Page 6 of Forgotten Arcane (Broken Ashes #6)

“Right, let’s see if your wings can be put away or if they’re going to need a potion from Ransom,” Griff says, getting us back on track.

“Yes, please,” I reply.

I’m more than ready to get out of here and head home. After I’ve said goodbye to Mabel, and hopefully found Ribit too.

“So, if you can hide them yourself, then it’s as simple as focusing on your magic, and then focusing on your wings and asking them to go,” Reed explains.

I nod, “Okay. I think I can do that.”

“You’ve got this, Nene,” Van encourages, making my worried frown turn into a smile.

“Holy fuck, Nene?” Coen suddenly asks, “As in Nene, the one you always used to talk about?”

Evander nods, “Yeah, that one, and it’s one hell of a story how she came back into our lives. As you can imagine it wasn’t quietly or without drama.”

Coen’s eyebrows are practically in his hairline, “Fuck. I had absolutely no idea, how the hell didn’t I put two and two together?”

“We never really spoke about our lives outside of the stuff that we did together, and the time we spent with Dimitri doing jobs,” I reply.

Coen nods, “Yeah, I suppose that’s true. I mean I never asked you anything about before.”

He doesn’t elaborate, and I’m grateful that the guys don’t ask. Before is before he and Dimitri found me, in my hell. They had no intention of finding me, they were simply going after someone who shouldn’t be alive, and happened to find me. After that, I joined them, and the rest is history.

Complicated history.

“I have a feeling that everything worked out exactly how it was supposed to work out,” Griff adds into the silence. “We may never know why it had to work out the way that it did, but the Fates have a strange way of making things work how they should.”

I nod in agreement, “Absolutely. I do wish I didn’t have to experience some things to get here though.”

All of their expressions darken momentarily before Griff clears his throat.

“Why don’t you give it a try and see if you can hide your wings?” He asks me.

“If you can’t, I should be able to temporarily cloak you while we walk back to the castle, and it won’t take me too long to make you up a glamour potion when we get home. I can use the same recipe that I use for River and just adjust it slightly to fit you,” Ransom explains.

“Thank you, you’re awesome,” I smile. “Alright, let’s see if I can do this.” I take a deep breath, closing my eyes, when a thought occurs to me and my eyes pop back open, “they’ll come back right?”

Reed smiles, “Yes, they will definitely come back, they’re a part of you.”

I let out a relieved breath. It’s amazing how quickly I have gotten used to them.

I know I fell over when I was trying to look at them before, but I’ve been moving around, and the guys have hugged me and kissed me, and I haven’t paid them any more notice than that.

They have very quickly just become an extension of me, like they’ve always been there.

I have a feeling that it’s not going to be quite that easy when it comes to using them. That’s not going to be easy at all.

“Oh, I wonder if that’s why I’ve always loved being high up,” I blurt out loud. My inside thought becoming a rather loud outside thought.

The guys are so used to me by this point that they don’t even skip a beat, and simply reply and answer my question.

Van nods, “Yeah, it wouldn’t surprise me. You may not have been aware that you were a supernatural back then, but it still would have had an influence over your personality traits.”

Raiden nods, his eyes lit with knowledge as he adds, “Van’s right. It’s like even shifters who have grown up in the human world and have no idea that they are shifters still tend to build packs, and be incredibly protective over them, they just don’t realize that’s what they’re doing.”

“Oh, that’s really cool,” I reply. “Alright, let me see if I can hide these wings. Ed’s going to come back in a minute and wonder what the hell we’re still doing here.”

The guys all chuckle, but thankfully, they know me well enough to know that if any of them start a conversation with me now, I’m likely to get distracted again and then this will take even longer than it already has.

Doing as Griff instructed, I take a deep breath, closing my eyes because otherwise I am likely to get distracted, and also because then I can pretend that the guys aren’t all watching me curiously.

Finding that newly grown place of magic, I focus on using it to make my wings disappear. I can feel the magic wash over me, and a weird sensation on my back where my wings connect. It’s not painful, but it’s definitely going to take some time to get used to. I don’t like the feeling at all.

“Huh, it would appear that you shift,” River explains when I open my eyes again.

I glance over my shoulder to see that my wings have gone and feel momentarily sad that’s the case.

“Wait. I shift?” I ask, as my brain catches up with what River said.

River nods, “Yeah, you didn’t use magic to cloak them or anything like that, you shifted.”

“Huh, I don’t know what I was expecting, but I wasn’t expecting angel wings to work like that,” Ransom says.

“Me neither,” Raiden agrees.

“Is that why it felt weird when they went?” I ask.

River nods, “Yeah, shifting can feel a bit strange at first.”

“I didn’t mind it, but it was definitely weird,” I reply.

“You’ll get used to it the more you do it, and then you won’t notice,” Raiden adds. “Your wings appear to work along the same wavelength as the reaper's wings do. Which should hopefully mean that I should be able to help you.”

“Awesome,” I reply. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

“I second that,” Doc agrees.

We all head out of the door. Remaining together, the guys all ensure that both Coen and I are in the middle of them as we all present a united front, as we walk back through the castle grounds.

Ed said that the Draconian team, or what was left of them anyway, was taken back a way that means it stayed hidden from the cameras, which means no one will have known that I’m on the guy’s team.