AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“In the forest, you remember, ya?” He raised one strawberry brow as his eyes crinkled in the corners.
“That wasnotwooing,” There was no way I sounded as disgusted as I thought I should.
“Ah, well, for types like us a good wrestle is the best foreplay,” He winked and laughed aloud as I was sure I turned so red that my dress made me look like a decorated Yule tree. For once in my life I found myself entirely without words.
“Ignore him,” Came a resigned voice with a slight southern twang entering through the cracked door. “Hell below only knows we all do.” It was the brunette, his piercing turquoise gaze catching mine.
“Drew,” He said, extending a hand as he walked towards me, and this time I half stood and extended my own.
“Aeryn,”
“Her friends call her Ryn, isn’t that right Ryn?” Felix piped in, and if I hadn’t known he was trouble before, I certainly did now. “Since I get to call you that I guess we’re friends now!”
“Pleasure,” Drew finished, ignoring Felix’s interjection, easing his way across from me. “Now, as I was saying, don’t let Felix get to you. We only bring him because he likes to pay for things.”
“Oh ya? That’s the last car I will buy you.” Felix stressed. “$500,000 that car cost me!”
“Yeah, yeah,” Drew drawled. It was evident these two were friends - like real, genuine friends. They continued a banter back and forth about cars and services as I toyed with thoughts of how they might fit in with my copper-eyed demon.
“Anyways - may I call you Ryn?” Drew asked, waving off another snarky comment from Felix about custom paint jobs and clashing leather seats. I nodded, and he continued. “Could you tell us a bit about yourself?”
“Well, I’m of the generosity affinity, class four, with secondary class three affinity for loyalty…”
Felix snorted and waved his hands back and forth before him as if dispelling an unwelcome odor. “He means to tell us something real about yourself.”
Before I could begin again, he cut me off with a swift slicing motion of his arm. “Yes, yes, we all know about what your biography says. But, you see, I want to get to know the real you.” My silence stretched to borderline rudeness.
“Why did you choose to intern locally?” Drew asked, aiming for more direct questioning. “The local Chartin coven is quite small. Certainly as a skilled linguist, healer, and empath, you could have found a more prestigious assignment had you branched out.”
This question wasn’t exactly unexpected. We had been trained to answer all manner of questions about ourselves and our choices, and I found a practiced answer about the necessity of healing, even in the smallest of covens, come to the forefront of my mind. The academy had trained us that as casters of the virtues, it was our responsibility to be humble as, ultimately, humility was the most powerful of the cardinal tiers. And a small local posting such as the one I had held would teach humility in spades.
But I didn’t to give that answer. I wanted to be honest.
“There were a couple of factors. The first was that I wanted to stay with my roommate.”
“Ah, yes, Vanessa Hawthorne, correct?” Felix asked as he scuffed his shoe against a tiny speck of dirt on the floor.
“Yes. We’ve been friends since we were in cradles, and so we wanted to try to stay together for our internships. The local Chartin coven had space for an enforcer and a medic so it made sense.”
Felix waved off my simple response, not looking up from the dirt. “I’m sure there are plenty of places that could have offered both of you a spot, there must be more to it than that.”
I offered a delicate shrug. Truthfully, there was more to it. I had wanted to make sure I could earn as much money as possible to make a quick escape should the selections turn south, and I had a clear path to making money with the Ravenwings.
But these guys didn’t need to know that.
Felix twisted his mouth in thought.
“Do you enjoy being a healer?” I pondered that for a moment. No one had asked me that - it was always expected that healers would be healers and that was all there was to it. And while I’m sure that I would be expected to give some placating response about the honor I had been given with my gifts, I again felt compelled to be open.
“Honestly, I’ve never put any real stock into it - it has always just been a gift I’ve had. It isn’t something I’ve ever truly felt passionate about: it's always felt more like a responsibility than anything else,” I debated what to say next. “That’s one of the reasons I took the assignment locally. Yes, they needed a medic so I could check the box, but they had also lost their beast warden six months before my post began and needed a fill in. So I checked off two boxes: I got to work with beasts, which I love, and heal as necessary.”
“So you’ve always had a passion for divine beasts then?”
I nodded. “Yes, ever since I was young. I’ve taken every beast class I could and love to work with any I can.”
This seemed to raise something between the two men in the room, as they exchanged a look between them.
“Do you enjoy hunting them?” Felix’s voice carried an edge of wariness behind his carefree facade.
