Page 30 of Destined Dawn

Rhi tips her head to one side, then nods. “I’d like that too.”

I walk through to the larder to see what I can find, keeping an ear out for Winne and Rhi’s conversation, curious about the girl’s stuff potion they’re brewing.

“It doesn’t look like very much,” Rhi comments.

“It’s not,” Winnie answers. “Enough for one dose. But ideally you should take a second tomorrow morning. Sorry, Rhi, but there just wasn’t enough Cloudpuff in the stores.”

Cloudpuff? What the hell is that used for again? It rings a bell. I wish I’d paid better attention in my damn potion lessons. I’ll have to ask Phoenix later, although, despite being an actual professor, he seems to know as much about potions as I do.

“If this is some potion to make your hair shinier or teeth whiter,” Phoenix says from the table, obviously also curious about what the girls are up to, “you don’t need it, you’re perfect as you are.”

“Duh,” Winnie says, “obviously.”

“Then what is it f–”

Rhi ignores him.

“Cloudpuff?” she says. “I saw some growing outside inthe prairie. I can get some more in the morning and we can brew a second batch.”

I pull beef out of the freezer, and the last tins of tomatoes and a packet of pasta in the stores. We’ve already eaten our way through much of the food that was being kept here. By tomorrow evening there won’t be enough to feed us all which means we’d have to move on anyway or go find some more food. Both of which would place us in danger.

I carry my finds back into the kitchen in time to see Rhi sipping whatever the two girls have brewed, pulling a face of disgust as she does.

“Are you going to tell me what the hell that is?” I ask, using my magic to thaw the frozen meat before breaking it up into a frying pan. Rhi shakes her head. “I thought we were doing honesty now.”

“We are. And I will tell you. Just not right now,” she says, peeking at Trent who has taken a second radio to pieces, the parts strewn across the kitchen table.

“And what are you doing?” I ask him as the meat begins to sizzle.

“Erm,” the boy says as he twists two wires together, “seeing if I can make a handheld receiver.” He reads the puzzlement on Rhi’s face. “Walkie-talkies.”

“You can do that from that?” I ask.

“He’s some kind of gadget genius,” Rhi tells me, placing her empty mug on the side and coming to stand next to me. I pull her in front of me, wrapping my arms around her and resting my chin on her shoulder as I stir the cooking meat.

It almost feels domestic, kind of perfect, cooking together as if we were any other ordinary couple, any normal family. As if we didn’t have fate hanging over our heads and the Lord Protector determined to hunt us down.

12

Stone

Azlan serves dinner an hour later,all of us sitting around the kitchen table, a motley crew of people that shouldn’t belong together but somehow do.

An assassin who wrestles his spaghetti like it’s something alive, stabbing and poking at it with his fork. The Lord Protector’s son himself, who seems to have acquired a large love bite since this morning (does that have anything to do with the potion Rhi and Winnie were brewing – Cloudpuff? It definitely rings a damn bell). And a werebeast.

Not to mention one grumpy-assed enforcer and a washed-out professor.

Definitely a motley crew.

Which is probably why the conversation isn’t exactly flowing. It stops and starts, jumping from one topic to another – avoiding the one we’re all really thinkingabout. If it weren’t for Winnie and Trent, we’d probably be arguing by now, possibly wrestling each other across the table.

I’m guessing Miss Wence finally tires of the tension in the room because she gives one big and clearly fake yawn and says she’s heading to bed. Her boyfriend immediately and eagerly leaps up from his seat and then it’s just the rest of us left staring at each other.

“Are we going to bed too?” Barone asks with obvious hope in his voice, tossing his fork onto his empty plate.

Rhi gives him a hard look, the kind I remember my mom used to give me when I wasn’t behaving myself. The assassin grins at her and then slinks away from the table.

“Should we be worried?” Spencer asks, watching as Barone slips from the room.