Royally Rogue

Panting

Arabella

"Do you have your granola bars?" Roman said as he helped me out of the car and handed me my bag.

"Yep."

"Your change if clothes?"

"Roman, you're the one who packed me."

"I know, but how do you know I packed those things?"

"Roman!" I laughed, actually feeling nervous that he didn't pack my stuff. Thinking back on it now, he did take like .056 seconds to pack my bag.

"Wait, you're just leaving us here?" Melanie gasped, stepping out of the opposite side of the car. She gave Roman a pointed look from across the car."This isn't the border!"

"You can't just walk into their land on your own without Xander, I don't know their security. Our lands end a little over two miles north from here. Wait for Xander to get here, he should Find your scent. " Roman said, going back to his steady and sturdy behavior when he spoke to her.

"Greeeaaat, and what if someone is out on patrol and sees us? We're supposed to be camping or something!" Melanie whispered harshly as she popped the trunk and grabbed her bag.

"I was linked a while ago that another bomb was set off. The guards should be regrouping back to the castle to defend it and investigating the area. Be safe and call me if you need anything," Roman dismissed, pulling out a beat up flip phone from out of his back pocket.

"He already set it off?!" I groaned, distinctively remembering telling him not to use it unless necessary. Roman shrugged, pushing the old phone in my direction. I scrunched my nose, looking down at the silver scratched up thing.

"Can't do anything about it now. Take it."

"Does it work?" I shook my head in defeat and hesitantly took it.

"Like a charm, Princess." He winked back, giving me a dazzling smile and making me snort as an o-kay.

"I'll leave you guys here, call me when Xander reaches you and then when you reach his place. And then every day after that, just so I don't think my future Luna had been mauled." Roman said causally as we walked back over to the drivers side and opened the door.

Melanie came over, leaning close to me and whispering. "He's pretty needy isn't he?"

"Got it." I called in response, giving Roman leave to slide into the car and shut the door behind him. That's when I felt safe to turn to Melanie and say. "It's complicated."

"Well, we have time for complicated. We have to camp out here until that dude comes." She growled in frustration, throwing her backpack at a tree and watching it splat to the ground. Did she not have any valuables in there?!

"Well maybe I don't want to talk about it?" I retorted, dropping by duffle to the ground and waving bye through the window to Roman as he drove off.

"Well maybe I don't want to help you on this trip?" She joked. I mean, I hoped she was joking.

"Roman is a special case of possessive." I said simply, shrugging and not keeping eye contact.

"No shit," Melanie said behind me. "Seems like you have an admirer."

"Not anymore." The words slipped out of my mouth before I knew it. I took a moment to scrunch my nose and curse myself as I had just given her something to bite at.

"Ooooo," The girl behind me cooed, picking up her bag and shuffling over to my side. "Explain."

"I guess he had a crush on me or... I don't know, stupid stuff." I said as nonchalant as I could, palms starting to sweat a little.