AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I walked closer to the nearest fountain, reaching out toward the glittering water.
Alaric grabbed me. “You don’t want to do that. It’s highly intoxicating.” His fingers lingered on my wrist a few seconds too long before he let go.
“Even just touching it?”
“Yes. Somebody should be showing you around a little better so that you know these things.” He smiled, as if offering himself up for the job.
I was beginning to wonder if the job he was pushing would come with more than just a boss.
“I had a question about that offer. With your organization, is there an option to live Topside?”
“Oh, of course. You can live anywhere you want. A lot of tinkers don’t because it gets a little lonely, but—”
“Lonely? You mean because no one knows you?”
“Well, yes, no one there, that is.”
“There’s no way around that?”
“Only recycling fixes that. You know, getting put back in as a baby? Starting from scratch?”
I nodded, trying to not let on that everything he said felt like a stab wound in my soul.
“Alaric.” His name rang across the enclosed garden.
I turned to see Kaden walking toward us.
“I was just getting to know the newest tinker a bit better. She’s quite lovely,” Alaric said.
“Yes, I heard you’ve been trying to do that quite a bit,” Kaden replied.
For someone who hadn’t seemed to want me in his crew, he was acting a bit territorial. Or maybe it was the nature of these two’s history that was causing them to stare off the way they were.
“You never know when a situation might change,” Alaric said, winking in my direction.
Kaden nodded stiffly. “I wouldn’t try too hard. It’ll just make you look more desperate than usual, and I’m not sure you can afford to take another hit to your reputation.”
Watching these two go at each other, I could see there was some bad blood somewhere in their past. I wasn’t getting dragged into whatever had happened.
I never thought I’d be happy to see Antoinette, but when she came outside, sniffing after Kaden like a bloodhound on a trail, I took a breath of relief.
“There you are,” she said. “Raulo is opening up a bottle for us but is waiting for you.”
“I’m coming now,” Kaden said. He nodded in Alaric’s direction and then gave me a glare, perhaps warning me to behave myself.
Whatever gratitude I’d had toward him for staying with me the other night after Chaos was quickly getting worn away.
“May I give you a piece of personal advice?” Alaric said once we were alone again.
“Sure. I can’t guarantee I’ll take it, but I always listen.”
Alaric took two glasses of wine from a passing waiter and handed me one. “I don’t know what your situation is, but getting involved with Kaden on a deeper level might not be a good idea. He’s broken every heart in Nowhere and doesn’t even realize it as he wades through the corpses.”
“Trust me, I’m in no threat of losing my heart to him.” I laughed because Kaden was about as far from the type of man I’d get mixed up with as could be. He was everything I avoided. I knew a walking, talking broken heart when I saw one. “Actually I’m in…” I was about to say in a relationship, but that was a hard thing to call my current state of affairs.
Alaric was looking at me, waiting for me to finish, when an older gentleman approached him.
“Alaric, do you have a minute?” the man asked.
