Unhappily Ever After

Chapter 58 - Here's to Mistakes Repeated

Wattpad, what have they done to you?? My goodness. Like ... it's cool and modern and all, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't miss that classic orange upside-down m   :'(

PS. I spent a couple hours reading up on traditional cuisine and I'm still not entirely sure I understand it (help), so if you're Bengali please feel free to call me out on any of this. Also, props - you guys really know how to eat.

"This is a shit-awful idea, Rhodric, and you know it," Jess seethed.

I took my eyes off the road for a second to grin at her, just because I knew it would tick her off. "You met my family, and now I'm going to meet yours."

She shook her head vehemently. "You broke a dozen rogues out of our pack house on Monday. You had Terry's mutilated corpse delivered to them the day before yesterday. Setting foot on Silver Lake territory is suicide. If you really want to introduce yourself, Mam can meet us in a pub or something."

"Nah," I laughed. "That's boring."

I flicked my indicator up and began to slow, ready to take the turning to Silver Lake, and Jess groaned loudly, but she stopped arguing. She hadn't been able to convince me in the last hour — she knew she wouldn't manage it in the next five minutes.

The last stretch of road was the prettiest. It was quiet — just towering pine trees and foxgloves. I was almost too busy admiring the view to remember that I needed to stop before we reached the barrier. It would have been somewhat awkward for the most wanted fugitive in all of Snowdonia to drive up to Silver Lake's front entrance and say hi. I pulled the car over in a layby and opened my door before a thought occurred to me.

"You can drive, can't you?" I asked her. "Just checking..."

Jess narrowed her eyes. "Of course I can drive, you inbred. You did know that."

"Brilliant. Have my seat. I'll meet you around the corner," I told her, climbing out of the car. "Oh, and don't forget the deodorant, whatever you do."

Jess smelt like me now. It was fortunate that no one from Silver Lake knew that scent was mine, but it was still quite clearly rogue, and that was dangerous, so Eira had lent her a spray can of floral-scented deodorant which stank to high heaven. It made me want to throw up, but it would hide her scent perfectly.

I crossed the road and started trekking into the woods. It was only a hundred metres to the bone fence, and I cast around with my mind to find the nearest patrol. They had just gone past, so I stepped over a muntjac's ribcage and walked onto Silver Lake territory, keeping the road on my right.

Now that Jess and I were so connected, I could feel her talking to the guards at the barrier, who wanted to know where she'd been. She told them that she'd been staying with some human friends in Wyst, and she was warned sternly that rogues had been encroaching on the town and it wasn't safe for a female to be out and about all by herself.

He said it like rogues were known for hurting lone flockies. Like his pack hadn't done more to brutalise females than any of them. Like there was not a clause in pack law which said that ranking pack members were allowed to sleep with unmated girls with impunity and punish any who refused them, as Jess had told me only yesterday. It was supposed to 'strengthen the bloodlines.'

So I was quite certain that she was safer at Lle o Dristwch than she had ever been at Silver Lake. None of my guys would dare lay a finger on her, and, in fact, every one of them she had spoken to seemed ready to die for her. After all, Jess was the queen of the rogues now.

She pulled over once she was out of sight of the barrier and waited for me there. It only took a few minutes to cross the distance, and then I was in the passenger seat for the short drive to her mother's house, which was on the far side of the lake. It was a nice bungalow with an attic conversion and hydrangeas growing on the front lawn. Jess parked in front of the garage and turned in her seat to smirk at me.