course.” Maisie tore a giant wheel of brie in half with her bare hands and passed one half to Rhys, before tearing a chunk off the other half and popping it straight into her mouth. It was all warm and melty and delicious, and she sighed happily.
“Mmph,” she said around it. “That’s good cheese.”
“I should hope so,” Rhys replied, popping a grape into his mouth, looking for all the world like some kind of ancient god as he lay around nakedly eating grapes and being way too sexy about it. “It probably cost a small fortune.”
He reached over and slowly, gently, placed a grape in Maisie’s mouth, his finger lingering on her lip. She sucked on it gently for a moment, barely even noticing how sweet and juicy the grape was as she instead locked eyes with Rhys, who was staring back at her heatedly.
If he’s a god, he’s making me feel like a goddess.
She reluctantly let his finger go, instead contenting herself with snuggling into his side.
She watched as he proceeded to rip the loaf of crusty bread into pieces, topping them with an ungodly amount of cheese before feeding one of them to Maisie, getting brie on her nose in the process.
She laughed, chewing on the whole mess happily.
“Maybe the lifestyles of the rich and famous aren’t so bad after all,” she said, once she’d managed to swallow it. “ThoughI suppose they’re more into the whole ‘cutlery’ and ‘plates’ and ‘tables’ thing. And also the ‘clothes’ thing.”
“Yeah, I don’t think most of the other guests would go in for this kind of thing,” Rhys mused. “But I’ve gotta say, I think I prefer it.”
“Me, too.” Maisie pulled a jar out of the hamper and peered at the label. “‘Crab apple jam’ – sorry, excuse me,artisanalcrab apple jam – ‘hand-picked and hand-made by the finest craftspeople in the Huon Valley, using a secret recipe passed down for generations in the Pickford family and fiercely protected by their descendants.’”
“Yeah, gotta keep that secret crab apple, water, sugar and lemon juice combo from getting out to the masses. Who knows what would happen if someone figured it out?”
“Riots in the streets,” Maisie said solemnly. “It’s a good thing we have the Pickfords here to maintain order and keep us all from our lesser selves.” She opened the lid and scraped some jam out with her bread, chewing thoughtfully. “Itispretty good. Not quite good enough to inspire riots, in my opinion, but decent. I’d buy it if it was on special.”
“Getting used to the high life already, are we?” Rhys said, his expression serious, even as he popped the champagne bottle and took a drink straight from it. “This place has clearly gone to your head.”
“Quite,” Maisie replied, gnawing on some meat. “This garlic and red wine salami is simply abominable – the garlic notes are far too overwhelming. Take it back and bring me another. And make sure it’s edible this time.”
“For something that’s supposed to be abominable, you sure are eating a lot of it.”
“Well, I supposesomeonehas to keep it from going to waste,” Maisie said with a dramatic sigh, even as she ate another slice. Despite the banter, itwasreally good. She washed it down withher own swig from the champagne bottle, barely able to believe that she was sitting naked on a beach and sculling Dom Perignon like it was Passiona.
Rhys took the bottle back and took another long drink, and Maisie had to raise an eyebrow. “You sure you’ll be able to fly after that? I don’t want to go plummeting into the ocean. I doubt my travel insurance would cover drunken griffin accidents.”
He shrugged. “Eh, I’ve done it a few times in the past, when it was just me and my mates in the Outback – couple of hundred k’s home from the pub, and there was no one around for miles that we could crash into. Always made it home eventually, though one time Ididwake up upside-down in a ghost gum.” His eyes glimmered. “Maybe we’ll just have to spend some more time here until we know we’re sober. Find a way to pass the time somehow.”
“Sounds dreadful. But I guess one simply cannot drink and fly – it would be irresponsible. I guess we’re stuck here for the time being.”
“Guess so.”
The two of them simply sat and enjoyed the food and the breeze and the sun, happily warm at this point. Maisie almost thought she could doze off again, but now that she had time to think – and now that Rhys had brought up the subject of other shifters, no matter how ridiculous the context – her brain was starting to tick over.
Despite how much Rhys had already told her – and how much she had already seen – she was realizing that she had questions.
Lots of questions.
“So…” Maisie said, as she licked melted brie from her fingertips. “Is now a good time to ask some questions? Because I really do have some.”
“Ask away. I’ll do my best, but there’s some things I can’t give you an answer on, like how does the whole ‘mate bond’ thing work,” Rhys said. “Maybe someone knew, way back in the olden days, but now it’s just accepted it’s a thing and that’s that.”
“Ah, right,” Maisie said – which was a shame, because she really was curious about that. But there were other things she wanted to know. “Well, how about this then – you’re a griffin who’s a secret agent. I’m betting that job doesn’t come up on job seeking websites very often. Care to fill me in on how that all happened?”
Rhys’s expression clouded, and Maisie wondered if she’d messed up – and she could see that yeah, probably asking about what sounded like top secret shitprobablyhadn’t been the best idea.
“Sorry, you don’t have to answer that,” she said quickly. “I guess it was a pretty silly question – I’m sure you can’t really talk about your job.”
“No, that’s not it, though I also really can’t say much – or anything – about most of it,” Rhys said. “It’s just that right now, I’m not really sure how much longer I’ll evenhavethe job.”
