We discovered Brighta after her death. It came to Dovelyn in a vision, and we found the camp together. It was only then we learned our mother started the rebellion with Dravenburg’s grandfather. Before, Brighta was only a place of refuge, but my mother changed that. When Dove and I first met Dravenburg’s grandfather, we’d begged him for the location of her grave, but he refused to give it to us, claiming he was respecting her wishes.
She never wanted us to find it, which was the whole reason she entrusted it to the past mortal commander in the first place. But I still couldn’t wrap my head around her being only a day’s travel from the camp. I wanted nothing more than for her to still be alive, that she could’ve seen what the camp became…
A large closed sign was hanging off the glass door as Savannah stepped up to Ichi’s restaurant. She reached into her hair, releasing a bobby pin, causing her lavender locks to cover half her face.
She picked the lock and had the door swinging open beforeIchi could make it around the pulled curtain in the kitchen. Warm air pushed on our faces as we all stepped inside, desperate to get away from the cold. I held the door open, letting Scottie pass before me.
“Ichi,” Savannah grinned, “look who I brought.”
The elderly man smiled from ear to ear, his sunken eyes squinting. “It’s about time.” He beamed, his gaze shifting through us all. “And I see you brought some new friends too.”
Sav sat down on one of the open bench tables. “I need the largest coffee you have, Ichi. Then my favorite spicy bowl of ramen, then another cup of coffee to go.”
“It’s only seven in the morning, and you wantramennow?”
“Please,” Savannah pleaded, her lip pouting over.
“You know you should just work here for how much you deplete my stock.” Ichihanafrowned as he watched her position her bobby pin back into her hair. “And I’ve told you numerous times to use the bell and stop breaking in. You give me a heart attack every time I wake up and find the coffee machine turned on in the middle of the night.”
“But my father’s coffee is nowhere near as good as yours.” She smiled.
Ichi was a lifelong friend of Dravenburg, making him an uncle figure to Savannah and Wells. He didn’t know the full extent of what we all were, but I assumed he had his suspicions.
“It’s good to see you, Ichi,” I said as I gave him a pat on the back. “This is Rumor and Sie. Friends of ours.” Sie gave me a death glare at the mention of Scottie’s last name. It only made me want to call her it more. She wasn’t a Noren, and she was definitely not his wife, no matter what claim he thought he possessed over her, and I had no issues reminding him of it.
“Nice to meet you both. Any friend of theirs is a friend of mine,” he said as he pulled Dovelyn and Kallon into a hug at the same time. “I’ll go warm up some ramen.”
“And coffee,” Savannah hollered as he disappeared behindthe curtain again. We all awkwardly sat down around the table. No one spoke, and I was thankful when Ichi re-emerged with a tray of steaming hot ramen bowls and one large, black coffee for Savannah.
Kallon inhaled loudly. “I’ve missed your ramen back at home, Ichi.”
Scottie looked at the dish with curiosity, then watched Kallon dig in. She took her first bite, moaning loudly as she chewed. “What is this stuff?”
Ichi looked at her in confusion. “You’ve never had ramen before?”
She shook her head as she kept eating, and to my own personal torture, kept moaning. I tried to focus on my own bowl and not think about what it was like to have her moan into my mouth. How it felt to have my hands glide over her body as she carefully sat on top of me in the bath. How I wanted to do so much more than that…
Sie seemed mortified at Scottie’s declaration of love for the food and was scowling into his own bowl. Kallon noticed him sulking and smirked. “Don’t mind her, she does this often.”
Scottie looked up and saw everyone staring at her. Her freckled cheeks turned bright red as she set her fork down—Ichi had the foresight to not give her or Sie any chopsticks, something he did for all new costumers.
“Don’t pay attention to them,” Savannah whispered to Scottie, grinning as she took a sip of her coffee. “Ichi’s ramen is the best there is, better than any man. I’ll moan over it too once I wake a little more.”
Scottie shifted in her seat. “Who’s the ugly green man on your shirt? I’ve seen him before,” she asked as Sav started shrugging off her jacket.
“It’s only the greatest Jedi of all time, and I know you have. Whose shirt do you think you wore when you and Tezya went to his condo in Florida?”
I could feel the tension radiating off of Sie. He curled his fists under the table as he drew a deep breath in through his nose, but my abilities were also picking up on unease from Scottie.
“The mortal clothes I wore wereyours?”
“Yup,” Savannah said as she took another long sip of coffee, then twirled large amounts of noodles over her chopsticks. Scottie’s shoulders tensed as she glanced between me and Savannah.
“Tezya reckoned we were about the same size and asked to borrow some clothes when he took you.” Savannah shrugged. “Although I’m surprised you didn’t drown in them, you’re so short,” she added, and Scottie flinched at the worddrown, but Sav didn’t notice. She was too focused on the steam radiating from her noodles as she obnoxiously blew on them.
“You lethimtake you to the mortal territory before?” Sie asked, his voice gone cold.
“Oh, she let him do a lot more than that.” Kallon grinned.
