Page 224

“Look, we can put this off or pause it. I shoulda told Mum to back the hell off,” Aidan said, pacing the bathroom floor.

“Is Mummy OK?” Kade said, his voice starting to waver.

“Mum’s fine. It’s a bit like you last night. You didn’t cry because you were sad, did you?” Peter asked. Kade solemnly shook his head. “Sometimes, when we get really happy, we cry. That’s what’s happened.”

“OK,” he said. “Kiralee’s outside. Can I go and play?”

“Just stick inside the gate, mind the big kids, and you should be fine.”

“Gimme a moment to clean up. Go outside and do damage control, please,” I told the guys.

“You’re sure?”

I nodded, moving over to the bathroom taps and turning them on. I splashed water on my face, trying to remove all of the evidence of my outburst.

“It’ll be alright, love. You’ll see,” Peter said, and then they both left.

Goddamnit, Flick , I thought, looking at the mirror and seeing my red rimmed eyes. If you were trying to convince people you were less of a freak…

I never understand this. Monkey brains are reactive and excitable, yet you concoct ways to be shamed by your own natures? Your kind is truly strange.

Do Tirians have no rules about what you do and don’t do?

Of course.

And how would you feel if you unwittingly did that thing?

There was a short pause. Oh.

I dried my face and then brushed my hair back into a neat ponytail. Time to face the music.

“Flick?”

I jumped when I heard a strange voice come from the kitchen. I walked stiff legged up to the doorway, worried about what I might see.

“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 your pack.

” 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 consider 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 be happy as Larry to 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…

What 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.

“Well, yes.”

I scanned the mass of men, seeing hard body after hard body.

It was both hot and intimidating. While I knew I was so much stronger, there were so many of them looking at me with a mix of interest and fear.

Eyes ran over my body, somehow taking in my mum jeans and plaid shirt like it was couture that they would very much like to peel from my body.

But it came with a curiously shuttered expression, as if each and every one of them waited for me to slam my door in their faces.

God, this is like some horrific paranormal version of The Bachelorette, I thought. Sen was the only one I recognised in the group, but it must have been hard, putting yourself out there in this public display, crowd members yelling out words of encouragement or jokes at their expense.

“Can we take this inside the house, away from the crowd?” I asked Ophelia.

She seemed surprised by that, but she finally nodded.

“You would like to keep the rest of the party away from this?”

“Yeah, if we can. I don’t… It’d be better not to have the kids around, and I don’t think this needs to be a spectator sport.”

“I agree. Go inside with your mates. I’ll explain to everyone else.”