Chapter 4

4

“We just received our invitations!” Grant yelled as he ran into the living room.

Jong-min and Jong-hyun cuddled on each side of me on the couch, binge watching a drama show they’d introduced me to.

“We got in again?” Jong-min asked, sitting up and nearly making me fall off the couch due to his quick movement.

“Invitation to what?” I asked.

“Only the biggest poker tournament in the state!” Jong-hyun yelled. “I can’t believe we all got in. I was sure Grant wouldn’t get an invite.”

Grant scowled. “I’m a great poker player.”

Jong-min and Jong-hyun chuckled simultaneously.

“I didn’t know you guys played poker in tournaments.” I sat up. “How long have you been doing that?”

“Since we turned eighteen,” Grant answered. “Jong-hyun made it to the finals two years ago.”

I turned to Jong-hyun, mouth open. “You’re a card shark? I’m so upset that you’ve hidden this from me for so long. We’re both sharks!”

He smiled and kissed my cheek. “Yes, we’re both sharks in one way.”

“When is the tournament?” Jong-min asked Grant.

“Next week. Apparently, since we had two forwarding addresses, it took longer than usual to receive our invitations,” Grant answered.

“Why aren’t they electronic at this point?” I wondered aloud.

“That is a good question and something I’ll bring up to them when we attend,” Jong-min said.

I smiled wide. “Did you just agree that I had a good question? Is it my birthday or something?”

He muttered something in another language that sounded vaguely like the word for brat.

“Where is the tournament?” I asked instead of pestering Jong-min more.

“Up north, about a five hour drive from here,” Jong-hyun answered as he looked over Grant’s shoulder at the invitation. “We’ll fly, since that flight is only an hour.”

Realization hit me.

“How long will you guys be gone?” Some tournaments happened in one day, while others could be spaced out over two days or even up to a week. I hadn’t been apart from them since the Bastian incident.

Would time away from me remind them of their past lives, the times before they’d met me, when they were a solid unit? Would it remind them what it was like and cause them to leave me? Would this be the nail in the coffin of our relationship? Would this be when Reed left?

Jong-min turned to me, his brows furrowed, and asked, “You don’t want to come with us?”

My mouth opened and closed a couple of times, like a fish out of water. “I can go with you?”

“If you’re worried about work, I can talk to—” Grant started, but I interrupted him.

“No, I’m not worried about work. I just … didn’t think you’d want me to go, I guess.” Admitting it made me immediately embarrassed, but it was good for me to be vulnerable with them sometimes.

“It’ll be inland, no ocean nearby,” Jong-hyun commented. “Can you handle that for a few days?”

A few days away from the sea …

“I actually haven’t been away from the ocean before,” I admitted. Could I handle not having salt water?

Jong-min had his phone out, searching for something on the internet, but since he was so far away, I couldn’t read it.

“I would be willing to try,” I said. “I should be able to handle being away from the ocean, since I don’t need it to survive. I’ve just never had the opportunity to travel away from it before.”

“It’s not just traveling away from it, Kass. We’re going to a desert,” Grant said softly.

A desert?

“We can discuss that later, what’s important is that you want to go with us and we want you to go, too,” Jong-hyun said.

“It would be a week,” Jong-min said, finally answering my original question.

A week away from the ocean, at the desert.

“I-Is Reed going to go with you?” I asked softly, looking down at my hands in my lap.

“Go with them where?” Reed asked and walked into the room. He wore a black tank top and a pair of grey sweatpants. My eyes immediately dropped to the sweatpants, but I jerked them back up to his eyes. His lips twitched on one side, a knowing smirk almost forming, before he resumed frowning.

“Here,” Grant said and held out an envelope to Reed.

Reed read it, his eyes widening slightly. “This is perfect,” he whispered.

“Perfect?” Grant asked.

Reed glanced at me before turning his entire body to focus on Grant. “Yes, I was looking for a way to stall the pack without outright turning them down and this is a perfect way to do that.”

So, he was still considering it. That … hurt.

Maybe it wasn’t a good idea for me to go with them.

I stood and smoothed down my pants. “I’ll leave you four to discuss your trip. I’m going to go for a swim. All this talk about deserts has me sweating.”

It wasn’t a complete lie. I had started sweating when talking about being away from the ocean and inside a desert for a week.

“Have a good swim,” Reed said without even looking at me.

Grant’s hands balled into fists at his side, eyes narrowing at Reed.

Jong-hyun’s hands started to glow pink and his nails turned into claws.

“Thanks,” I replied in a chipper tone, trying to defuse the others, at least until I left.

Running out of the house might have been childish, but even this predator knew when to flee.

I jogged all the way to the pier, but instead of diving into the water, I sat on the end of the pier and dangled my feet over the edge, kicking them back and forth. Folding my arms atop the wooden plank in front of me, I rested my head on my arm, and let out a long sigh.

