Page 4 of Destined Dawn
“You’re such a brat.”
“Stone?”
“Fuck, yes, I’ll do it,” he says, shaking his head at me. “But this is the last time, okay? The last time I agree to one of your stupid plans.”
“It’s not stupid. I know my aunt. I know she’d leave me something and I’ve looked everywhere else.”
This time, he nods. “I actually agree with you. I think she has too. But it might not be the answer to the question you have. How could she have known you’d end up bonded to five fated mates?”
“Four,” I correct him.
“I’ve seen the way he looks at you,” Stone mutters. “It’s only a matter of time.”
“My mom was a seer, Stone. Maybe she saw all this. Maybe my aunt knew what was going to happen. Maybe she knew what was in store for us.”
Stone scrubs his fingers through his beard, then tugs me a little closer. “I’m not sure I want to see the future.”
“Phoenix Stone,” I say with a smile hovering on my lips, “are you afraid?”
Stone always seems so damn sure of himself. It’s hard to believe he could be afraid of anything at all.
“Yes, I’m afraid,” he says deadly seriously. “Very afraid of losing you. I’ve – we’ve – already come close to that happening far too many times.”
I can’t deny that, and that fear resides inside me too. I’m not afraid to die. I suspect I’ve spent my entire life skirting close to death. When it’s there, hovering at your shoulder the entire time, you get used to it. It doesn’t seemso scary. But the thought of losing Stone … of losing any of them …
“So don’t you see?” I tell him. “Understanding the past, maybe gaining a glimpse of the future, could help us. It could help keep all of us safe.”
He sighs. I know I haven’t convinced him. I also know he’s familiar with me enough now to understand how stubborn I am. I’m not backing down on this.
“Okay,” he says, “breakfast first and then we’ll do it.”
“Do it? He really can’t keep his hands off you, can he, little rabbit?” Renzo says, striding into the kitchen with the others behind him.
“He was talking about the memories,” I mutter.
Stone raises an eyebrow at me as if to challenge that assumption.
I pinch his arm and then busy myself boiling eggs that Azlan managed to pick up on his journey back to the mansion yesterday.
Breakfast turns out to be a lot less awkward than I expected.
Azlan and Tristan talk quietly with one another at one end of the table while Renzo tries to strike up a conversation with Stone; although the topic he chooses – the best way to snap a man’s neck – definitely isn’t to Stone’s taste. It leaves me and Spencer together at the other end of the table (Winnie and Trent yet to reappear).
“This is really fucking weird,” Spencer says, scooping out the contents of his fourth egg. It seems he barely ate while imprisoned and I wasn’t blind to the tears in the corner of his eyes when I placed the first egg down in front of him, with a warning to them all that this isn’t some Snow White and the Seven Dwarves situation and I won’t be cooking and cleaning for them.
Spencer stuffs the egg into his mouth and chews.
“What’s weird?” I ask, cradling a warm cup of coffee in both my hands.
“This,” he says, gesturing to us all with his spoon. “I never expected to be in some grand, decrepit house in the middle of nowhere with Tris, the man in black, Professor Stone, an assassin and you. It’s pretty surreal.”
“I guess so.” I sip my drink. “You miss your dueling buddies? You miss all those cheerleaders?”
He places his spoon down on the table and swallows. “No, no, I don’t.”
I roll my eyes. Spencer lived for all that adulation, so did Tristan.
“What?” he says. “It’s true. They’ve shown their true colors – their prejudice and bigotry – and I don’t miss them one bit.”
