Cay just shakes her head, crossing toward Presh, then also snagging DeVille by the back of the arm. “I hear they grill a mean steak here.”
Doc Z hesitates, then snaps her mouth closed and strides over to her bike. Bellamy tracks her movements as if she’s prey, but she doesn’t uncross her arms or push away from the car.
I return my attention to the beach, not quite certain what’s drawn my gaze there — until I see the cu-sith sprawled across an outcropping of rock near the massive wooden pilings on which the restaurant sits. He’s out of sight from the main windows, as best I can tell from this angle, and still apparently not attracting attention from anyone outside.
“It’s too bad,” Bellamy murmurs behind me as Doc Z starts her bike. “A medic is useful. And now we have to watch her.”
Turning my face against the wind as it shifts and plays havoc with my hair, I note another figure on the beach and raise my hand. A woman with her wild blond curls also tangled in the wind and her sandals dangling in the fingers of one hand walks toward us down the beach, coming from the spa, no doubt.
Gigi lifts her hand in acknowledgement.
Doc Z takes off in a roar of noise.
“It is going to be worse, isn’t it?” Bellamy asks quietly, almost introspective. “Being claimed by you.”
“For you and all the discord, the snags, you’ve caused within the weave of the universe? I have no doubt it will be far worse to be mine.” I glance over at Cay, Presh, and DeVille as they enter the restaurant. “For Presh …”
Bellamy follows my gaze. “I think you’ve already made it clear what you’d sacrifice for baby sis.” She pushes off the Benz and wanders after the others, talking over her shoulder. “So I’ll watch the one back you so obviously don’t give a fuck about. Your own. And I’ll see what I can do about the medic problem. Because I can tell you now, all-powerful you may be, but the rest of us are going to need regular access to healing.”
“Don’t kill Zephyr,” I say.
Bellamy shrugs. “If she’s not a problem, then she’s not a problem. Right?”
I huff out a sigh as she crosses into the restaurant.
I wait for Gigi to get a little closer, then call out over the wind, “Join us for dinner?”
The combat mage closes the space between us, climbing up the short set of stairs from the beach. “I’m ordering the fucking lobster. And the asshole supreme can pick up the tab.”
“And me, right?” DeVille leans in to speak to me quietly as I step through the glass front door with Gigi. Presh, Cay, and Bellamy are gathered by the host station, waiting on a table in the seemingly at-capacity restaurant. Our fault for wandering in around dinnertime without a reservation. “I’m yours too, right?”
I offer him a twist of a smile. “Yes, you’re mine too. By choice.”
Pleased, he bumps my shoulder with his — nearly knocking me sideways. Apparently, three months isn’t quite long enough for him to get a handle on the strength the sabertooth tiger lends his human form. Then he moves to fling his arm around Presh, smirking.
She quietly screeches in protest, likely only moderating her tone because we’re in public, as she attempts to shove him away.
Deville whispers something in her ear.
“Ugh,” she cries, shivering dramatically. “Don’t get your hot breath on me, Andy. Gross.”
Chuckling to himself, he lets her go.
The young awry peeks at me over her shoulder. The pleased smile flitting over her face makes it clear she knows that DeVille’s whisper, and his ongoing grin, is about me confirming my claim on him. And that Presh is happy about that growing bond as well. Then she spots the combat mage at my side, and her smile widens. “Hey, Gigi!”
“Precious.” Gigi smiles back.
Presh’s smile is instantly quashed when the host, a shifter of some sort in her late teens, returns, smiling broadly at DeVille and pretty much ignoring the rest of us.
“Coda is staying too,” Gigi says quietly, her gaze on the teens as well. “With you. On the estate, specifically.”
“But maybe not you?”
She twists her lips, glancing at me sideways. “Maybe not me.”
I don’t ask her if that’s what they’re fighting about. I don’t even ask her for clarification about their relationship. Neither of those things are my business, but I do give her just a touch of what I know I’ve been missing for too many years. “It’s good to have a choice,” I say. “But if you want a home …” I look back toward the teens, Cay, and Bellamy. “Even one as complicated as the other people who make it a home might be, you have one with us.”
“You forgive me, then?” she croaks with suppressed emotion. “For losing Presh? Getting you —”
