Page 71 of Taken
“Oh my God! I am so happy to meet you! Another Jersey girl? Isn’t that awesome?” she squeals, squeezing Phoebe like she was reclaiming kin across worlds.
Phoebe goes wide-eyed, surprised into smiling, but I see the tremble at the edges.
I watch her being pulled into a second hug, and I see it.
It’s a flicker, but it’s real. Something other than joy passes over her face—an instant of confusion, maybe a ghost of hurt, or the sudden calculative pause of someone measuring a new place and finding its rules.
The line between her brow tightens for a breath.
My chest drops.
It’s nothing—probably nothing—but it clangs in me like an ill-fitted bell.
The festival noise swells around us.
Alaric’s indulgent laugh cuts through it.
And in the background, the whales leap through the air, shaking seawater like confetti at the people watching in awe.
“Everything all right?” I ask aloud, because I must. It’s a bone deep need now to see to her comfort.
Phoebe forces a smile and nods at where Jules is grinning and speaking to Alaric animatedly.
“Yeah, I’m okay. It’s just a lot.”
I don’t buy the word.
Not fully.
My worry folds into something fiercer, a protective current that answers Dagan’s old warning about claws in soft things.
Maybe he is right. Maybe softness has teeth.
Either way, the night is young and loud and full of promises I haven’t earned yet.
I wrap my hand over Phoebe’s—light, possessive—and let my thumb rest on the pulse at her wrist.
If there are snares ahead, I’ll tear through them.
If there are storms, I’ll weather them.
Tonight, though, I let the banter and food and music,Jules’s squeals, Alaric’s growls, and Dagan’s rumbles, mask the worry that hums under my skin.
For now, we belong to the Tidal Lands, to the sea—and to each other, whether the world counts it true or not.
Chapter 18
Phoebe
Second Shore—TheTidal Lands, Nightfall
I can’t believe my eyes.
Kael talked about brothers—offhand, like he was remarking about the weather—but I never pictured literal, living, breathing men who could make a place rearrange itself just by walking in.
Dagan, Lord of Earth I’m told, is solid, all soil and blunt lines.
Alaric, Lord of Air, has eyes for his mate only. But he seems full of mischief and somehow his Dragon’s eyes appear older and younger at the same time.
