"Threatening me should be her mate's job," my ex tossed back.
"Why isn't he here?" Larson asked Darius. "Her feet look like they’ve been through a meat grinder because she’s been running so much. If she was with him, she wouldn’t need to, right?"
Darius looked at me again. "How bad are they?"
"Fine." I lifted the wrecked, bandaged appendages as evidence. They were wrapped in clean socks, and I didn’t wiggle my toes, because that would hurt.
"Mating is a delicate thing for fae," Darius told them, deciding against arguing about my feet. Probably just so he wouldn’t be agreeing with them.
At least it was two against two now, instead of them against me.
"Because choosing a life partner isn't delicate for the rest of us?" Niall drawled.
"Because if we don't end up with our fated mate, our life is hell," Dare said."And we survive plenty of that before we meet them."
Darius and I headed to the pool, and I sent Jonah a quick message.
Me
Not going to make it to the run tonight
Enjoy your night off
Jonah
Try to get some rest if you can
Me
Yeah right
Jonah
Are you going to the nightclub?
I didn't answer.
It didn't hurt to leave him wondering.
Whether or not he replied would tell me how much he actually cared about me screwing someone else.
After we changed, Darius got in the pool with me. We proceeded to spend the rest of the day thoroughly dodging our similar but also extremely different magic while Niall stared at me from the side of the room, where he slept in his panther form.
five
NIALL
"You arenotbeing slyabout how much you want her," Larson said, munching on potato chips he'd stolen from Liv's pantry. It took a lot of calories to keep her fueled, which meant her house was basically a grocery store as far as things that didn't expire quickly.
Rob was really into health food, so it was a rare occasion that Larson had this much access to snacks that didn't include vegetables. He tried to be supportive by sticking to his mate's diet. Apparently, he'd missed junk food.
"I was never trying to be sly about it." I stole a chip from his hand, and he set a pile of them on my thigh. They spilled off my sweats, getting crumbs all over the couch. "What are you doing? She hates me enough right now without making a mess on her couch."
"I'm pretty surethis isyourcouch."
"I bought it for her. Not for myself."
She had been obsessed with the massive blue sectional since the day I gave it to her, and apparently, didn't hate me enough to part with it after she threw me out two years earlier.
