David rolled his eyes. “Ten people in this matchbox, sharing a bathroom, sleeping on top of each other forfour weeks? They’re likely to murder each other.”
“Our squads will train with each other.” Bowenn turned to face him. “They will be familiar with one another. They are warriors, and they understand their goal.”
“They are also living creatures with emotions and limits, being placed in a tense situation with little recourse for relief. Ten people is too many. Six is reasonable.”
As they continued to argue, Sean studied the contents of the table, tallying the number of things they still needed. Weapons primarily but also clothes that wouldn’t turn heads and maps of the city to paste on the walls.
Cities like this had previously been impenetrable. With no undeveloped land nearby, getting back to Luxoria was a matter of distance travel. The mist wouldn’t spawn in manmade nature installations like Central Park. It meant that these places had been abandoned to Indigo. Now, with a safe space to retreat, Luxoria could begin the invasion. Not that a handful of warriors would make much of a dent in the population here, but it was a start.
“Sean?” Isobel asked beside him. “Anything else we need to do before heading back?”
He glanced her way. She loathed these treks but always put on a stoic face for their audience. While Kywyn and the five pixies who’d volunteered for this mission stood quietly at attention, each dressedin full-coverage clothing to hide their too-smooth skin and sunglasses to conceal their eerily bright blue eyes, Isobel only wanted the permission to return home. The longer a journey in Viterra took, the more put out she was when they returned home. She considered this all a needless risk and couldn’t understand why Sean refused to send someone in his stead.
It didn’t help that she slept in his bed every night—thanks to Anna’s occupation in her own—yet he declined to engage in anything beyond pleasantries. Sitting with Anna in the evenings had become his sanctuary, his way to avoid the woman who haunted his heart in favor of the one who’d begun to feel too much like home.
Sean rationalized it by telling himself he was being kind. If David wouldn’t take care of her during this strange and worrisome illness, then he would. It was the least he could do when he had no clue why his soulmate had abandoned her. No amount of questions or demands would sway David from his choice or reveal why he’d fixed himself on this route. Anna didn’t need him, he said. She’d fare better with a clean break.
But David was in love with her. Sean didn’t question that. He just didn’t understand why—in David’s convoluted mind—that love was a bad thing. Out of self-preservation, he couldn’t follow David’s cord in his chest any further to uncover the mystery. Bad enough that Sean had scratched the surface and opened a stream of it straight into his own heart. Any deeper and Sean wasn’t sure what he’d do. He already thought about the woman and the ecstasy in her touch far more than he should.
Regardless, he would not be controlled by this bond to Isobel any longer. It could fester inside him if it wanted, but now that he knew how just the shimmering surface of real love felt, he wouldn’t bow down to this fake version that made his insides feel oily and unclean. He would fight it until his dying breath.
“No,” he said. “I think we’re almost done.” He touched Bel’s stomach. “How are you feeling?”
She smiled at the gesture. “Your aunt’s elixir works well. I’m feeling far more myself these days.”
Sean had been shocked after Blaire’s thorough exam revealed Isobel was nearly four months along.Four months. It meant it had to have occurred one of those first wild nights, when neither of them could keep their hands off each other.
If only he’d known then what this would all turn into. Magical bonds. Forbidden attachments. Secrets and lies and masks worn to hide it all.
Welcome to the show.
She’d warned him, but he hadn’t fully understood.
Once David and Bowenn reached a compromise of a squad of eight being assigned to this particular outpost, their party turned for the door, leaving one at a time so as not to raise suspicion. They piled into a stolen van and drove north to the closest nature preserve they could find.
There, the mist welcomed them with open arms.
“You’re doing well,” Kywyn murmured on the other side. “I’m very proud of you.”
Sean didn’t bother to hide the swell of satisfaction in his chest. His father squeezed his shoulder. Only a few months in and Sean could barely remember what life had been like before Kywyn’s steady presence. His father had become a rock, a sounding board, and not for the first time, Sean resented his mother for keeping this man from him.
It was only when they’d bid goodbye to the pixies and his father and Isobel retired to his room to rest that Sean found himself alone with David.
Without asking, Sean poured them both a glass of the minty lemon concoction David—and now Sean—loved so much and pushed it into David’s hands. In their favored sitting room, Sean’s gaze trailed to the sun hanging low in the western sky, sparkling over the snow like glitter, while David settled into his usual seat.
“It’s taking longer than I thought it would,” Sean said. “Almost three weeks and only two outposts are partially prepared.”
In his peripheral vision, David nodded. “You’re going to have to assign teams to set them up.”
Sean followed the sun’s course toward the horizon, letting it burn its light into his retinas. “Is this the best way?”
“It will be the most efficient in the long run.” He paused. “Change is hard. There are always growing pains, right?”
After a moment, Sean turned to face him. “I feel like this is the wrong course.”
David raised a brow.
“I can’t explain it. It’s like I’m looking in the wrong direction.”
