Tears pricked my eyes as I was pulled in for a Harvest girl hug.
We then piled into two vehicles, me in shotgun with Rage driving. I glanced back to find Harp and Gray sitting on either side of Elaine. Rage’s mom offered me a small smile before Rage pulled the SUV out behind the one Justice drove with Noble, Kaja, and Fiona. I faced forward as we raced away from the castle—away from the alpha king.
The silence in the SUV pressed against me. Unease, trepidation … guilt.
What would I say to my father when we arrived? How could I explain? Worse, I wasn’t naïve enough to believe that Declan wouldn’t come for us—sooner or later. My arrival would serve as a portent of more woe to come.
Rage shifted his weight and tightened his grip on the steering wheel, his knuckles blanching. Was he tortured by similar worries?
We raced down the road toward the docks, and I gasped with an epiphany.
“How are we going to get out of the mage lands?” I asked him. But his only response was to shake his head, so I turned to his mom. “Can you get us out?”
She swallowed hard before answering. “We need a document signed by either a member of the High Mage Council or the alpha king to go through the portal to the mortal realm. I can get us on the boat to the magic lands, but getting through the portal to the human realm is a different matter.”
Great. A problem for future Nai I suppose.
As we approached the dock, the male mage captain straightened, displaying the thin triangle and dot mark on his forehead. He wasn’t the one who had driven us to the mainland before. Sitting on the railing, he smiled pleasantly as we drove past him and onto the small ferry, the bumper of our car inches away from the one Justice drove. The mage captain followed us, stopping only to gather a loop of rope that tied the boat to the dock. He jogged up the plank, and with a wave of his hand, the metal grate we’d driven over slid under the dock.
Please don’t let him stop us, I prayed.
We stepped from the vehicles, and the mage greeted Rage and then Elaine with the same warm smile.
Somewhere in his late twenties or early thirties, the blond-haired man had a boyish appearance with two dimples that made him seem much younger than his alleged years.
“Headmistress! Nice to see you, ma’am.” He nodded to the Midnight brothers as we exited and then circled around the vehicles. “Are y’all heading to the mainland for a bit of shopping?”
His gaze bounced from each of us to the next until he spotted the selkies, and then his eyes widened.
Shopping?I glanced at our haggard group and nearly laughed. Rage’s shirt hem was singed from his firefight with Declan, and both Justice and Noble looked like victims of torture—which was pretty much spot on. Headmistress Elaine’s clothing was splattered with blood, and Kaja and Fiona weren’t looking any better off than the rest of us.
Elaine cleared her throat, pulling a gold coin out of her pocket. “Yes.Shopping.” She slipped the coin over to the young man.
He took in our full appearance now and nodded, tucking it into his pocket and not asking any further questions.
“Shopping sounds like adream,” Kaja said with a smirk as if we hadn’t just been in a fight for our lives. Once again, she solidified her spot as my bestie.
Fiona nodded to her sister with a conspiratorial twinkle in her eye. “Right?” She turned to the mage. “I’m practicallydyingto get away.”
I snorted at their twisted humor. Apparently, it ran in their family.
“We must depart immediately,” Elaine said to the man.
The man’s expression turned somber, and he strode toward the bow. Elaine pursed her lips, “I’ll see if I can convince Bert to take the rest of the week off,” she told us.
Before she could follow after the guy, who I assumed was Bert, Justice pulled at her sleeve. “Good idea, Mom.”
His injuries made me want to facepalm myself. “And can you ask if he has a bottle of mage wine?” I asked her.
“Thatis a very good idea, too.” Rage slid his arm around my waist and kissed my temple.
Elaine looked at me oddly but nodded.
I snuggled closer to Rage, resting my head on his chest. His heart rate slowed, becoming a steadythump-thumpthat lulled me with a false sense of security. Having him here, knowing he was safe and we were still alive, wasn’t something I could take for granted.
“I don’t think it’s the right time to be celebrating,” Justice told his brother. “We’re not out of the woods yet.”
I shook my head, but my gaze darted to the selkies before I stopped myself from spilling my secret. “It’s forlater.”
