“I don’t want you to hurt him,” Sage said, holding up her hand. “My parents weren’t into that and after I got kicked out, I didn’t do that if I took someone to bed because I was worried they’d rob me if I went to sleep. I was actually wondering how I slept so well considering I was on the ground in a tent in these circumstances. It could have been him, but I think it bothers him.”
Because he was a ponce. I could live with one testicle and I’d sacrifice one to cuddle her, but she hadn’taskedme and consent was one of my big issues. Khalid was one of those cool motherfuckers I couldn’t read that well and his Da was a cop, so he would know not to give too much away. But I bet he wanted a snuggle, too.
Lucian was back pretty quick. Damn. Super speed was cool, but I’d never tell him that because I kind of hated him.
“I found the crystal, but it’s booby trapped and there are people nearby. My eyesight is a lot better and I can pick up things hidden in the trees, so I’m thinking witches left them. I only know what supernaturals smell like once I meet them andfind out what they are, but Idoknow dog smell. The wolves Sage saw earlier are hiding somewhere.”
Damn. Lucian was being useful, so I couldn’t even be mean to him. I was still mad about the food and that he had speed healing, so he wouldn’t be pissing blood after I kicked the shit out of him. That was cheating.
“None of us are wolves,” Khalid said. “They aren’t going to stop and help us unless werewolves have the same connection to Liam as the wildlife. And I think that’s only going to work if Liam is the original werewolf.”
I shrugged and cracked my neck.
“Headmaster Mykene took Doris, but I can make a shiv out of a stapler and a Euro. I can handle some wolves.”
“Where are you going to get a stapler out here?” Lucian wondered.
“Up your arse,” I said, thumping him up the head. “There’s clearly something stuck up there.”
Lucian’s fangs popped out, and he bared them at me.
“Lay your hands on me again,” he dared.
Ugh. He had me there. We started walking towards the crystal. He was going to regret it when I found a stapler.
Iknew we needed to get that crystal, but if we were about to fight werewolves and deal with witch traps, I really needed to eat something. And oddly, Lucian brought it up before I did and he did it in a way that didn’t make it seem like we were stopping just for me. I appreciated that because so far, I was the only one of us who hadn’t gotten some cool new power.
A bird flew down and landed on Liam’s shoulder. They seemed to be having some kind of conversation and we could only hear Liam’s part of it.
“Really? I’ll pass the message. That’s rather badass. And thank you. You’re all fantastic.”
The bird flew off and Liam turned to us.
“So, they are alotsmarter than people give them credit for. They knew this was about where we’d need to stop and eat before we went after the crystal and they set up kind of a picnic through the clearing. Also, one of those animals goes together with Sage, but she’s got to woo it first because it’s not like a dog whowantsto be domesticated.”
“What is it and how do I woo it?”
“She wouldn’t tell me. Part of the wooing it wants is you to figure all that out. It’s smart, and it wants you to proveyou’resmart.”
“I can do that,” I said, even if I had no idea where to start.
“She also said to eat the bread the fairy gave you with what they foraged and your familiar stole some fruit from the fairy orchards because they are kind of a klepto. That’ll keep you balanced, even if you don’t have a label to read. That’s not the animals guessing. Your familiar is connected to you and they were the one who passed that message.”
I shrugged as we sat down to eat. Khalid started a small fire and managed to cook up the foraged mushrooms and herbs into something pretty good considering we had very limited ingredients.
The bread Saffron gave me was delicious. It was dense and almost like cake and bread had a baby. I had an idea. Whatever my familiar was, they had to be related to fairies too, and they needed to eat. Clearly, they had no problem stealing. Was it stealing if they were an animal? It wasn’t like they had thumbs or jobs to pay for it.
The fruit they stole wasn’t like anything I’d eaten before. It had to be cracked open like a coconut, but you could do it with your hands. There was a sweet liquid inside that I drank and the flesh tasted like the few times I had custard.
And even I knew it was fucked up I was eating things I didn’t know the sugar or carb count for because I’d never heard of thembefore just because some bird told Liam another animal told her I should. Sue me, I trusted the unknown animal.
So, I didn’t eat all the bread and fruit. I walked over and left some of it on a rock for my familiar. I didn’t know the first thing about wooing a magical creature. I wasn’t even allowed to have a pet growing up because Blue Matthews was the kind of psycho that hated dogs. They hated him, as well. He had this weird thing about women with cats, so they were out too.
“That’s a good offering,” Liam said.
“Yeah, I don’t know much about that. Blue’s church thinks candles and incense is too pagan.”
It was weird how I’d easily slipped into calling him by his first name. He wouldn’t have stood for that growing up. He was big on titles and respecting elders.
