Anyway, I had a bucket of coffee and some shop-bought pastries that were nowhere near as good as Zephyr’s are, and now here we are hiking in the pre-dawn light, with a soft, newly fallen layer of snowunder our feet, and my nose feeling like it is going to drop off at any moment.
Again.
It’s really fucking cold.
Obviously, there’s snow everywhere.
Maybe I should have had more coffee.
I have to admit that the fresh air has successfully chased away the lingering icky feeling that the dream left behind.
So at least there’s that. I’ll take my nose freezing off from the cold over that feeling any day.
So yesterday, when I was all chilled and blasé about the potential of me being Griff’s true mate. Yeah, it turns out that was because the hot chocolate had lulled me into a false sense of security, the tricky little bastard.
Today, I am full of nerves and anxiety, and it’s making me want to fight something.
I’m trying to repress that urge because, well, I don’t have anything to fight.
The Voices are just making me more nervous because they seem to be thrumming with nervous energy as well, and the damn unicorn bracelet is itching, and we’re out in the open on the way to this cave, even though none of us really know where we’re going, and we’re only heading in this direction because the Chief said it was on this side of the island.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Neith
I’m hoping that Griff’s instincts, or whatever it is, will kick in at some point, otherwise we’re just going to wander around aimlessly until we hit the cliffs.
Anyway, because we’re out in the open, I can’t take the unicorn bracelet off and see what’s going on underneath it to make it so itchy under there. I did forget to take it off when I showered last night, so I am assuming that I got soap or something underneath it, and that’s the cause.
If it carries on for much longer, I’m going to have to risk someone seeing the mark below it and take it off.
“Are you okay?” Coen asks me.
I nod, “Yeah, I’m nervous, and my arm itches, and the Voices are being unhelpful assholes.”
Coen’s eyebrows rise slightly. “Well, okay then.”
“What are you nervous about?” Griff asks me as we carry on walking.
“I really want to be your true mate,” I mutter, feeling a little self-conscious about the admission.
“I thought you weren’t worrying about that?” River asks.
I wrinkle my nose, “I was lulled into a false sense of security by the hot chocolate.”
They all give me looks like they’re contemplating my sanity again, and trying to hide their amusement at the same time.
“Right,” Griff says. He pulls me under his arm, and somehow does it smoothly enough that when I, of course, trip over my own feet, he simply rights me without breaking his stride and carries on walking. He also carries on talking like he didn’t just rescue me from face planting the ground, “You know that even if we aren’t true mates, that doesn’t change a single thing, right? I’m still yours one hundred percent, without a single doubt, and if it is confirmed that we are true mates, it doesn’t change anything for us, it simply means that something from the old ways is coming back, and we just happen to be the first two people that it’s happened to. The only person we have to inform is Michael, and even then, if you don’t want to, then we won’t.” He stops and glances down at me, and repeats his words, “It doesn’t change anything for us, Neith.”
“Thank you,” I say, as I reach up and pull him down to kiss me.
“Anytime,” he replies when he pulls back.
“So, what way are we supposed to go now?” Raiden asks as he looks around at the vast expanse of land surrounding us.
In all honesty, it sort of reminds me of the moors back home in Ireland. Just jagged rocks, gorse bushes, and grass for as far as the eye can see.
It’s beautiful and cold.
