Page 104 of Broken Veil
She took the mug of coffee prepared with milk and a little sugar, just the way she liked. She looked up at Duncan, who winked at her and blew her a kiss.
Carys’s heart eased just a little bit. She sipped the strong coffee before she spoke to Jack again. “This man just saved your life, Jack.”
Jack threw his head back and laughed.
“My mother escaped all this, you know. The magic and the scheming.” Carys stood up and brushed the grass off her pants. “And every day I’m pulled in deeper, I understand more why she wanted out.” She started walking toward the van.
Jack called to her back. “There is no out for you, daughter of two worlds!”
Carys walked to the passenger side, only to see Jibril already in the front seat where she usually sat. “You.”
The man in white nodded at the garden. “Jack will stay here and rebuild the apiary while I take you to the Builder. I believe we are simply waiting for the rest of your party to bathe before we leave.”
“There is room for more than one bathroom in that house.”
Jibril raised a single eyebrow. “I usually don’t have seven houseguests.”
She hated that he had a point. “Okay, so who is the Builder? Is he going to tell me how to defeat the Morrígan?”
Jibril slipped on a pair of dark sunglasses and raised a mug to his lips. It smelled like spiced tea. “Humans are such linear thinkers; you want things right away. Clear directions. But stories rarely work that way. I’ll take you to Blean Woods. Then the Builder will point you to the next turn that you must take, just as I did last night.”
“Last night I chased an enchanted bear into the forest while I was soaked in ammonia that still reeks—even after two showers—then I collapsed in a sleeping bag in your sitting room.” She sipped her coffee. “I’m losing patience with the mysterious directions, Jibril.”
He smiled demurely. “That may be, but you show great potential as a hero. I was impressed by your bravery and your inventiveness last night. Plus the bees approve of you.”
“The bees approve of me?”
“It’s a great compliment, to be admired by bees.” He sipped his tea. “Not the dragon though. They still don’t like the dragon.”
The driveto Blean Woods was less than four hours, but it felt longer sitting in the back of the van instead of next to Duncan.
Especially because sitting next to a silent Lachlan made her already testy mood even worse.
Laura and Cadell were talking quietly behind them, and Angus and Naida were sleeping in the far back.
Lachlan was sitting next to her like a statue, staring at the passing motorway.
“Are you ever going to talk to me again?” Carys finally asked.
Lachlan glanced at her from the corner of his eye. “I’m talking to you now.”
“You’re sulking.”
He turned to her, and a corner of his mouth turned up. “I’m sulking?”
“Yes.”
“Sulking. Like a child?”
“Sulking like a man who didn’t get what he wanted,” Carys said.
“And what do you think I want?” He leaned closer, and it was impossible to resist the wave of memories that his scent and his heat provoked. “Hmm?”
Lachlan in her bed, his arms around her.
Lachlan holding her up when she could barely function.
Lachlan swinging her around the dance floor at the pub in Baywood, laughing as he sang.
