Page 67 of Shadow Caster
Devon tapped the monitor, which depicted my stats. “You nailed it every time. Aidan manipulated the results.” He exhaled through his nose. “He hates training newbies.”
“What? Wanker!“
Devon smiled. “He can be.”
“And you? You don’t mind training newbies?”
He levelled a look at me that was hard to read. “I think of it as a mini vacation.”
There was darkness in his hazel eyes now, swirling around like a mini vortex. He blinked, and it was gone. My imagination?
“Go get fueled up,” he said. “You head out into the mist in half an hour.”
* * *
The kitchen was sandwich central.Aidan was already stuffing his face with what looked like a triple decker ham, cheese, and sausage concoction, while Carlo sawed at a huge loaf of bread and Thomas slathered it with butter. Lettuce and tomato and various meats were piled on the counter.
I glanced over Thomas’s shoulder. “Since when do you care about sandwiches?”
“Since my allocated mentor told me I did,” Thomas said with a smile.
Carlo raised the bread knife in the air and twirled it. “I do have a particular skill when it comes to sandwich concoction.”
“You’re a nightblood. We don’t eat for pleasure.”
“Speak for yourself,” he snorted. “Life is nothing without a variety of flavor. Plus, I like figuring out what’ll make other people gommmm.” He fixed his gaze on me. “If you know what I mean?”
“Are you going to be the innuendo guy of the group?”
“Well, I’m certainly not Mr. Strong and Silent Type.”
Brady walked into the room with his signature fuck-off face on.
“Oh, there he is,” Carlo said cheerfully. “Mr. I’ll Crush Your Skull for Breakfast.”
“Fuck off.” Brady slumped down in the two-seater sofa by the window. “Dead out there. Nice.”
“Right?” Carlo sighed happily. “I fucking love sector one.”
Harmon strode in, covered head to foot in some kind of green goo. He stood in the doorway and glared at Brady.
“Apart from the dying critter we came across,” Brady said.
Wait, was that a hint of a smirk on the monolith’s face?
Everyone stopped what they were doing to stare at the moonkissed.
“You call that little?” Harmon was fuming. “You call that dying?”
Brady’s expression hardened; he was out of his seat and in Harmon’s face in an instant. “Little. Dying. Yes.”
To give him credit, Harmon barely flinched. He met the larger male’s gaze head-on, and then the anger left his features, and his gaze fell to Brady’s neck.
I noted the exact moment when the rage left him. His shoulders relaxed, and he nodded. “Okay. Thanks for clarifying that. I should go shower.” He turned on his heel and vanished down the corridor to the shower room, no doubt.
Brady turned his back on Harmon and resumed his seat. “Beef and mustard,” he growled.
“On it.” Carlo set to work.
