“Would you have the miss go hungry?” Mr. Tom asked Ulric with a sniff, who’d been too loud by far.
Ulric’s eyebrows pinched together, and he centered himself back in his seat.
John, sitting across from him, grinned. The whole group was honestly hilarious. He couldn’t remember ever laughing so much in his life. Or seeing such powerful shifters being so expressive.
Mind-boggling, all of this. He felt like he’d stepped through into a different realm where everything was upside-down.
They disembarked from the plane and headed toward passenger and cargo vans, not unlike what Evan had sent for them in the cairn. The land here was much different, though, tucked into the Sierra foothills in California. The air was dry, the sun warm, and a few puffy white clouds scudded through the blue sky. Green trees crept up the mountains in the distance, the height far less than John had grown used to.
Unlike when heading to the cairn, here no one dallied. Everyone helped the attendants grab luggage, and they walked briskly to the transportation. Everyone was happy to be home.
A wave of nervousness rolled through John as he followed. He kept his unease at being in a new place and possibly his new home tucked in tight.
“Hey.” Aurora drifted in beside him. Trust her to read him when no one else could. Except for maybe Miss-Nothing Sue. “I meant to ask you. How did Edgar come to have that little whale you’re making?”
Ulric and Jasper weren’t long in joining them, always ready for a laugh and to make him feel comfortable. They really were a close-knit group. Battle would do that, and given the sort of cohesive fighting both the air and land crews exhibited in that cairn, they were well versed in fighting and working together. That had been a level of harmony John had never seen before, and he’d thought his pack was one of the best. Talk about humble pie.
“It was on my nightstand in the cairn,” John replied as they loaded into a van.
“He was your roommate?” Ulric asked, aghast.
“No.”
“Ah.” Ulric started shaking with laughter. “And I assume your room automatically locked like everyone else’s?”
“Yes.”
Ulric shook harder. “And I also assume you didn’t confront him about it because you really didn’t want to know the particulars of why that vampire was poking around your room without a key to get in?”
“I was trying not to think about it at all, actually.”
The laughter spilled over, joined by Jasper and Aurora.
“What’s so funny?” Nessa asked, poking her head into the van with a bright smile. They’d stayed in the cairn one additional day for the leaders to hash out a few things, and now today, Nessa was back to normal. She was a beautiful solar flaremasking the magma that caused it, radiant and dangerous at the same time. Tristan was a lucky man.
“Aljoe is learning to ignore Edgar.” Ulric filled her in about the whale.
“Ah.” She nodded and scooted over as Sebastian filed in after her, the two never far from each other. “He’s just checking things out, making sure Aljoe isn’t dangerous or a threat to Jessie or anyone else. Don’t mind him. When he clears you, he’ll go back to being his normal weird.”
“His normal weird isn’t much better,” Sebastian muttered as Sue sat in the front passenger seat. Sebastian closed the door and the van got underway.
Nessa turned in her seat to look back at John. “Did you get that whale done, though?”
John looked out the window. “No. I’ve been watching you guys, deciding if this is a good fit for me. I’m still not sure.”
Nessa shrugged, turning to face forward again. “You need to settle wherever you feel comfortable. I regret to inform you, however, that you do fit here. With us, I mean. It’s a shock to realize you’re the type of person who would ignore an addled vampire who goes through your things and then brings you a bit of arts and crafts to finish while in a bar having drinks, but here you are. Welcome. Sorry for your loss of sanity. It’s all downhill from here.”
Everyone started laughing, except for Sebastian.
“It’s true, though,” Sebastian muttered. “When you start having meaningful discussions with that vampire, you’re on your way out. After that, you just hold on and hope for the best.”
Aurora put her hand on her face and leaned forward with a groan. “I’m blaming it on the hangover. I’m never drinking again.”
Everyone laughed again, and it was a wonder Edgar himself didn’t pop up from the back and invite John into the madness.
Or maybe he didn’t need to, John decided. He was already there.
Sometime later,the van turned onto a street with a sign that saidNo Outlet. Houses lined the quiet street. At the end, set back on a large lot and cloaked in a strange shadow despite the sun and clear sky, sprawled a massive gothic structure, three stories high with spires and a pitched roof. There was so much to focus on that John couldn’t focus much at all. At the top of the house, a single light glowed in what must be an attic.
