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“Hey.”
He waved his hand awkwardly, the guy with the cereal bowl from the mess. What was his name? I took in the neatly pressed clothes and the long ponytail of blond hair. Shaun, it came to me finally.
“Hi, Shaun,” I said, sure the suspicion was obvious in my voice. And why not? What was he doing, lurking in my house?
“Look, sorry to sneak up on you like this. I just wanted to have a quick word and…” His eyes flicked to the sliding door.
“OK.”
“Um…well, I know this is gonna sound kinda forward, but I wanted you to know what you’re about to walk out into.” A thrill of fear went through my veins. “When you go outside, they’re going to sit you down and your pack will be around you when they ask if anyone else wants to petition to be part of it.” His hands went up when he saw me stiffen. “Petitioning doesn’t mean anything. Well, it sort of does. It does to us…” His voice trailed away as he stared at the floor for a moment. “It just means you’ll consider what they have to offer, maybe choose some people to work through your heat with. You’re keeping your options open, but you’ll think about it.”
“Is that what this is?” I said with a frown. “Did you want…?”
“What?” His eyes went wide, still startlingly blue in the low light. “Oh shit, I guess that is how this looks.” He backed up against the kitchen benches. “Nope, not what I was thinking. Not that you’re not…” He waved his hand up and down. “Fuck, I’m messing this up.”
He raked his hands through his hair, and I noticed the fine tremor there.
“I wanted to petition Jules and she was just dumped into the whole ceremony and no one prepared her and…” He shook his head slowly. “It didn’t go well, for either of us. I just wanted you to know what you’re getting yourself into. We haven’t had enough outsiders come here. We just tend to assume somehow you’ll know all this shit, and then…” His hands fell limply to his sides. “Anyway, I’m gonna go.”
To see a man as gorgeous as him so abjectly unhappy was somewhat shocking. He looked like he should be a spokesmodel for some kind of multinational gym, with babes hanging off each arm, not standing there looking… Broken-hearted, that was it.
“You don’t have to,” I said.
His smile when it came was bright and shaky.
“Yeah, I do. Trust me, I do. I feel like a total creeper right now anyway. I’m just gonna…”
He made a move towards the door but I said, “Why?”
That stopped him in his tracks. He turned and looked back at me, eyes haunted by ghosts I didn’t know.
“I know Sen’s got a token for you. I just wanted you to have some time and think about whether you wanted to accept him. It looks like everything’s getting dumped on you out there. We do that. We just assume everyone will just go along with the way we’ve always done things. Sometimes, it doesn’t work out that way. Good luck, Flick. You deserve to be happy.”
And with that, he really did leave, slipping out the door and into the night, then shutting it with a click.
I blinked, then squared my shoulders as I stared at the sliding door. All those people, watching, staring, talking…
Wha
t does it matter to us what people say? You dealt with your mates damn well. Be that woman.
Well, alright then.
“So, we didn’t really get a chance to explain all of this…” Aidan said as I walked outside. He grabbed my hand, to comfort me or to stop me from running? “So what’s going to happen is—”
“They’re going to ask who wants to petition to be part of my pack, or at least, in my bed for the heat.”
“You know.” Aidan looked stunned. “Did your Tirian tell you?”
“No, Shaun did.”
“Shaun? What the hell did he…?”
He didn’t get a chance to finish his sentence. As we walked over, a group of men stood around one of the dining room chairs, Peter and Ophelia standing by its side.
“Flick, did Aidan fill you in on this?” Ophelia asked, looking a little frazzled, which was interesting. “I admit, I was remiss in preparing you for this, but we thought we had a little more time before you were going to take the final step with Aidan.”
“So I sit here and listen to what these guys have to say?” I replied.
