Chapter 16
Edith smiled, nodded when needed, and pretended. It was becoming a real skill at this point.
“Oh no, I completely understand,” she said dryly as Binky dramatically turned his back on her for what had to be the seventh time that morning.
“You have betrayed the covenant,” Binky informed her without looking at her.
“There was never a covenant.”
“There was emotionally.”
Bas flicked his tail from where he lounged across the back of the sofa. “You’re human now. You’re one of them.”
“I am literally still a shifter,” Edith protested.
“Mmm,” Bas said. “Sounds suspiciously human.”
Grundlepus, at least, had the decency to look mildly conflicted about the entire situation.
Unfortunately, he was also allowing the others to commit fully to the bit.
“I can still fit in the clubhouse,” Edith argued.
“No,” Binky said immediately.
“I absolutely can.”
“You have knees now.”
“Rude.”
“The bylaws are very clear,” Bas added solemnly.
“There are no bylaws!”
“There are now.”
Edith stared at them in disbelief. Honestly, she revealed one deeply traumatic life secret and suddenly she was being excommunicated from the familiar collective like she’d committed tax fraud.
“Traitors,” she muttered.
“Tall traitor,” Binky corrected.
Edith resisted the urge to throw a cushion at him. Mostly because her hands were shaking… again.
She curled them tighter into the sleeves of the borrowed jumper she wore, hiding the movement before anyone noticed, or at least before anyone except Jessica noticed.
Jessica noticed everything.
Edith could feel the occasional glance sent her way from across the room, careful and concerned. Which was sweet and also horrifying. Because the last thing Edith wanted right now was for everyone else to realise just how close she was to completely losing her mind.
Not over the human thing. That part was a relief. A strange and terrifying one, but a relief all the same.
She had forgotten what it felt like to breathe properly in this form. To stretch without compressing herself down into something small and hidden.
She missed her wings, not the tiny dragon ones. Her real ones, large and powerful, Draconian wings that could blot out the sky like the legends of old. The thought made something ache deep in her chest. It had been far too long since she had shifted and let her wings stretch.
Maybe soon. If she dared and was able to stay, and if everything didn’t go tits up first. Which brought her neatly back to the actual problem at hand, the male on the beach.
Edith’s sighed at the memory. He was tall, and yet handsome as hell, even if he was one of the two bounty hunters.
Only now he had seen her, luckily not in her dragon form, but as much as she wanted to lie to herself, she knew.
He had recognised something. Maybe not fully and not with certainty.
But enough look at her too closely. Edith wrapped her arms tighter around herself.
Because if he had figured it out, then it was only a matter of time before the other one did too.
And after that? They would come for her. That was what bounty hunters did, after all, especially hunters with reputations like theirs.
“No,” she whispered under her breath.
Jessica looked over immediately. “What?”
Edith forced a smile so quickly it almost hurt. “Nothing.”
It was clearly a lie but Jessica let it go and returned to her notebook. Edith’s gaze drifted toward the window. Toward the sea beyond it.
If it came down to it, if they tried to drag her back… her jaw tightened. She would rather perish in the sea, and she meant that.
Because going back home wasn’t living, it was surrender, it was a cage and a life sentence.
Her family had never cared about her, only what she represented.
Political alliance, merging of bloodlines.
Her father spoke about legacy more than he ever spoke about love and her mother…
Edith swallowed hard. Her mother had simply stood there and allowed it all to happen.
Allowed them to promise her to a male with a poor reputation when it came to females, whose view were, “a woman should been seen and not heard,” or, “only one use for them,”.
She remembered him too clearly. The way he smiled without warmth and the way servants flinched around him.
The stories whispered quietly by younger females who thought no one was listening.
Bruises hidden beneath sleeves and broken bones explained away as accidents.
They had expected her to walk willingly into that life. “No,” she said again, firmer this time.
Bas’s ears twitched slightly at the tone.
But before anyone could ask, Edith stood abruptly. The room tilted faintly. Her human balance was still deeply unreliable.
“I’m fine,” she said quickly before Jessica could move.
“I didn’t say anything,” Jessica replied.
“You were about to.”
“Fair.”
Edith rubbed at her arms, trying to chase away the cold creeping under her skin. Because that was the worst part. Not the hunters or the fear they had instilled, it was the fact that for the first time, she finally felt she was home, and now that place was at risk because of her.
Binky finally looked at her properly then, some of the theatrical annoyance slipping slightly.
“You really think they’ll take you back?” he asked quietly.
Edith laughed once, a small, humourless sound. “They won’t stop trying,” she said.
Silence settled briefly around the room.
Even Bas stopped looking smug as Jessica stood slowly, moving closer.
“Then they’ll have to go through all of us first,” she said simply.
Edith looked at her friend, really looked at her this time, at the certainty there and the complete lack of hesitation, and something in Edith’s chest nearly broke apart all over again.
Her voice came out quieter than she intended. “You don’t know what they’re capable of.”
Jessica’s expression hardened slightly. “Neither do they,” she replied.