Oak met my gaze.“Definitely worth it, babe.”
I sent them a smile and kissed their temple, burying my nose in their hair for a long breath.
We’d only left the tower an hour ago, and we had a long way to go to get to the Olkport Territory.
Thank the Mother of Scales we’d gotten out of there quickly. I’d been sure Garrick would hold onto Oakley for a million years, but luckily, Oak managed to free themself after only a few minutes. Tan had held them almost as long, which was sweet, and I knew Oakley thought so too.
Ailin, Sebastian, Thayer, Toby, Basil, and Hiro all came through the portal at Remi’s house this morning, and every single one of them looked like they were ready for battle.
It made me feel better about the whole mission. They were experienced in ways some of the other guards weren’t, and the power they all emitted was massive. When I’d walked into the meeting room to meet them, it almost made me stumble backward.
Their powerful magics would come in handy when we went up against blood witches.
I fucking hated blood witches.
Ailin and Seb greeted us with huge hugs—dad hugs, according to Oak. Thayer was all smiles and gave a hug, Toby was shier but happy, and Basil and Hiro were both nice but a little more standoffish. I was pretty sure that was only because we were going on a mission. Whenever I’d visited the Ellwoods, the two of them had been very welcoming and much more relaxed.
But if they wanted to focus, I wasn’t going to stop them. It only meant they’d be ready for anything, ready to protect Oakley if they needed to.
We were in a blue SUV with Jed and Beshiro—the two of them up front, and Oak and me in the back seat—and the rest of the team, including Phaeron, were split between four other vehicles. We’d decided to take all different types of cars so we wouldn’t stand out and look suspicious to anyone who might be watching the border crossings.
The last thing we needed was someone recognizing us as law enforcement.
So instead of driving around in five large SUVs, right in a line, we had two cars, a minivan, a van, and one SUV. Two of the cars even took a different route.
It would take us at least half the day to get to the Olkport Territory, so I’d gone ahead and bought a shit-ton of road trip snacks to keep my viramore happy. They got restless after being still for too long, and a long trip wasn’t great for them. So I’d also brought a few books filled with puzzles and things.
The first time I saw Oakley start to wiggle their fingers on their knee and move their body around, I reached into the back and pulled out my giant bag of goodies.
“Alright, here we go. Are you ready for a snack or a game?”
They blinked at me for a moment. “Uh, both. Obviously.”
I snorted. “Obviously.” I gestured at the bag. “What do you want?”
They glanced inside and dug through for a few seconds before they paused and stared at me. “You… you bought all my favorites.”
I shrugged even though I felt my face heat, which was ridiculous—I was far too old for blushing. “I did. I wanted you to have a nice road trip.”
They surprised me by smiling and leaning over to kiss my cheek before they plucked out a chip bag and one of the puzzle books and leaned back in their seat. With a grin, I grabbeda pencil and passed it over, then grabbed my own snack and puzzle book.
“Do you have more of those book things?” Jed asked, turning in his seat and staring at me.
“Sure.” I grabbed out another one without looking and passed it over.
“No fair,” Beshiro said. “I can’t play while I’m driving. You have to keep me entertained.”
I snorted and pulled out yet another book, passing it to Jed. “What about this?”
It was a dad joke book that was probably going to be absolutely horrible and ridiculous, which would likely make us all laugh. Hopefully, that would work for Beshiro because I couldn’t really help him other than taking a turn at the wheel.
Jed chuckled, opened it, and started reading.
Before I knew it, all four of us were cracking up at how bad the jokes were.
We had both sides of a duplex this time around since there were so many of us. We picked a neighborhood with lots of townhomes and a high turnover rate, hoping we wouldn’t stand out.
Ideally, we’d all stay in the same house, but at least we were right next door and could easily slip back and forth unseen through the backyards. With so many of us going in and out, we felt one house would be suspicious. It wasn’t often you’d find a house with sixteen grown adults, all different species, living together. Even this many split between two houses could draw attention, so we were going to have to be careful.
