Page 194
—Calm, Maggie. Don’t even think about it—
It took everything in Fern to keep her mouth shut and tamp down her burning curiosity. A pissing match over her speaking to Pet wasn’t going to help them achieve their goal. Still, she couldn’t help but notice the tightness around Mag’s eyes. The flare of his nostrils. He was…angry, maybe. Irritated, at the very least. Probably with her, knowing how loyal the Imperial Sons were. Which was to a fucking fault.
A servant carrying drinks passed by with perfect timing. She plucked two silver goblets from the laden tray, one already on its way to her mouth, when Magnus snatched it from her.
“Excuse you, what—”
“You want the glass ones,” he interrupted, a wicked glint in his gaze as he lifted the tray from the servant with his other hand and presented it to her. “Unless you were hoping to try something new.”
Fern glanced down at her remaining cup, then the ones on the tray. Crimson sloshed at most of their rims, thick and sticking to the sides as it oozed back down to rejoin itself, and she nearly lost her sizable lunch. Gifting blood to Lunara was one thing. Drinking it herself was something else entirely.
As in, an emphatic, full-chested fuck no.
“Not this time,” she said, swallowing as she traded silver for glass. “Or ever.”
Magnus laughed, taking his own and handing her another, then gave the tray back and sent the bewildered servant on their way. “Cheers.”
Somewhere between genuine gratitude and fury over his blimmin’ cockiness, Fern landed on petty revenge. Using her Fae speed, she tossed both her own drinks back, threw the glasses up into the air, stole Magnus’s and drank that too, and caught her cups before they hit the ground. “Cheers.”
—Glorious creature—
“Aye,” Magnus breathed.
Fern would bet everything she had, everything she didn’t even know she had, that he didn’t mean to say that out loud. Felt it. And she…had no idea what to do with that.
Apparently, they were pretending it didn’t happen.
In the blink of an eye, he shook away the look of wonder and donned his usual shit-eating grin. “Did you just challenge a Wolflord to a drinking game?”
“That sounds like an absolutely terrible idea,” Vann murmured through clenched teeth.
—Listen to your brother, lad—
Magnus ignored both of them and crossed his arms, one brow ticking up in challenge.
This was going to bite her in the arse. Massively. Spectacularly. Fern knew it sure as the wind in her hair when she flew. And yet, she still said, “Seems as good a way as any to start creating a stir.”
“Aye.” That time, he definitely meant to say it out loud.
“The rules?”
“Nothing too complicated.” Magnus waved another servant over, took her empties and set them on the tray, downed three glasses of his own without a word, grabbed two more, clinked them together, then handed one to her. “Drink for drink. First to fall over loses.”
—Have you lost your mind, you radge wee shite?—
Vann’s sigh was the heaviest thing she ever heard. “Sisters blimmin’ save me.”
“It’ll be fine,” Fern said to both of them, then narrowed her gaze at Magnus. “What does the winner get?”
“What, bragging rights aren’t good enough for you?”
“I already have too much to brag about where you’re concerned, Wolflord,” she teased, teeth sinking into her bottom lip against her will. “You can’t seem to stop losing, so I’d prefer something a bit more—”
A laugh bounded above the crowd from Fern’s left, like it couldn’t possibly be contained. The sound was life and beauty. Birth and blooming flowers. Spring and summer, and every gorgeous thing that called them home. Like…her.
Stars a-fucking-bove, that laugh was her home.
Fern spun towards it as a part of her mind splintered. She didn’t have to search. She just knew.
