Page 3 of Blood and Magic
I didn’t honestly expect Guin to disagree. In the six months since Sol met Orion, Guin had gotten close with the Royal Bastards, too. She had an “understanding” with their president, Kodiak…whatever that meant. Neither she nor Sol had been particularly forthcoming about how we’d gone from hating the Bastards to welcoming them into the family within a matter of weeks.
All they would say was they didn’t believe the Bastards had killed our mother, and we needed them to survive. They had gotten us through the winter, and without their help, our company would have tanked when the ranch hands walked. No one had heard from Percy or the Bloody Scorpions in months. The RBMC had stepped up, but that didn’t mean I had to like it. And now Sol was marrying one of them?
“Sol is as hardheaded as the rest of us,” Guin explained. “There’s no telling any Vanderbilt what they can or can’t do. If she wants to marry Mr. Tall, Dark, and Grumpy from the wrong side of the Missouri River, who are we to stop her?”
“Hey!” Sol brushed wisps of her ginger hair from her face before rubbing in moisturizer. “He’s not as grumpy as he used to be. And in two days, he’ll be your brother-in-law.”
“Not by choice,” Guin said quickly.
“Who would have thought our baby sister would be the first to walk down the aisle?” Ava shook her head and laughed.
“I hope you didn’t think it would be me,” Guin said. “I’d rather chew off my own foot.”
“Romantic,” Ava added. “No, I just thought…well…maybe me or Mae would have gone first.” My twin met my gaze. “Do you still talk to Zachary?”
I winced at the thought of my former friend with benefits and shook my head, softening a dark shadow around my sketch of Sol with my finger. I’d have graphite smudges on my hands for days, but that was par for the course. “No. Very much no.”
“Pity,” she said. “I thought he liked you.”
“Well, he ended up marrying a Kennedy, so I doubt he thinks of me at all anymore.”
“Okay, back on task,” Sol said, grabbing her phone. “We’ll be gone from June into July.” She went through all of the ranch activities that would need to be done in those weeks. Since the Vanderbilts had made a tentative truce with the Bastards, they’d agreed to help us maintain what our father had built. Orion had taken on the lead rancher role until things were more stable.
Surprising everyone, she had become his right hand. She managed the horses and drew up plans for the cattle, even while maintaining her corporate position on the board.
“Mae, you’re still okay with stepping in, right?”
I nodded, reminding myself I could do hard things. I’d grown up on this ranch, after all. Just because I’d gotten a business degree and spent most of my time in an office didn’t mean I couldn’t return to my roots. Despite having a special connection to my favorite horse, Molly, I’d never really worked the ranch. Father had always hired help for that. But I could shout out orders well enough, and I’d been cleared from my day job to work remotely for the duration.
“I’ll be in Europe for that international trade alliance conference,” Ava said. “And then I’m doing a networking tour. I’ll be gone until August.”
My heart ached at the thought of being separated from my twin for so long. Of course, we’d spent time apart before, and we did our best to distinguish ourselves at boarding school and college. But no one knew me the way Ava did, and the notion of two long months away from her formed a pit in my gut nearly the size of Jupiter.
“I’ll be in Bozeman for most of it,” Guin added. “If you need help, call me. I’m only an hour away.”
“I’ll be fine,” I said. “The Bastards are sending someone to replace Orion, right?”
Sol nodded. “That’s the agreement.”
“I’m sure whoever that is will know what they’re doing,” I said. “Besides, we’re not losing our ranch hands this time. They’ve got a well-oiled machine going out there. I’m here more as a supervisor anyway. A face to put on the family name.”
“How are you feeling these days?” Sol asked, her eyes full of genuine concern. Since my near-death experience six months ago, I hadn’t had so much as a fainting spell. But something still wasn’t right. That hollowness had taken hold deep in my soul, my body yearning for something tangible. I just didn’t know what it was.
I’d tried a variety of activities to fill it: skydiving, base jumping, heli-skiing. Aside from a massive adrenaline rush and a few new hobbies, it didn’t bring me what I was after. My sisters had called it reckless, but I didn’t want to squander my new lease on life.
“Okay,” I said, trying to keep a poker face.
Sol glanced at Guin, a quick exchange between them that made me curious.
“No headaches or body chills?” Guin said, securing another pin.
“Why do you ask?” Now that they mentioned it, I’d had a twinge between the eyes for the last few days, but I chalked it up to allergies and the stress of a job that didn’t truly satisfy.
“Just trying to make sure you’re not about to drop dead on us again,” Guin said.
“Well, the last time that happened, I had no warning whatsoever.” I accentuated a curl on Sol’s shoulders and tilted my head to the side, admiring my work. Her nose wasn’t quite right, so I took an eraser to the lines on her face and started over.
Again, Sol looked at Guin, who raised her eyebrows once as if to say, “Who knows?”
