Archaic (Reverse Harem 2)

Her voice rips me from my trance, and I look down at the picture.

“That’s the crest,” I say. “The one you drew for us.”

“It is. He didn’t know much about it. