In Fury Lies Mischief (Midnight Mayhem 2)

“Good run?” She blows on her coffee.

“What’d I do now?” I smirk, flicking off my headphones to sit around the back of my neck.

She laughs. “Nothing. Yet. Are you ready? Where’s Saskia?”

I roll my eyes. “We’re not together, Perse. She doesn’t have to be everywhere I am.”

“True,” Perse murmurs, following me into the kitchen.

I start pulling out all the things that I need to make my protein shake.

“Don’t take too long. A lot of people are after her.”

I freeze.

I consider myself a reasonable person. I can look at both sides of any argument and decipher it to make sense to me, but Killian is something I can’t make sense of. You put his broken parts in my hands and all I’ll probably do is try to fix them, and Killian isn’t someone you can fix.

“You’ve got everything?” Kenan asks, pushing his aviator glasses down over his eyes. “Why the sad face?”

I grasp onto the handle of my suitcase and start heading to the front door. “I’m not sad.”

“You better not be. You had Killian Cornelii under you last night.”

Blowing on my to-go coffee, I ignore his jab as Val pulls down my driveway in a hot pink golf cart.

I pause. “What the?”

V laughs, bringing it to a stop outside the steps. “What? You’ve never seen a golf cart before? Come on. It’s easier to navigate around here with it.”

Chuckling, I jump up beside her as Kenan hops on the back, holding both of our suitcases. “Lucky all the rest of our luggage is already there. Don’t think we’d all fit otherwise.”

“Oh it has a trailer,” Val answers smoothly, putting the cart into first gear and jolting us forward toward Delila’s house. “How was your night with Trickster?”

“They fucked a lot and then he left her!” Kenan hollers from the back, just as we hit a speed bump.

“Can you not?” I glare at Kenan.

Kenan shrugs, blowing me a kiss.

“I’m glad the walls are soundproof, though I could have slept through a damn tornado last night.”

“Well, yeah, it was good. I don’t know, Val. I don’t know about him.”

“What about him?” she asks, looking at me over her arm every now and then. I’ve yet to ask her if she knew who I was after being told my last name was Dragavei, but I don’t know if I’m allowed to yet. Her long blonde hair is moving with the wind, her gold skin hitting the sun perfectly, as if they were meant to be a match. Her and the damn sun. I hope Val finds love one day, even if it’s not with Maya. I’m not sure Maya deserves her anyway.

“He’s complicated. There’s so much to Killian that I don’t think I’d ever come close to touching the surface.”

She pauses. “Do you want to go below the surface?”

It was a double-edged question. If I answer yes, that means that I want more. To know him more—which I do—but I’m not sure whether I want anyone else to know that yet. And if I answer no, Val will know I’m lying and then it’ll just bring me back to scenario one.

“I do,” I answer truthfully. “But not in that way. I want to know him because I feel connected to him.” I know the reason now, because we have known each other since I was born. Our souls recognized each other when my memories did not. Maybe that’s why it’s called soulmates, because they see each other even when the human eye cannot.

“Before you go any further with this,” Val adds, just as Delila’s house comes into view at the end of the road. “You need to know that Killian isn’t a man you should have feelings for. Not deep feelings. I’ve known him all of my life, Sass.” She pulls up to stop around a stone display fountain outside of the house. “And he isn’t someone that you can rely on to have feelings for.”

“Thanks.” I smile at her, because she’s only being my friend. Someone who I need on my side and who will tell me point blank if I’m not seeing something that is right in front of me. “I know, and that’s not what I meant when I said that I want to know him. I just mean—”

“—You want to know what’s beneath the surface.” Kenan rolls his eyes. “Seriously, do all girls talk like this during their girl time? You literally did a full circle.”

I ignore my annoying best friend and slide out of the cart, reaching for my suitcase from Kenan.

“Sass.” Val touches my arm, dragging her sunglasses over her head. “Just please remember what I said.”

We make our way through Delila’s house until we come out the other side through the sliding doors. Her home reminds me of the old Victorian mansions. You know the ones that have manicured hedges and statues in the backyard. The large patio stretches out onto the lawn, where a human-sized chessboard sits in the middle.