Page 15 of Compass Points
“I’m….” He blinked slowly. “Intrigued.” He shook his head as he eyed her pack. “Do you need anything else?”
“No, I’m good.”
“Do we have Arie?” he asked as he looked around.
“No, he tends to come and go as he pleases.”
“Will he be able to find you while we’re on the road?”
“He’s never bothered to learn my schedule and seems to find me whenever he wants,” she said flippantly. “I’m not too worried about it.”
Luc’s brow furrowed. She knew little about rogue shifter spirits but wondered if Luc did. Had she inadvertently given something away?
“Interesting,” he said. “Mind if I bring this with us?” He held up the romance book.
“Knock yourself out.” She rolled her eyes at him and headed out the door.
They made their final trip back to Bury. They reached the village border and paused. The mist still hung, creating a dark layer that few would dare enter. Bury usually held so much life. Rose couldn’t help but feel its lack now as she looked in from the village edge.
She wouldn’t see Tara sneak out of the temple in the late afternoon to share food scraps with Arthur, a homeless man who sat outside the tavern. She wouldn’t see Tara check in on Mrs. Benton every few days since her wife died last winter. She wouldn’t even see the passion-filled glances that Terence Dawson, who lived down the street, still shot at his wife of sixty years as they went about their daily routine.
The mist plague had taken these things and had left behind bodies on the ground.
She couldn’t help but wonder what the point of it all was. The people were still alive, or at least she’d seen the breaths Tara still took, shallow though they may be, so what was the goal of the mist if not to kill? What was it doing?
She thought about this as she and Luc borrowed some horses that had wandered out of the village. She decided to jump right into the details as they started their journey south.
“So what’s the plan? How will we explain my presence at Compass Lake? We need a cover that will ensure I have easy access to you but one that also ensures the other Compass Points have no right to question me.”
She didn’t know what it was about her words, but they seemed to capture Luc’s full attention.
He raised his eyebrow at her.
She wanted to rip it off his face.
“What?” She sighed. “You already knew I didn’t want those at Compass Lake to know my identity, or you wouldn’t have gone to such great pains to manipulate me into going.”
“Manipulate you?” He raised his hand to his chest as if wounded. “I’m sorry, but not even I could have orchestrated an attack by the plague of mist so perfectly timed with my request to leave you no other options. I was in the right place at the right time to offer a solution that suited all parties.”
“Is that really what you tell yourself? You took advantage of a terrible situation!” She tried and failed to stop her hands from gesturing wildly at the situation around them.
“Do you not want to go?” he asked, meeting her eyes with his piercing stare.
It wasn’t that she didn’t want to go. She wanted to save Tara without going to Compass Lake, which she knew was impossible. She wanted to help the people of Bury and other villages like it. It was just that years of self-conditioning to run in the opposite direction of Compass Lake were not to be overcome in a single conversation.
She shook her head.
“I thought not,” he said, his eyes finally leaving hers. “This whole thing would go a lot faster if you told me who you were avoiding and why so we could make the necessary arrangements.”
“Oh yes, please let me share my life story with the Suden Point,” she said sarcastically. “We may have established that you didn’t manipulate me in this situation, but that doesn’t wash away the fact that you’re a Compass Point.” She tapped her finger on her chin. “I’ll pass on story time.”
“Maybe I’m just good at finding mutually beneficial solutions? Not everything has to be some despicable scheme. Maybe I can read people and find ways to get them what they want while also getting what I want.”
She shook her head again and didn’t bother responding as they rode on.
She didn’t know what to make of him. He was nothing and everything she expected. Not that she’d spent much time dreaming about the Suden Point. She preferred not to think of the Compass Points at all.
Chapter Nine
