Unhappily Ever After

Chapter 54 - Insult to Injury

I sauntered straight over to the Alphas. Jess was still behind me, but Eira and Lee had disappeared off somewhere along the way. Ivan took one look at us and turned away in disgust to mutter with his Beta. Kat offered a smile, but she didn't dare say anything in her mate's hearing.

Vik bumped shoulders with me and grinned a greeting. Lexi had run off to talk to her brother and grandfather, so he was alone and he was bored, and that made us friends for ten minutes at least. "Who's the girl?"

"Jess, Vik. Vik, Jess."

"She's your mate?" Vik asked me. It was an inevitable question, because she was wearing my jacket and we were holding hands inside the pocket.

"She's capable of speech," I retorted.

I could hear him grinding his teeth as he suppressed the urge to punch me. After a moment to compose himself, he turned to look at Jess properly. "You two are mated?"

"That's better!" I said cheerfully.

Jess dug her fingernails into my hand as a warning. "Yes, we are. Someone upstairs hates me, apparently."

I prodded her side, because the joke had been at my expense, and she squealed and writhed away. Vik was laughing at both of us. She had said eight words, and he liked her already. I might have envied her people skills if I hadn't been so damn proud.

"Oh, look. Jess thinks she's funny," I told him. "Excuse us."

And, with that, I turned away and tugged my mate with me. She didn't resist because she knew, like I did, that it was best to leave before he looked at her too closely or noticed that she didn't talk like a rogue. We only went as far as one of the smaller stones.

"That's the Shadowless Alpha?" she whispered. My head was tilted down and hers was tucked in the hollow where my neck met my shoulder. The evening air was cold on my bare arms, but the heat from my mate's body kept the shivers at bay.

"Yeah. He's a prick, of course, but he has his moments."

She nodded. "He lied to Vaughan for you."

"Yes," I sighed. "For all the good it did."

Vik had gone to join Lexi: I could see him out of the corner of my eye. They had helped Dafydd sit himself on a fallen stone and now they were talking. Eira and Lee were making out against a tree, while Makayla and Jaz were sat in the middle of the stone circle, throwing handfuls of grass at each other and laughing themselves breathless. Everyone was fine — I could have a minute to myself.

"Do you ever think," Jess began, "that maybe the Goddess gets it wrong sometimes?"

That alarmed me at first. Then I followed her gaze to see Eira and Lee wrapped up in each other's arms.

"Maybe," I agreed. Then again, maybe she had someone else in mind for both of them. Maybe mates were just based on genetic compatibility. Maybe we wouldn't ever know for sure. "But I reckon she was right about us."

"Oh, we're the biggest screw-up of all," she assured me. "You've caused enough trouble alone — just think what we'll achieve together."

"The Goddess likes trouble," I muttered. "That's why we're here, isn't it? To entertain her? Immortality is a lonely achievement, so I don't blame her for making some reality TV."

Jess cocked her head sideways and smiled. "Then let's give her a damn good show. Help me up?"

She could climb the stone herself; I had seen her do it a dozen times. But she had been drinking at the castle, and I wasn't about to say no. And I bent down, hooked an arm under her leg and hoisted her over my shoulders without a word of warning. She managed to thump me twice before I straightened up and dumped her onto the stone.