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Bertram snarled again, seemingly unconvinced.
Peregrine, lips pinched in thought, observed Bertram for a moment, then looked over his shoulder at the other riders, all of whom had now disembarked from their vehicles. “Ah, yes. I see the issue. I suppose I would be suspicious too, were a group of masked individuals to show up at my secret hideaway at the very edge of the world. Boys? Please, do come reveal yourselves so we do not end up charbroiled. I am all for warm, lazy days spent basking in the sun, but even for me, this would be a little much.”
For a few tense moments, nothing happened, and Sorin began to fear it was all a trick, and Sebastian would spring out from somewhere unseen, claws out and teeth bared with murder in his eyes, but no such thing happened. The remaining riders joined Peregrine, and as they did, they took their helmets off to reveal their faces—some familiar, some not.
There was Finch, who hurriedly smoothed a hand over his hair to tame his helmet head, and Magpie, whose real name was Misha. As he took his helmet off, he fixed Sorin with an icy stare that would have frozen over hell itself. The others Sorin was less familiar with, but their good looks led him to believe they were of the Pedigree, which meant they were likely the other Drake mates.
One of them—an omega with a kind face and round, wire-rimmed glasses—had an iguana on his shoulder and what appeared to be a section of black garden hose wrapped around his wrist. Both the iguana and the hose were wearing matching leather jackets, and while the iguana wore a full-face helmet, the hose did not seem to have a head, and instead had been decorated with temporary tattoos.
Sorin stared at it.
Could it be a weapon of some kind?
If it was a bracelet, it was one of the strangest he’d ever seen. And why dress it up in a jacket? It didn’t even have arms. Something weird was going on here, and until he knew what it was, he would not drop his guard.
“Is this better?” Peregrine asked once all the riders had been unmasked. “It was not our intention to rile you up, darling. I apologize. We would have let you know we were coming, but… well… for one, we were afraid that if we did, you might leave, and for two, Misha says you are entirely off the grid out here, so we decided the best and easiest course of action would be to pop in unannounced. Will you put your dragon away and forgive us? I promise we won’t bother you for very long.”
Sorin glanced at Bertram from the corner of his eye, waiting to see what his reaction would be. Under ordinary circumstances, Bertram was levelheaded and composed, but this was no ordinary circumstance, and the way he’d let his dragon snarl like he had made Sorin worry he would not be so easily appeased. But, after a tense moment, Bertram’s reptilian aspects began to recede. He detransformed until but a single claw remained.
“Do my brothers or my father know you’re here?” Bertram asked when he was mostly human again.
“They shouldn’t.” Peregrine looked at Misha from over his shoulder. “Misha, you were saying before they might try to find us by using our technology to triangulate our location—have they managed yet?”
Misha fished a strange-looking cell phone from a pouch on his belt and checked it. “No. Reynard is trying to hack through my encryptions, but he has not been successful. How adorable. Let me hack him back. I will send him a meme to let him know we’re okay.”
The verbal confirmation seemed enough for Peregrine, who left Misha to his devices and turned his attention back to Bertram, to whom he gave a lovely smile. “Misha is very trustworthy,” he promised. “There is no other person, living or dead, I trust with technology quite as much as I trust him. If he says Reynard has yet to access our information, I believe him. No one knows we’re here.” His gaze shifted past Bertram to Sorin, and his expression sobered. “Which I see now is a good thing. It really is you, isn’t it? I had my suspicions during our altercation in the atrium, but I didn’t get a good enough look at you then. Not enough to know for certain, in any case. But now there is no mistaking you.”
Sorin’s lips tightened, but before he could say anything, one of Peregrine’s companions spoke up.
“Uh, Perry?” asked the brunet with thick-rimmed glasses. “I’m all for a little mystery, but we also haven’t slept for like, thirty-six hours and were almost just turned into human flambé, so… do you mind telling the rest of us what the hell you mean?”
“I will, Ignatius,” Peregrine replied, “but in good time. Our poor host has been so gracious, allowing us to talk at length despite our unexpected arrival and his rather compromising state of dress.”
Sorin looked down at himself and realized he was naked with the exception of Bertram’s shirt, which he had only buttoned up enough to give himself some semblance of modesty.
“You have made quite a lovely home for yourself here,” Peregrine went on to say as embarrassment heated Sorin’s cheeks. “What do you say we go and make ourselves comfortable inside while you freshen up? Perhaps after, we could have what I assume will be quite a lengthy conversation while we enjoy some tea.” He paused and, looking Sorin in the eyes, carefully asked, “Would that be all right with you, Raven?”
Just as carefully, Sorin replied, “Is orange pekoe okay?”
26
Sorin
One costume change and several sachets of orange pekoe later, Sorin was feeling much better. With the danger now having largely passed, the screaming in his head had mostly subsided, and the more he focused on his breathing and went about the rote act of preparing tea for his guests, the better it became.
By the time he entered the dining room, where Bertram and the Drake mates had assembled, he felt almost as good as he had prior to their arrival. It was a welcome—but inexplicable—change from the way he’d been just a few short months ago. Was it Bertram’s doing? Somehow, Sorin didn’t think so. If it were, the screaming never would have come back, but it had been almost debilitatingly loud after he’d spotted the convoy on the horizon.
He supposed his improved health would simply have to remain a mystery.
He may not have had answers, but at least he had some relief.
In the dining room, he found their guests seated around the table with the exception of the lizard in the biker jacket, which was on the table proper. When Sorin put tea in front of his owner, the lizard lifted its rather large head and blinked at him curiously, then started to bob its head.
“Steve says hello,” his omega owner clarified, reaching out to give the lizard—Steve—a scratch on the head. “Either that, or he’s trying to mate with you, but his head bobbing is usually a little more erratic when that happens.”
Sorin eyeballed the lizard, whose head bobbing quickened and became jerky.
“Oh,” said the omega sheepishly, embarrassed. “Steve, that’s really not appropriate. I know you feel very confident in your leather jacket, but that doesn’t give you a free pass to be rude. Do I have to take it away from you?”
