Page 156 of Brambles and Bellflowers
He’d had this expression before—a time when I’d kidnapped Miles to rescue the ghost of James Cole from Damen’s intrusive betrayal of an exorcism. Back then, I’d thought he was just being dramatic, that his mood had nothing to do with me.
But now…
My stomach twisted.
“Um…” I stepped away and touched my fingertips to my chin. “Did I do something?” Was it because of the sword? He’d seemed jealous, but I’d already dropped it, and the thing had vanished into who-knew-where.
Damen frowned, his gaze tracking my retreat. “No.”
“I mean—” I began but started as Damen closed the distance between us and placed his hand on my head, and my racing heartbeat settled as he peered down at me.
“Don’t worry about it,” he told me. “You did good. Now you get to tell everyone how you got to kill a dragon.”
Titus glared at him. “It wasn’t a dragon.”
“Really?” I ignored Titus—I’d made the creature, after all, I knew exactly what it was—and blinked at Damen. It was strange how his words made me happy, but inside, I was beaming.
Did this mean that they still liked having me around?
“Or maybe not,” Damen mused, and at my fallen expression, he added, “Tell the others about you fighting, I mean. You did do a good job, but Bryce will have a conniption.”
“Oh,” I replied, as my shattered self-esteem recovered. Didn’t we want to make Bryce’s life miserable? “Why?”
“It’s a long story,” Damen sighed. “Let’s just say he’ll bereally annoying.”
Even more than now? Was that possible?
I nodded. “I’m good at keeping secrets.”
Damen scowled.
Before I could ask why, Titus moved to the small gathering of supplies and pulled out a phone. His features were hard to read, but his complaints weren’t. “If that’s Bryce—”
“They found us,” Damen interrupted. He was looking at the sky, and before I could look, I also heard the low, distant whirring as it moved closer. A shadow passed over us, and when I tilted my head up, the sleek, black shape of a helicopter appeared overhead.
“Well—” Titus crossed his arms. “Guess they finally found us.”
“Too bad.” Damen sighed. “I was hoping for some more downtime. We didn’t even get to the good part of this vacation.”
“It wasn’t supposed to be a vacation!” Julian snapped.
“We did get to fight a monster, though,” Damen added, finger to his chin. “I guess that’s a plus.”
“What monster?” Bryce was suddenly there, looming behind Damen, and if I wasn’t mistaken, the onmoyji’s lips twitched before his expression turned to nonchalance.
“Nothing to worry about,” he said, brushing off his sleeve.
“You don’t get to do that!” Bryce grabbed Damen by the collar. “Tell me about the monster!”
I blinked at him—just how…
Wasn’t he just up in the sky?
“Bianca!”
I jumped as Brayden appeared at my side. His expression was open with panic as he grabbed my hands and turned me toface him. “Are you okay?” he asked as his shaking touch moved tentatively to my elbows. “Do I need to kill them?”
“Um…” I tilted my head. “I’m okay.” I glanced at the helicopter. There was no ladder, so they hadn’t climbed down. “You were looking for me?”
