Page 4 of Wings and Shadowthief

“She told Dad I was dating a girl. He spent the whole night giving me the whole ‘you can talk to me’ speech.”

Jack chuckled. Pam was as straight as they came, while Tris had never met a living, breathing thing she didn’t want to fuck. She’d literally said she was curious about how rough demon tentacles could be.

“Adrian doesn’t care what you fuck.”

“But I don’t want to talk about my sex life with my father, dammit.”

That, he could understand. Jack remembered the last time he’d introduced girls to his parents, in London, last year.

His father had stayed out of it, but Becca Hunter had zeroed in on the three new girls—Blair, Gwen, and Chloe. She’d told them she wanted grandbabies. He still had nightmares about it.

Jack was twenty-eight, dammit. He shouldn’t be hearing the word baby before he hit thirty. Preferably never. Jack couldn’t even deal with his own mind and body. He didn’t relish the thought of passing his genes down to helpless creatures.

“Why don’t you turn the tables?” he suggested. “Pam throws you under the bus because you don’t play her game. Ask about the Stormhale guy. You know she had a thing for him.”

In truth, Pam had a thing forpower, and Seth Stormhale had that in spades. Jack had never quite understood how much power, until he met the man.

Like Jack, Seth’s father was an Enlightened; that made them demi-gods, in layman’s terms. Unlike him, Seth knew how to control his abilities. And as well as wielding the power of thunder at his fingertips, Seth was also a born vampire from one of the royal lines.

From what Jack had gathered, after fishing for information on the man, Seth was entirely uninterested in Pamela. Hardly surprising. Jack suspected the only person Seth could be in love with was Seth. He doted on his sisters, but the rest of the universe didn’t matter to him.

Tris snorted on the other end of the phone. “Ah! Can’t wait to see her face. This is why I adore you!”

“Love you, too.” She’d hung up before he was done talking, no doubt too excited to go harass her sister.

Grinning as he pocketed his phone, Jack lifted his gaze to see if he spotted any of his men approaching.

Instead, his eyes fell onher.

The Shape of Fury

She took a deep, calming breath, inhaling and holding it in for a moment before releasing it, just like Greer had taught her in their yoga sessions.

Nope, that wasn’t working. She still wanted to rip Jack’s balls off.

He studied her carefully, like he might have looked at a feral cat poised to pounce. “Gwen.”

Without a sign of acknowledgment, she walked past him, head held high.

“Too bad you didn’t show up a minute ago. I was on the phone with Tris.”

So that was who he’d talked to, his cousin. Not that Gwen cared. He could profess his undying devotion to just about anyone. Jack wasno oneto her.

Her heartbeat slowed down a tad, though, and her fury receded. A little.

“She would have liked to hear from you.”

Now, she turned back to him, eyes narrowed. She didn’t like the accusation. Gwen wasn’t one to ignore her friends. “I talk to her all the time, but thanks.”

Tris was perhaps Gwen's closest friend in Oldcrest. They both stood slightly apart from their respective peers. Gwen got along with Chloe and the rest, but she was a witch, not a vampire. Among witches, she didn’t quite fit in because her magic was so volatile. She rarely joined their recreational spells, afraid to cause damage when she was unsupervised.

Tris was respected and loved by her fellow huntsmen, but she was a born fledgling, fated to become a vampire, and therefore not quite a huntsman.

They'd spent countless nights in each other's rooms, with a bottle of tequila, bitching about classes, boys, and magic. And commiserating about being different.

Annoyed with herself for falling for the obvious trap and speaking to the asshole, Gwen kept walking toward the dorms.

“Wait, I meant to talk to you.”

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