I cut her off. “My actions are not your responsibility, Gigi. You must have known that for a while now. Also, there’s nothing to forgive. You know all about dealing with one of the awry. If Presh wanted off that estate, she was getting off it whether you took a shower or not.”
She falls silent. Cay is debating over whatever table the host is offering, or maybe how long the wait is going to be, while the host continues to send flirty looks DeVille’s way. He’s oblivious, of course, but Presh is seriously displeased.
“Coda loves you,” Gigi whispers. “Not … romantic love, and I’m not sure they’d even admit to it. But they aren’t going to forgive me, and they don’t even truly know what you’ve been through these last three months away from us. Not yet. Though I think that’s part of what’s scaring Coda. Losing sight of you, not knowing.”
Gigi and I have never talked about her past. That kind of conversation isn’t where I naturally dwell, and she’s never seemed inclined to voluntarily fill me in. “But you do? Understand?”
She looks me dead in the eye and whispers, “I think you know I do, Zaya. Not at the Cataclysm’s hands, but …”
“Maybe that’s all the more reason to stay with us.”
“Maybe …”
Presh glances back at us again, grinning and practically radiating joy. “They have a table!”
A soft answering grin stretches across Gigi’s face. It might be impossible to not smile at Precious when she’s smiling, but it’s not charisma. It’s certainly not any sort of sheltered upbringing. It’s that inherent goodness that comes with her essence, yes. But it’s also just … a choice. A choice Presh makes every day.
“Maybe …” Gigi murmurs a second time.
The large booths spanning the center of the main seating area of the restaurant and the tables along the windows above the beach are all full. So the six of us take a somewhat private U-shaped corner booth overlooking the parking lot. Gigi slides in next to me, pushing me closer to the window, while Bellamy caps the other open side of the booth with Presh and DeVille between herself and me.
I’m appalled to discover that there aren’t any milkshakes on the seafood-dominated menu. I might have to flex some of this Conduit power before dessert.
Kidding.
Maybe.
I order the alder-smoked salmon, swapping the rice for garlic mashed potatoes. Of course and always.
While Presh and DeVille talk, the rest of us sit with our own thoughts clearly whirling around in our heads. I have no idea the last time I did more than nap, and my exhaustion is finally catching up with me. Both Cay and Gigi checked their phones, grimaced faintly, then tucked their devices away.
Bellamy appears to be contemplating how she might level the entire building if called upon to do so. Either that or she has a nasty stomachache.
She did mention being starving.
Presh is sweetly interrogating DeVille about every interaction he’s ever had with the flirty host, getting more and more frustrated as — in her mind — DeVille evades the questions. Having seemingly already forgotten the pretty shifter who seated us, he legitimately can barely remember her. ‘From school’ and ‘she might be on the basketball team’ are the only significant things Presh pries out of him.
We’re halfway through our meals when huge raindrops begin pattering against, then pummeling the window. The sudden downpour drums against the metal roof loudly enough to be heard over the general chatter and mood music.
Rainclouds have formed across the previously clear blue sky in an instant. And only over the immediate area, because I can see the sun on the verge of touching the horizon out the front windows of the restaurant.
I feel him the moment before the floor literally rumbles under our feet. Not the man who was supposed to be soul bound to me, because that severed bond was snipped, then archived in the armoire in the tower library by my aunt. But the beast.
His eyes appear first. Bright amber cuts through the rain-darkened haze beyond the window. Then his huge head comes into view as he prowls forward, crossing from the road and into the small parking lot. He somehow doesn’t crush any cars, or Cay’s bike, in his wake. The celestial dragon’s iridescent scales must reflect light, offering some camouflage, because all I can really see are his eyes and massive head.
“Oh, fuck,” Cay mutters. Her cutlery clinks against her plate as she drops it.
Bellamy continues cracking and nibbling on the whole dungeness crab she’s meticulously destroyed, feeding the choice pieces to Presh and DeVille as she works through it.
“Is this a problem?” Gigi asks, her French accent heavy and a thick rope of essence ringing each of her otherwise bare wrists.
“Of course not,” Presh says, peering over her shoulder. “It’s just Rath.”
The celestial dragon presses his face against the window, peering down at me. I’m not at all certain whether Rath is actually present at the moment, but I keep that tidbit to myself.
The host suddenly stumbles back from her station by the front door, as if she’s just caught sight of the huge dragon blocking the entrance with his sinuous body. If ‘sinuous’ is the right description for a beast the length of two city buses.
The other patrons, most of them nulls, murmured at the floor briefly shaking — the moment the dragon landed, I assume — but haven’t noticed the terrifying shifter barring the front of the restaurant. Yet. Hopefully, anyone outside had already dashed inside their homes or the resort cabins at the onset of the downpour, before the dragon made his appearance. Not that it’s a high-traffic area to begin with.
