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The shrewd look Eusis throws my way is one I am more than used to from my time in the club, but then he flips his beautiful hair over his shoulder and wanders off to introduce himself to the much more amenable Seff.
Not seeing any good reason to leave, I stay glued against Caelan all night, watching my brother across the crackling glow of the fire. Roan, seeing Seff occupied with the admittedly charismatic and beautiful Eusis, makes his way to Theo’s “rescue”, shoving himself firmly between Theo and the enthusiastic and muscular herd and their curious questioning, keeping Theo as far behind his back as politeness allows.
I’m not really sure if it is the red glow of the fire in his eyes, or just flames of rage at Roan’s arrogant paternalism pissing off my little brother.
The night goes on and on. At some point the herd pulls out fiddles, flutes and leather pouches filled with wine, and dinner turns into a party. Caelan and I are more than happy to watch, too exhausted and wrapped up in each other to join in.
For a brief moment, as I watch Edith being twirled by a brawny centaur with long black braids and a shining black coat, and Seff flirting outrageously with the now satisfactorily distracted Eusis, I feel a fleeting moment of incredulity that we are all together, happy and laughing aftereverythingthat has just happened. That, despite Seff being a giant annoying puppy—okay, and a generally really good guy—and Edith being the strangest bog witch I could ever hope to encounter, I feel more at home, more myself with them, than I ever have with my parents or my friends back home. Even the ones I made working in the city, away from my parents and their social sphere.
Even Roan is weirdly growing on me. We haven’t spent a lot of time together, but we have common ground both working in service and we’d traded horror stories about working in bars. I have a feeling that when he isn’t going through whatever this shit has brought up for him, we could end up really solid friends.
Seff throws his golden head back in an obnoxiously loud laugh, leaning into Eusis, batting his pretty eyes at the half-man half-horse, and an affectionate warmth settles in my gut. I rub my back against Caelan, my eyes getting heavy from the sweet wine, the heat from the fire and the cosy feeling of warmthradiating from him. Caelan chats animatedly with the centaur beside us about wildflower growth and bee populations on the edge of the Woods. I think his name was Jasien? Either way, as Caelan’s deep voice wraps around me, I realise that the feeling settling over me is something like contentment.
It’s a nice feeling. A new one. And fits perfectly.
I am so content, I almost don’t spot my brother hauling Roan into the dark of the Woods.
Almost.
I decide to let it go. Theo is an adult, and he is always on my ass to treat him like one. Maybe it’s time.
I pinch Caelan’s arm where it is wrapped around my chest. We are settled on another rug, with our sleeping bag draped over us. He tips his head down, his chin bumping my ear and I nod towards Roan’s back as it disappears into the dark. Caelan snorts tickles my ear.
“Should we follow them?”
“You trust Roan, right?”
He presses lazy, sleepy kisses to my neck, sending shivers down my spine, making me wish we weren’t in the centre of a centaur camp. “With my life.”
“Well, then I guess that’ll have to do.”
***
We wake up dusty, but none the worse for wear, everyone making their way back to camp from wherever they had snuck off to in the dark of the night. Seff’s swagger as he returns assures us all that he’d had averygood night. He shoots finger guns at a couple of centaurs clustered around the morning fire. When he reaches Caelan and me packing our bags, his grin takes up most of his face. He greets us with an up nod and raises his hand for a high five. Caelan just groans and tells him to knock it off, but I don’t leave him hanging, slapping his hand.
“Good night?” I can’t keep a straight face when he winks at me and resettles his baseball cap on his head, rolling his shoulders and cracking his neck.
“Could say that. Could definitely say that. Definitely need coffee, though.”
I point him in the direction of the breakfast, grateful he doesn’t get into what he got up to. I’m not quite sure of the mechanics of centaur sex. I mean, I’ve had some ideas over the years, some pretty vivid ones, but I'm not sure I want to know for certain. Especially not from someone I have to look in the eye. He slaps my back in thanks as he makes his way over to the food, leaving us to finish up.
Roan and Theo had obviously crept back at some point after Caelan and I had fallen asleep. But things are still… tense between them. In fact, they seem a whole lot worse, which I didn’t think was possible. As we pack the last of our belongings, waiting for Edith to finally make her way back, I watch Roan watching Theo. The latter is deftly avoiding any and all contact between them as he fetches his breakfast and coffee.
The pair of them are getting exhausting. Thankfully, Edith wanders back with her impeccable timing, just when all the work is done and we are all set to leave, like a mother duck collecting her babies.
At one point last night, after winning—or maybe losing, I wasn’t really sure of the rules if there were any—a drinking game with the herd, she had pulled me aside to gush giddily about how happy she was that Caelan had pulled his head out of his ass and things were settled between us. She’d then hiccoughed up some wine, narrowly missing my boots, so you know. Grain of salt and all that.
On the topic of the boots, I am more than ready to get back to Caelan’s house and throw these fucking things in a big fire, along with the backpack, tent and everything else we’d taken on the journey. But first we still have to get there, which means more walking.
Always with the walking.
It’s warm today, spring really making itself known with the last of the winter chill long behind us. We stop more and more often, refilling our bottles in the creek and stripping off our layers. Thankfully, everyone is great about me wanting to go nowhere near the water since they’d been told about my run-in with that fucking mermaid.
Whenever we’ve had the time, or more accurately, the inclination, I’ve tried to teach Caelan how to harness magic consciously, rather than just having it spring on him when he’s got a big emotion. So far he has been terrible at it, but we’re getting there. He managed to blow a frozen wind under Seff’s shirt, making the giant shifter dance a jig in shock, but I think that was just a fluke.
Naturally our practice had brought up Caelan’s final blow to Marieth. When questioned he’d just fobbed it off. How did it feel wielding that power? Taking a life? He’d only shrugged his shoulders heavily, shaking his head.
“Honestly, guys,” he’d sighed and scrubbed his hand through his beard, “I haven’t even thought about it. There just hasn’t been the… I don’t know. I’m too close to it right now. Maybe later.” I’d hugged him tight then, because wasn’t that the truth?
