Chapter 35

“Could have guessed it,” Orion says with a sigh, moving his gaze away from Anton and back to me. “You hear it all the time with these first loves – they get the girls young, get them wrapped up in a promise –“

“Hey!” I gasp, utterly offended. “Blythe is not like that –“

“Oh, that is precisely what happened,” Anton murmurs, leaning back against the chest of drawers behind him. “He’s a real kiss-ass, that one, and uncannily good at figuring out what people want to hear –“

“Good looking too?” Orion asks, curious.

Anton nods deeply, his eyebrows going up. “Real movie-star looks – but like, annoyingly so, like too perfect? No personality in them?”

“Yeah,” Orion says, nodding, “I get what you mean. A guy needs a certain –“

“Okay, I’m finished with this!” I shout, sitting straight and glaring between the two boys who are wantonly discussing my relationship as if I’m not here and as if they know it better than I do. “Whatever this cute Underworld Bro Club is – I am not going to be the focus of its conversation any longer! So, if you two want to keep being friends or whatever…you’re going to change the topic.”

Anton and Orion both immediately quiet and turn to give me nearly identical smirks, entertained. I blink, looking between them, surprised.

God, they really are a pair, aren’t they?

“You guys are weird,” I murmur, narrowing my eyes, a little disturbed.

“Whatever, I like having a friend,” Orion murmurs, holding out a hand for Anton to slap. “Welcome to the club, my guy.”

“Good to be here, man,” Anton says, giving Orion a grin and smacking the prince’s palm with his own.

“Cool, now that that’s established,” Orion says with a sigh, turning back to me. “We can talk about how arrogant and dangerous and foolish you’re turning out to be, Princess.”

I sigh, my shoulders slumping, my lower lip jutting out in what I hope is a cute pout. “Can’t we go back to bro time?”

Orion scowls even as Anton smirks, holding back his laugh, unable to help it.

“Whatever,” I sigh, leaning back against the arm chair. “We didn’t die.”

“For the second time today,” Anton says, his tone dry. “I don’t think barely escaping death is a great measure of success, Junie.”

“Um, for a place called the Deadlands,” I say, casually looking at my nails and considering them. “I think it might be.” Impulsively, I call up a bit of nail polish and wish it immediately onto my nails, which turn a pretty shade of pitch black.

Orion sighs, realizing that the pair of them aren’t getting anywhere with this particular shame tactic. He leans towards me. “Juniper, humans can’t go there without aid, all right?” he says. “I get that you didn’t know that before – we would have told you, if we thought you were intending to go. But you have to promise me that you won’t go back.”

“Oh god, don’t try to make her promise something –“

“No way,” I snap, flicking my eyes up from my nails and looking Orion in the eye. “Next time you’ll just have to come with me.”

Orion balks at me, appalled.

“Listen, Orion,” I say with a swaggering sigh, leaning forward with brash confidence, not stopping to give myself time to think about whether it’s smart. “You’re the one who broke the story of my engagement last night. And if you think that your little plan to drive a wedge between Anton and I was going to work, it didn’t.”

I move my eyes to Anton here, knowing that it’s a lie, knowing that we still have a great deal of talking to do, but hoping to hell he still has my back.

My ghost boy gives me a subtle nod, letting me know he’s there. And I give him the tiniest of smiles as I shift my gaze back to Orion, who is scowling a bit to have his devious plan found out.

“But all it did,” I continue, “was make us more united. The only thing keeping me from going to find Blythe before was the fact that I’m keeping it a secret. Now that everyone knows?” I shrug. “What’s to stop me?”

“Just the fact that where he is,” Orion says, leaning towards me and looking at me like he’s not sure I have fully regained my senses, “is filled with souls desperate for a taste of your life and who will suck you dry within minutes.”

“Yes, but now I know that,” I say quite peacefully, conjuring a cup of coffee out of the air and tapping my freshly manicured nails across the china before taking a sip. “And now I have you to help. So? Problem solved.”

Orion huffs a laugh, sitting back, clearly not giving into my demands so easily. “Yeah, I’m not doing that.”

“Orion,” I say, quite peaceful and sweet, attempting to channel all the Ariel Sinclair I can. “You want to marry me, right?”

He goes still and so does Anton, confused by this change in tactic.

I take another sip of my coffee before setting it on the floor next to me. “Or, at least, I am potentially your mate, yes?”

Orion scowls a bit but then gives in to my line of questioning. “You’re a potential candidate, yes.”

“Your most wayward and difficult candidate?”

He snarls a little, indicating that I am, but otherwise not answering.

I work hard to hide my smirk, knowing that I should be cowed more by this prince, by my rush with death this morning but…I don’t know. Honestly I’m enjoying all of this far more than I should be.

“Wouldn’t I be much, much less wayward and difficult if I were actually trying in this competition?” I whisper, leaning forward towards him, holding his gaze.

He stares at me, his head tilted, confused.

“What are you getting at, June?” Anton asks.

I glance sideways to see Anton frowning at me, leaning hard against the dresser, his hands deep in his ghost pockets.

“I’m saying that I don’t believe that I’m your mate,” I say with a sigh, focusing again on Orion. “I want to be with Blythe. If you want to change my mind about that,” I shrug. “Why not stand side by side with him? Let me…you know. Realize the difference between you two. Choose the better man.”

Orion raises an eyebrow at me. “And if you choose him?”

“Would you even want me, Orion?” I say, twisting my lips with doubt as I lean towards him, letting my hair fall in my face a bit, my voice soft and silky. “If I chose some ghost over you? A nobody from my home world, just some un-magical Cadet with no divine lineage at all?”

Anton stiffens at my description but I don’t look at him, holding Orion’s gaze.

Because as much as Orion thinks he’s got me all figured out, I’m figuring him out too. I see the streak of hubris that runs through him, the amount of personal clout he gleans from being the Heir to the Underworld, the one and only son of the God of Death.

Anton was right that first night – this boy has probably never been anything but petted and admired and told ‘yes’ his whole life. And as much as he likes it when I’m spunky and obstinate, the idea that I’d take some nobody over him?

God, he can’t stand the idea.

“Look, it’s more complicated than that,” Orion snaps, shaking his head. “I can’t just take you to him – we’d have to locate him first. And the only way to do that is to go to the Goddess of Life’s temple, where the maps are, and ask the Priestesses to do the sacred divinations. It’s a long process, Juniper.”

“Cool,” I say with a shrug. “Well, we have like, twenty weeks, right?” I blink at him like I’m wondering where the problem is, why this is hard. “Let’s get started.”

Orion just stares at me for a long moment like he’s contemplating new ways to tell me no when suddenly a Herald appears at his side, making me jump. I flinch for a second, thinking that it’s Nic, but when the Herald speaks I realize that it’s someone else entirely. Just…same uniform, same frightening aura and muscular build.

“Sir?” the Herald says, looking down at Orion, a little awkward. He looks around at all of us sitting on the floor like it’s the most bizarre thing he’s ever seen.

“What is it?” Orion snaps, impatient.

“The Princess Laila,” the Herald says, bowing his apology. “She’s growing worried that you are so late. Should I tell her that you are…indisposed?”

“Shit,” Orion murmurs, quickly getting to his feet. I gape at him, surprised.

Orion glances around, grabbing a jacket off the back of his chair, but then he stills a bit and smiles when he sees my face.

“What?” he asks, pleased. “You don’t like the idea of me going on a date with Laila?”

He smirks at me and my wolf growls, not liking how pleased he is when he sees just how much I don’t like that written plain on my face.