My breaths came unevenly at the idea of losing Sofia, and even fucking Tyler. He may have been an asshole, but the thought of him dying in my father’s fire made terror pull at my heart. Now my herd was here, I had to protect them. And I’d make sure my psychotic flesh and blood never got near them again.
I paced up and down inside the dining hall of The Burrows, looking between the large clock on the wall and the tunnel which led up to the farmhouse as I waited for Darius and Xavier to appear. I didn’t even know how long it would take them to fly here from the academy or how far away it was, but I also didn’t know how much stardust they’d had with them and whether it was enough to transport the entire herd, so I had no idea how long I might be waiting and Gabriel just kept telling me to be patient. But fuck patient.
“He’ll be okay,” Darcy reassured me, coming to stand at my side and taking my hand to squeeze it. The rest of the rebels had been sent back to their rooms while investigations were being carried out over the latest murder, but I’d refused to be confined to my room so I was waiting here instead – though I would have chosen to be outside if I’d gotten any real say in it.
I glanced at Gabriel, wondering if he might have seen anything else to make that guess a little more certain.
“So long as Darius doesn’t lose his head to rage, he should arrive back safely. But it’s hard for me to see too much of what has been happening – probably because the shadows are somehow involved. There are futures open to us which show him returning, so there’s a good chance,” he said cryptically, barely reassuring me at all, because since when had Darius Acrux ever been any good at not losing his head?
“I can’t bear it if anything happens to him,” I muttered, allowing myself that single moment of love-struck weakness as I bit down on my bottom lip and tried to remind myself of just how fucking strong that man was.
“Darius may be a lot of things, but he would literally move heaven and earth to be with you,” Gabriel said. “I’m sure he's doing everything within his power to return to you quickly.”
I clucked my tongue, knowing that was the truth while still unable to shift the sense of unease from my gut.
“I feel like everything we’re doing here is taking too long,” I said. “We fought to get free of Lionel, stole a hand from him, managed to gain the Imperial Star and kept it from him and yet here we are, sitting around in some cave network, taking magic lessons in between helping make more caves to house a thousand refugees instead of just finishing this.”
“It’s not the time,” Gabriel said, the sigh in his voice letting me know that it was infuriating him too but also confirming that nothing had changed.
“I just want him dead at my feet,” I snarled. “Is that too much to ask? For my boyfriend’s father to just bleed out painfully at my goddamn feet?”
“Wow, you get really bloodthirsty when you’re worried,” Darcy teased.
“I’m not worried,” I replied, “I’m fucking angry, I’m gonna beat his scaly ass when he gets back here for running off without me like that.”
Gabriel chuckled like he wasn’t opposed to the idea of that at all and I grinned at him.
“Here,” Seth’s voice came from behind me and I turned to find him standing there, holding out a cupcake with a large letter B iced on top of it. “You look like a girl who needs some comfort food.”
“In the form of a cupcake with a random letter B on it?” I questioned, arching an eyebrow at him.
“Yeah. No doubt you’ll need to keep your energy up for all the angry sex you and Darius will be having later on.”
“Keep the sexual references about my sisters to times when I’m not within earshot, yeah?” Gabriel suggested with a grimace. “It’s bad enough that the stars show me flashes of that shit without me having to listen to conversations about it too.”
Seth had a devilish look on his face like he’d just been challenged and I rolled my eyes at him, half looking forward to watching Gabriel use The Sight to beat him in the little game I could see brewing in his beady eyes.
“Where did you even get that from?” Darcy asked, pointing at the cake.
“It was just sitting there for anyone to take in the kitchens!” Seth replied with a grin.
“So why the B?” I asked, still not reaching for the cake which he continued to hold out to me.
“I didn’t know you’d be so fussy about the letter I chose. You could have had your pick really. Maybe I should have given you the T.”