Stay
“You plan to help her leave without Gareth knowing?”
“We’ve done it before,” Maddock said flatly.
I felt a pang in my chest. Would this start their exile again? “Are you sure you want to do this?”
The twins looked at each other. “Yes,” they answered in unison.
“As I said, Gareth means well, but he’s underestimating Tiffany’s power. She’s not working with witches and Ursus alone. Who knows who she’ll bring with her?”
“So what’s the plan?” Hailey shifted her weight. “What, where, when, how?”
“You seem way too excited about this.” Eric nudged her with his shoulder.
“Just go along with it until I give you the signal, we need to get things ready.” Maddock explained.
Daria shook her head. “No. I’m giving the signal.”
“Why? This was my plan.”
She scowled at her brother. “Fine, but don’t screw this up.”
There was something enjoyable and comical about watching the twins. I still couldn’t believe their real age.
“What should we do while we wait?” I asked. I wasn’t very good at just standing around.
“I’m sure you can think of something.” Daria winked.
“But be ready when we come for you.” Maddock didn’t wink, but if I wasn’t imagining things, I did see a little smile.
I nodded. “We will be.”
“Eric, let’s go check on the preparations,” Hailey said quietly.
“Why just us?”
She nudged him.
“Oh. Got it.” Understanding crossed his face. “See you guys later.”
They hurried off, leaving us alone again.
“You look so much better.” Toby took my hand. It felt so good to be alone with him. We’d had so little of that time lately.
“Glad to know I looked really bad before.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I do, I just like giving you a hard time.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“Take it as a sign of my undying love.” Teasing Toby made it so much easier to escape into a fantasy world where things were easy. Where we could just be us.
“Okay, then take this as a sign of mine.” He picked me up and slung me over his shoulder.
“Where are we going?” I asked through a fit of giggles. Toby always managed to make me laugh.
“You’ll just have to wait to find out.” He continued down the hill.
“Aren’t you going to put me down?”
“Not yet.”
Finally we reached the bottom of the steep hill near the shore of the lake, and Toby set me down.
“Wow, that’s beautiful.” I looked out at the lake. The reflection of the moon off the water created a glow that was half eerie and half romantic.
“It is, isn’t it? I guess that’s why your mom suggested we check it out.”
“You think they’ll find us down here?”
“Yeah.” He sat down on the slightly damp grass and pulled me down with him. “I don’t think we’ll really get alone time for a while.”
“As great as alone time sounds, I really meant—”
“Whether they can find us when they’re ready. I know.”
“You see those fireflies?” I gestured to the tiny glowing orbs not too far from us.
“I see them.” He took my hand.
“When we were little, Vera told me they were really tiny fairies, and that if you saw them they brought good luck.”
He smiled. “That’s pretty sweet.”
“I pretended to believe her until I was ten.” I laughed. “I just loved the elaborate stories she told me about them.”
He pulled me into his arms. “It’s like little kids pretending they believe in Santa years after they’ve discovered the truth.”
“Yes, except I wasn’t worried about the presents, I just didn’t want to lose the attention she gave me.”
“You’ll get to see her again.”
I brushed my lips against his. “I know.”
“You can’t just tease me like that.” He moved his hand behind my neck. “It’s cruel.”
I smiled. “Ok, I’ll make it better.” I pressed my lips against his again, moving them slowly. He responded immediately, taking control. He moved into my mouth with lightning speed, taking each of my moans as encouragement to deepen the kiss. He tasted so good. I couldn’t get enough.
The sound of throat clearing and laughter brought me out of my Toby haze.
I looked up guiltily. “Hey guys.”
Hailey laughed. “It’s time. Maddock just came and told us, I guess we weren’t cool enough for his signal.”
“You’d think you guys were teenagers,” Eric grumbled.
“I am a teenager, just a legal one.” The amount of craziness in my life was way more than that of a typical nineteen year-old though.
Toby stood up and took my hand to pull me to standing. “And we will continue that later.”
“I’m holding you to that.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Vera
“Is that Levi’s?” Jared yanked on my hand so he could get a better look at the suitcase I held.
“I think so.” I assumed it was. I had no idea what I was doing. I was good at pretending though. As long as I had some tiny direction to go off, I was usually pretty good at winging things. I hoped that luck continued this time. I didn’t want to see how angry Jared and Owen were going to get if my plan didn’t work. Not to mention I did want to find the king and queen. From what I understood they’d been good to Casey, and that meant they were automatically on my good side. “I found it in the ruins. It must be one of the indestructible kinds.”
Jared nodded. “Must be.” He started turning the numbers on the lock. “Do you know the code, Owen?”
“Me?” Owen put a hand to his chest. “Why would he tell me and not you?”
“You are his chief advisor. You like to make everyone think he tells you everything.”
“Yeah, well, you’re his head of security. Shouldn’t you know it?”
“There’s got to be an easier way in.” Jared started pulling and punching the suitcase.
“Give it to me.” I pulled it away from him. I looked between the two of them and shook my head. “What was the date of their wedding? The 28th?”
“Yes, but what does that matter?” Jared asked impatiently.