“Your room back at the castle is gorgeous. Equal or better to any five-star hotel in the world. But this?—”
“This is charming.” I touch the wooden beam that frames the window.
“This is a freaking storybook.” Wren runs her fingers over the dark wood gingerbread cut-outs above the window on the side of the room.
I pull the sheer curtains back, lost for words. The view out the window looks down the length of the main street. The village glistens in the early afternoon light. But beyond it is the mountain that Cloud Rift sits on. Only, from here you can see the whole thing. “It’s magnificent.”
“It’s stunning. Wait, I thought you said you didn’t pay a lot for this room? Things in Switzerland cost a lot. There’sno way this huge room with killer views was a steal on Interline.”
“I asked for an economy twin and didn’t use an app. I called the inn directly.” I pull out my phone. “Let me check the emailed receipt.” I scroll down to earlier in the week and skim the email. “Nope, it says standard double twin room.”
“That’s a king-size bed.” Wren points to the carved four-poster bed.
I scroll up, skimming the hundreds of spam and junk emails I get every day. Until I get to another email from the inn, this one unopened. My jaw drops. “There’s a return charge?”
“What? Let me see. Yup, you’re right. They returned the full amount two days ago.” Wren hands me back my phone. She’s doing her room check. Apparently, it’s something she and all the girls from the apartment do. Check for cameras, bugs, and mold. “Room’s good.”
I’m still staring at my phone, reading and rereading the latest email. “It calls this rooma room with a view.”I wander to the window. It’s definitely a room with a view. My eyes trail along the main thoroughfare up to the mountain. There’s a tiny speck of one of Cloud Rift’s turrets poking out of the mountainside.
I duck down and try to get a better view of the castle. What are the guys doing today? Will Kieren come back since he knows I’m out of the building? It’s good that I’m not there for a little while. He doesn’t have to stay away because of me and the ceremony.
Ceremony. It sits in my gut. Am I really going to go through with this? Even more so, am I really not going to tell Wren that I’m maybe the mate to three dragon shifters? A flight of dragon shifters who own a collection of paintings that rivals some of the biggest museums in the world. It’scrazy what I’m touching every day. But not Kieren, though. And I want to. I want to touch all three of them. When did I become that kind of girl?
Oh shit, now I sound like my mother. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with people doing what they want as long as everyone’s on board?—
The sound of the zipper teeth of Wren’s suitcase rapidly opening cuts through the air and jerks me out of my trance.
Wren’s got her bag flung open on the cast-iron radiator. She’s changed, and her things are strategically spread across the room. Being a flight attendant has made her not the girl I shared a room with my entire childhood, that’s for sure. She’s efficient and speedy. High school Wren would still be pulling her second suitcase up the stairs. But how long was I staring out that window, anyway?
“Wait. We shouldn’t unpack. They must have made a mistake,” I say.
“In hotels, you don’t ask questions you don’t want answers to. And it’s a little late for that. You should have said something instead of staring out the window for the last ten minutes.” Wren blinks at me.
“Isn’t it better to move now? We can just pick up the things you’ve taken out—” I hold her nighttime moisture cream to my chest like it’s a security blanket.
“Raine...” My sister cocks her head at me and glares, like that’s all she has to say—my name.
“Wren . . .”
“Seriously, you don’t get it, do you?” She cocks her head to one side and sighs at me.
“I get that the front desk made a mistake, and any minute now Gigi fromShifterChatis going to come gliding in and want her room.”
Wren holds her hand out, looking a heck of a lot likeMom. I know for a fact that she’s going to give me a list and start counting on her fingers. “One, I’m pretty sure we have the only key. Two, how the hell do you know who Gigi is? You said you don’t read shifter tabloids. Three, I’ll bet you a hundred dollars it’s not a mistake.”
I zone in on her third finger and grab it. “A hundred dollars?” My sister is more frugal than I am. “How can you be so sure?”
“I’m just as sure of the fact that you haven’t explained everything that’s going on in that castle up there.” She pulls her finger out of mine and points her thumb out the window. “I didn’t hear everything that was going on out in the corridor, but I heard enough. Which one of them are you dating?”
“I’m not dating any of them.”
“You’re impossible, you know that? Which one wants to get wet?”
“You’re gross.” But I end up laughing. Honestly, she’s the only person on the planet who I would let make fun of my name that way. But it has me thinking about Roark and Evander. And I can’t tell her. I’m not allowed to share anything about any of them per the NDA, or I could lose... whatever it is I have.
“Fine. But I’m guessing Mr. big and growly upgraded our room. I also have a feeling if we ask about it?—”
“I’m going to ask about it.”
