Page 29 of Friend
‘It’s fabulous.’ The dark weight of Kiania’s presence stirred in the back of my mind, and I could almost feel her annoyance. ‘Being forced to watch two lovesick teenagers was exactly how I wanted to spend my day. It’s even worse than I could have imagined—they can scarcely keep their hands and eyes off each other.’
Shut up.
Of course, that wasn’t true, but it didn’t take much for my chest to constrict painfully.
I didn’t want Bianca to be alone with him, and it wasn’t just because he was a scumbag.
‘You do know—' Kiania began, distracting me from my mission—and always at the worst times. ‘—that Mu has married an Er Bashou in the past. A necromancer, I believe, or was it fae? I don’t recall.’
She was doing it on purpose now. My heart pounded, and I clenched my fists.
I knew that—everyone did. Mu was known for being free with his affection. He was someone who fell—and stayed—in love and tried to see the best in everyone. He had a family, and his relationship with his quintet and them had always been his priority.
Trust and family had beeneverything. Which was why, after the dark time in history when the Xing were forced to kill off their direct descendants, he’d been the most devastated.
Since then, they’d given up establishing a family tree of their own.
So, no, there was no way—even if there was no other obstacle in our path—that Bianca would want a relationship with me. Besides that, she’d hate me after she learned how badly I’d manipulated her.
‘You could always just tell her the truth,’ Kiania offered for the ten thousandth time. ‘I still say you are underestimating her. She can handle truths. She’s not that fragile.’
I couldn’t. She couldn’t.
And it wasn’t my decision anyway.
Besides, what good would come from it? I’d need help, and who could I go to? I couldn’t tell Damen. I was already in too deep, and Julian was just looking for a chance to come at me since last year’s incident.
I stalked through the parking lot, shielding my eyes from the too-bright sun.
Who cared? I could only focus on this moment. Hopefully Cory wouldn’t do anything too stupid. I would hate to have to set Kiania loose on him. He might die, which would be harder to cover up.
Besides, how could I explain his demise to Bianca? She was invested, she’d never give up if he just disappeared in the middle of their date.
Knowing her, she’d try to solvethatmystery too. Then where would that leave me?
I grumbled under my breath, finally spotting the classic red mustang. Cory had parked at the complete end of the lot, obviously trying to keep his precious vehicle separated from the rest of the peons.
I pulled out my pins, taking note of the pretentious dark privacy screens across his windows. I was certain that level of shade was bordering on illegal, but who was going to stop him?
No one around here, at least. Wolves were everywhere.
I picked the driver’s side lock, and as I began to root through the sparse interior, I realized that Cory’s car was as unremarkable as the rest of him. While the exterior was large and flashy, the interior was entirely empty—much like his brain. Of course, it was practically spotless outside of a suspicious-looking stain on the corner of the driver’s seat, but considering Cory’s reputation, I was pretty sure I knew what that was.
Which meant he missed when last cleaning, or it was more recent, and he’d gotten laidwhile on his way to a date with Bianca.
Disgusting. He was even worse than I thought.
I closed the door, not wanting to get involved with anything nearthat, and moved to the passenger’s side. I doubted that anything incriminating would be found in the car in general—and certainly not in the glove compartment, as that was the most obvious place to look. However, there really was no other place to look.
Otherwise, this whole mission was a bust.
The compartment wasn’t even locked, and I slipped into the seat to explore what was sure to be more evidence of his extremely boring life—or maybe even a pack of condoms—when a large orange bottle literally fell into my lap.
My breath caught at his stupidity.
He wasn’t even trying to be discreet! Written over the white cap in childish sharpie penmanship was the word: steroids.
“Oh, comeon,” I groaned, holding the bottle up between two fingers, and wrinkled my nose. But seriously, how dumb. Could this have been done as a distraction? He was the sort who liked to impress others. Maybe he justpretendedto carry around a large, obvious bottle of performance-enhancing drugs.
