Chapter 20 #2
Rafe barked a loud laugh, and Skye winced, causing her to bump into me.
I steadied her, and her silver eyes flashed to mine in a mixed look of shock and horror.
She quickly pulled away from me, crossing her arms defensively as Rafe began to speak.
It’d happened so fast, only Aiden seemed to have noticed, and he only narrowed his eyes at me.
“You’re implying that this woman has a hidden affinity for storms? And somehow no one’s ever noticed this before? In the Gulf?”
Rafe was good. It did sound crazy. The Gulf was forever scarred from the massacre. They’d have burnt a storm affinate at the stake the moment that affinity awakened.
“You think I started the storm?!” Skye cried. “Our parents were killed in the massacre, you dick!”
Stevens realized the hole in his logic, and he shook his head. “I don’t think she has a storm affinity. But I do think the two of you took advantage of the storm. My neighbors piss me off, too–”
“I’ve heard enough,” Zephyr snapped. “I didn’t do shit to my neighbors, and neither did my sister. We were here, spreading sandbags just like we did for the last storm.”
Stevens ignored him, then began scribbling on a pad of paper.
Was he…writing a fucking ticket?
My gaze desperately darted to Rafe, who looked like he was about to enter another orbit. Shadows began to waft up from under the floorboards, slithering along the wood like snakes on the prowl.
Aiden didn’t react, but Zephyr stifled a gasp, stepping away quickly like the shadows were quicksand.
Stevens shook his head, trying to appear nonchalant even as his expression turned fearful. “Everyone relax. I’m only ordering she undergo another round of affinity testing.”
“You’re kidding,” Skye snapped, again making my dick perk up. “I just had my testing done!”
“I’m overriding it,” Rafe said. “She’s my Key. As stated, she was just tested.”
Stevens had the audacity to scoff. “I don’t care what she is to who. You can’t override anything. I have full authority of the Gulf’s governor.”
Rafe’s gaze darkened, but he only gave a curt nod.
“You’re kidding,” Zephyr said, his jaw slack as he looked back and forth between them. “He’s the Prince.”
“Of the mainland, technically.” Stevens said. “This is the Gulf. We have different laws.”
He wasn’t wrong. Rafe could have called in the bigger guns, aka: his mother, but he wasn’t quite ready for the public backlash related to this Chain.
“Fine,” Skye said, exasperated. “I’m not hiding anything. I’ll just get tested again. Sign me up to see that old guy. Shafer?”
“Shafer no longer works for the Crown,” Stevens said with a shrug. “He’s off the grid. You’ll have to find another Sensor.”
“What?” Zephyr looked at his sister, and she gave a barely imperceptible shake of the head.
The siblings were weirder than twins. They were always on the same wavelength, always following the same train of thought. I was sure they hadn’t even spoken telepathically just now, they just knew what the other was thinking instinctively.
It made me wish Willow wasn’t so…Willow.
Although actually…maybe it was me who was too…me.
“We’ll find one,” Rafe said, not missing a beat. “Give me the ticket and move on.”
Stevens shook his head like Rafe was just a punk, then held the ticket out to Skye. She stared him down, then in another bitchy move, tightened her crossed arms before turning her head sharply to the side, dismissing him.
God, she had no business turning me on this much when things were so stupid between us.
Rafe swiped the ticket, then read over it quickly as if he didn’t already know what it’d say.
“Thanks for that,” Zephyr said breezily. “Now get the fuck out of my shop.”
Stevens shook his head in disapproval, but he headed for the door.
“Have a good night,” he called out. Zephyr growled, sending a burst of air into the door to slam it shut. Outside, Stevens laughed loudly like an asshole, and Aiden ripped the door shades closed to hide him from view.
“I hate that guy,” Aiden said, breaking the mood.
“Same,” Skye sighed, then looked at the ticket over Rafe’s arm. “Do I really have to get tested again?”
“I can’t dispute the ticket without a lot of public scrutiny,” Rafe explained gently.
“He’s saying you’re not worth the trouble,” Zephyr interjected, and I almost fucking laughed.
Skye gave her brother a bored look while Rafe’s jaw dropped slightly.
“You are worth it, love, but I don’t want you in danger. Especially not since my father–”
“Since his father was going to kidnap you or something,” Zephyr finished.
“Would you shut up?” Skye ground out. Zephyr held up his hands in surrender. Aiden snickered.
Rafe looked to me. “We’ll have to see Shafer.”
I nodded in agreement. He’d lied for her once, why wouldn’t he do it again?
“Um, problem,” Zephyr waved his hands at us. “Where the hell is Shafer? Does anyone else think that’s fucking weird he’s gone?”
Rafe cleared his throat. “Shafer is here. In the islands.”
“I beg your fucking pardon?” Skye’s jaw dropped. “Why?”
Rafe ran his tattooed hand through his dark hair. “I moved him here. After I visited him asking questions about you.”
I muttered a curse as I tipped my head back to look at the ceiling. Zephyr’s response was immediate. He moved between Skye and Rafe just barely as he stared down the Prince.
“You did what?”
“Zephyr,” Rafe drawled. “I’ve been quite open about the fact that I stalked your sister pretty hard. I went to Shafer to get answers about her affinities. But don’t worry, he didn’t actually tell me anything.”
