Page 95 of The Hunger
“Her presence would only interfere.”
“Make up your mind,” Mom snapped. “Is it destiny that determines the mate or coincidence? Because if Fenris is predestined to meet his mate this Saturday, it will happen whether Eliana is there or not. However, if Eliana is his mate, no one there will interest him in the slightest.”
I could feel Raiden’s annoyance.
“Or we might not have invited the right one.”
“Then invite them all,” Fenris said. “After this Saturday, I’m done. And if you command my compliance again, start looking for a new future leader because I will leave the pack.”
Raiden went still and slowly turned his head to look at his son.
“You don’t mean that.”
“I do. Banshees are singing, the earth is quaking, and a god is awake. Yet, one of the Council members is more worried about his son’s sex life than the safety of everyone, everywhere, even though I haven’t once shown any signs of being a threat to humans. Your obsession isn’t about protecting me, it’s about control, and that’s not a mantle I want to pick up.”
The tense silence in the room grew until finally, Raiden looked at me.
“Be there before dark. We’ll start the hunt at dusk.” He stood and turned toward Fenris. “You have three minutes to say goodbye.”
Fenris squeezed my hand as his father left the house.
“Will you be at the Academy tomorrow?” he asked.
“Considering how hungry I got today, I don’t think I have a choice in the matter.”
He stood and led me to the door before pulling me into his arms.
“Will you feed again? Please?”
I pulled in as much as I could in the time we had. When I finished, I eased back from the hug and looked up at him. The urge to rise onto my toes and brush my lips to his clawed at me. But we weren’t alone. So, I gave him a small smile and whispered goodbye.
“Only until tomorrow,” he said, darting in to lick my nose.
And then he was gone.
“Well, that was interesting,” Dad said, breaking the silence as I closed the door. “It’s fortunate that Fenris turned out to be a level-headed young man.”
I smiled at Dad’s polite way of saying that he’d found Raiden unpleasant. Talk turned to more peaceful things, and I stayed until Dad finished eating then helped him clean up. When I left, I had two helpings of his chocolate ganache with me and an open invitation to come by again the next day.
Before backing out of the driveway, I called Megan and put her on speaker.
“How’s Kraken hunting going?” I asked.
“Since I’m not the one in the water? So slow and boring. We’re in Guam now, arranging for a fishing boat for tomorrow. The mermaids know where he is and will take us out there.”
“She’s not going in the water,” Oanen said in the background.
Megan made an impatient sound. “I’m stuck in the boat while the mermaids play translator. They can swim fast, but do you know how deep they have to go? And they can’t just swim straight to the surface. There’s going to be a game of mermaid telephone going on so their fishy lungs don’t explode. Some of them are already swimming out there now to get into place.”
“That sounds unpleasant,” I said.
“Waiting is always unpleasant. It’s better for everyone when I’m active.”
“I meant the lung explosions.”
She snorted. “How’s everything back home?”
I wrinkled my nose as I drove, not looking forward to Megan’s reaction.
