Running with Rogues

CHAPTER 40 - THE VAUGHANS

"Your mother wants to know why you're not answering her calls," Nia told me, the amusement in her voice evident.

"Um, because I don't need an earful right now," I retorted. I'd been fending off Mam's attempts to mind-link all night, and I'd had to put the burner phone on silent. "Tell her to quit trying."

"She says she ain't gonna yell."

I laughed both aloud and down the link. "Oh, sure. If you believe that, you'll believe anything."

"Well, I got off lightly. But she did shout at Uncle Rhys, and I ain't never seen them two fight before. I was going to explain it weren't his fault, all nice and calm like, but Rhodri beat me to it. The idiot." Here, she paused to sigh heavily. "He yelled at your mother, and now he's cuffed to Hannah. He's going to stay there until he cools off."

"We didn't mean to get anyone in trouble," Liam said. "We're really sorry."

Nia set the link to warming with a tired smile. "Nah, kiddo. It ain't your fault that Rhodri's a prize jackass. The rest of us put our heads down and looked all meek and got away with it. Well ... mostly. My raiding team is being swapped for Emmett's, so this here is our last little chat."

Emmett's raiding team. That meant Finn and the associated awkwardness, and it meant Joel and the associated urge to wring his neck. It was lucky we wouldn't have to see their faces. Unless they got themselves caught, of course, and if that happened, we'd have much bigger problems.

"But you're still doing the training thing, right?" I asked hopefully. "We're not going to anti-trespass for just anyone."

"We'll see about that. If things are rocky right now, you shouldn't risk it, Eva."

I chewed on my lip. I was so fed up of flockies that I would've risked just about anything for one of her hugs right then. "Okay, well, I miss you."

"I miss you too, pup," she said cheerfully. "But I do have to say goodnight now. We gotta move camp before the flockie scouts find us."

"Goodnight?" I asked. I was literally looking at the sky right now, and it was baby blue.

"You're sleepers," Nia explained, and I could feel her sniggering at her own joke like the nerd she was deep down. Liam and I sent our fond disgust right back. "Oh, screw you — that's funny."

She cut the link. We were left to look at each other, utterly bemused, and then Liam put an arm around me. I leant into him. We were trying to look like a couple this morning, because apparently we weren't convincing anyone.

"Crab cake?" one of the servers asked, brandishing a platter of featureless grey blobs.

I wrinkled up my nose. "No, thank you."

She waved the platter more aggressively. "Are you sure? I've been told they're lovely."

"We're sure," Liam said. And she listened to him, surprise surprise, because he was really tall and his wolf was grumpy this morning. We watched her walk away, and then we went back to scanning the room. We were in the canteen, but all the tables had been pushed against the walls, and it was full of people instead.

I'd done plenty of funerals in my lifetime. But never for a flockie, and never like this. Rogue funerals weren't exactly formal events. You turned up, you got piss-drunk and then you paid your respects to the dead by living more loudly for a few hours. You didn't have to tiptoe around the relatives, and they didn't have to endure an endless stream of condolences. This was just ... in a word ... miserable.

"Ew," I said. My eyes had landed on Mason, and he was chatting to a group of pack elders. They were all laughing and smiling away at everything word that came out of his mouth. "They ... like him?"