Rafe practically pouted, he was still pissed about that one.
But Shafer’s attitude had just been demonstrated again by Stevens – the Gulf was a different world.
They didn’t follow the same rules and laws like the rest of the continent.
Whether or not they deferred to the Crown was a toss-up, and more often than not there wasn’t just a lack of deference, but outright disrespect.
“How did you get through him, by the way?” I asked. “He wouldn’t tell us anything but he clearly knew what you are.”
“What she is, is an affinate just like you,” Zephyr growled. “She is not an it.”
“I didn’t mean it like that,” I said, exasperated. I swear, Zephyr was determined to make everything I said or did into an insult toward his sister.
Skye ignored Zephyr’s outburst, and my question, looking to Rafe. “He lied. I don’t know how or why, but he very clearly knew of my affinities. He must have some connection to the massacre, he seemed hung up on that when I told him how my parents died.”
Rafe nodded. “His wife and son were killed in the massacre. He doesn’t talk about it much.”
Skye covered her mouth with her hand, looking to Aiden for comfort, which he gave her freely.
Having watched the two of them together this past week was eye-opening. It gave me a direct insight into how Aiden was when he wasn’t sitting in a counseling session giving me canned responses to give his mother.
He really had cleaned up his act.
“Can we see him?” Skye asked. “There’s no way we can have another Sensor test me.”
“I agree,” Rafe said. “We’ll pay him a visit and see if he’s up to more visitors.” He shot me a look, and I really, really hoped that didn’t mean we were going to beat up an old man.
“But if Wyatt messed with his memory, he’s not going to remember anything. Is he?” Aiden asked, looking back and forth between us.
Rafe looked at me and I grimaced. “He…might. The affinity only confuses the subject, it doesn’t completely wipe something away.”
“Could you implant a new memory?” Skye asked. Zephyr grunted disapprovingly, but she went on. “Have you ever tried?”
“No and no,” I said with a sigh, ignoring the bit of excitement that trickled through me at her attention. “Never tried, but I just…know it wouldn’t work that way.”
“We call it ‘scrambling’ because it chops up the memories, making them so distorted they can’t be trusted,” Rafe explained. “I know. He’s done it to me before. For science.”
I ran a hand down my face, surprised Rafe didn’t decide to announce to everyone how he’d been in a literal coma for twenty-four hours after our experiment. Who knows how many years I’d lost off my life after that.
“Why did Vince want his memory of me scrambled?” Skye asked.
“Probably because he knew the Palace would never let him go otherwise,” Aiden said simply, surprising us. “Sensors don’t get to retire. Shafer is old as hell. And now he’s sensed a fully realized Tele? They’d never let him go. The Crown Princess would have moved him directly into the Palace.”
Rafe and I cringed.
That’d almost been my fate at one point in time.
Same for Zephyr, I realized, and for the first time, I understood why he and Skye fought so hard to not only hide her affinities, but his as well.
Healers weren’t treated well by the Palace.
Rafe knew it, even if he pretended not to, and that was why he’d encouraged me to keep that affinity a secret.
Not only that, but the teleporting would undoubtedly be picked up by any of the Sensors Zephyr came in contact with.
“Am I wrong?” Aiden asked. “Rafe, your mom would have sent him on a continental tour just to sniff out any other remaining Telekinetics. Tell me I’m wrong.”
“You’re not wrong,” Rafe sighed in resignation. “My mother…hates Telekinetics just as deeply as my grandfather did.”
Zephyr grunted. “So how is this,” he waved his hand between Skye and Rafe, “going to work?”
“I haven’t figured that out yet,” Rafe murmured. “We could continue to hide the affinities, but–”
Rafe had brought this idea up to me before, and I shook my head.
“That won’t work, Rafe,” I said. “Asking her to hide her affinities is bullshit, and absolutely no one would believe a simple air and water affinate is the Key to the shadow Prince.”
Zephyr raised an eyebrow at me, but didn’t make any smartass comments, so that was a plus.
“He’s right,” Skye said softly, and a thrill shot through my chest. “No one would believe that. Not to mention, there’s Sensors all over the Palace.”
“Yeah, except none of the Sensors can sense affinities without touching someone,” Aiden said. “That affinity is long gone.”
Rafe made eye contact with me for just a moment.
Aiden should have been right. At some point in time, Sensors had been able to sense affinities from miles away. There had even been a rare secondary affinity called tracking. A Tracker could sense an affinate from hundreds or thousands of miles away.
Thankfully, my half-ass sensing ability was just that and not something more. I didn’t know what I’d do with myself if I learned I could sense affinities from further away. The amount of unheard of affinities that existed just within this shaky Chain were already too much.
“Let’s go see him,” Rafe said. “The storm seems to have passed–”
“Tomorrow,” Skye blurted out, and everyone turned to look at her. She cleared her throat, her eyes darting from Rafe over to me, then to the floor. “Stay tonight. I don’t…want y’all out after that storm.”
“Of course,” Rafe agreed easily, shooting me a warning look as Zephyr’s piercing eyes glared at the two of us.
“Tomorrow,” I agreed. “Of course we’ll stay.”
Even if that meant Zephyr might try to kill me in my sleep.