Leather boots stopped beside me. “I haven’t heard that type of sigh from you in a long while,” Silver said. Slowly, the old ogre sat down beside me, dangling his legs like mine.

“You remember when we used to come talk here?” I asked him, staring out at the surfers enjoying the waves.

“Aye,” he replied. “You thought you’d live the rest of your life alone and never find love.”

I laughed humorlessly. “Looks like that might still come true.”

“Because of those wolves?” he asked.

Flipping my head to my other arm, I looked at him with raised brows.

He smiled, the piercing on his broken tusk rattling as he smiled wide. “I’m a bartender, which means I hear a lot and see a lot. More than most people realize.”

That information was getting filed away for further discussion later.

“I don’t know that much about their pasts, even still, but apparently he was banished and now they’re rescinding it so he can come back, claim a mate, and have a litter of pups,” I explained.

“The werewolf population has been on a decline the last decade,” Silver said and rubbed his jaw while he looked out over the ocean.

So, it was true.

“It’s hard when your blood comes calling, shouting out for help, even when you’ve already written them off,” Silver said. He tapped his broken tusk. “I’ve dealt with it a time or two myself, so I can understand his conflicting feelings.”

“How do you know he has conflicting feelings?”

He scoffed and looked down at me. “Anyone can see that boy cares about you, Kass. He’s been head over heels, following you like a starved puppy given a treat, since he saw you. It weren’t no surprise that you started courting. I mean, he went into the fracking ocean to try to save you.”

“We have a connection, one I don’t really understand, but maybe it’s better if I let him go. I don’t want to stop him from being able to return to his pack.”

Silver draped an arm around my shoulders and squeezed me once. “Child, you’re not stopping him from anything. The fact he hasn’t left yet is proof he cares about you. You cannot make the decision for him, so the best thing to do is treat him like nothing has changed. Continue going on your dates and making goo-goo eyes at each other. It’s up to him to decide what to do.”

“Well, now they’ve been invited to a poker tournament in the desert and they invited me to go. A week in the desert, away from the ocean. I’ve … I’ve never been away from it before.”

Silver frowned, dropped his arm, and looked down at the water before us. “I can’t say for certain how you’ll feel, as I’m not a shifter, but I think you’d be able to handle it. It likely won’t be comfortable, but you could survive it. You have both gills and lungs.”

“Do you think Theo will survive?” I asked with a smirk, totally kidding.

He laughed and shook his head. “She’ll be drinking at my bar every single night, there’s no doubt, but that overly dramatic mage will survive you being gone for a week. Besides, you’ll still have phones to contact each other, remember? Ain’t like the old days when I’d be separated from friends and family for a month on a mission with no contact.”

“Do you ever miss the older days?” I asked. Silver rarely talked about his past and I was incredibly curious about it.

He folded his arms across the board one above mine, being so much taller than me, and grunted. “There are lots of things I’d like to forget about, but there were also a lot of good things and good times, even in bad situations. I loved fighting and I was damn good at it, but losing others was hard.” His eyes darkened and he said, “I’m glad I snuffed out the evil that had plagued my homeland before I left, even if I lost part of my tusk and soul to do it.”

“Your soul?” What did he mean he lost part of his soul?

“That’s a story for another time, Daughter. One that will require me to be drinkin’.” He stood and dusted off his clothes. “You’re going to be alright and even if things get tough, you’ve got me and the girls to help pick you back up.” He held his hand out to me and I let him pull me to my feet.

I hugged him and kissed his cheek. “Thank you, for taking in this orphaned shark.”

He patted my back. “Go on home. No more running from life, you hear?”

I saluted him as I walked backwards. “Yes, sir!”

“You come by tomorrow evening, okay?” he called as he turned and headed towards his bar.

“Drinks on the house?” I challenged back, cupping my hands around my mouth to make sure he heard me.

Several people looked at us, but quickly averted their gazes when they saw my wide grin, revealing my shark teeth.

Silver just waved at me without turning to face me.

That was a yes.

I skipped down the street, humming a song I couldn’t remember the lyrics to.

My skipping abruptly halted when I found Theo making out with Tristan out in front of the shop she worked at.

Theo stepped back from Tristan her eyes bright with adoration.

“I think I’m going to puke,” I muttered and placed a hand on my stomach.

Theo turned and noticed me; her eyes widened, and she squeaked.

Tristan looked in the direction she was and smiled. “Hey, Kass. What are you up to tonight?”

“Kass, I, uh …” Theo didn’t finish the thought.

I waved my hand at them. “I’ve got to get home. I can’t stomach this discussion right now.”

“Kass, he isn’t like them!” Theo yelled.

Fury blazed down my spine, but I held myself in check. Theo was my best friend after all, and it wasn’t her fault that she’d been suckered into his charm. Instead of spinning around to yell like I wanted, I simply said, “Ask him about winter last year.”

Dropping that bomb, I wrapped my arms around myself and resumed walking home.

Tomorrow, my friend and I would have a long chat.