“The sight of her takes my breath away.” Those are the first words he’s spoken all night and with them, he rises from his chair. “If you all will excuse me.”
“Where are you going? Why do you always hide away when conversations get tough?” Nero asks.
“Because I’m struggling to keep my power from feeding off all of you.”
“I’ve never heard of a Healer that feeds from people,” Creed says as he scowls at Iric.
“I don’t heal physical injuries but help reveal emotional ones. And you all are loaded with emotional trauma. I’d love to have one-on-one sessions with each of you. You desperately need it. I’m going to excuse myself now.”
The voices settle as we watch him haul ass into one of the bedrooms. The peaceful break from the shouting lasts about a millisecond.
“My poor cousin. You lot are going to stress her all the way out,” Havar says, then shovels more food in his mouth.
“Right you are, Hay-Hay. They need to be honest with each other. Who wants to share their troubles first?”
My head slowly—fucking impossibly slow—pivots to Riven’s giggle. His eyes aren’t swirling, nor do I feel his power on my skin. Yemi and the rest of her Valtrue’s shouting gets louder, though.
Oh no.
I lean down until my mouth is at Thayla’s ear.
“We need to go. Riven did something.”
“What the hell does that mean?” Her neck snaps toward him. “Ah, fuck.”
She jumps from her chair, stomps behind Amick, and snatches Riven up by the collar of his shirt.
“Ow! Ow! You’re pinching me, little burden.”
“I’m about to do more than that.”
All I can do is sigh as Creed reaches across the table and takes his pie back. Amick’s lost as fuck, but he stands from the table as Thayla marches Riven out the back door.
Yemi and her Valtrue are none the wiser that I’ve said bye and thank you for inviting us. To our very short-lived dinner.
Amick and I catch up with Creed and the three of us enter Thayla’s bedroom just in time to hear the shouting.
“I’ll give you one more fucking chance to be honest with me. What did you do?”
His innocent smile doesn’t work on us or her.
Eventually, he sighs and places his hands on his hips.
“I want to preface this by saying, I didn’t see them all reacting like that.”
“Oh my gods.” Thayla steps away from him and rubs her temples. “Are they going to be okay? Do they need to go to the healing villas? What, Riven? Fess up. Now.”
“No, it’s not that serious. They’ll be fine. I just slipped some of Vullie’s truth tonic he whipped up in their drinks. No biggie.I was trying to get them to loosen up with us. Bridge the gap. Make sure we can trust the two newcomers, you know? I already approve of and like Discovery better than Sevryn for bestie.”
He shrills and jumps back when Thayla swings at him.
“Are you kidding me? You drugged our fucking friends!”
“Drugged is a stretch. They’d never grow addicted to this. I’m positive they’re going to thank me for this after it’s all said and done. This way, they get all their baggage out in the open.”
She throws her hands in the air and spins around to face us.
“I can’t. I literally can’t. One of you fix this. Right fucking now.”
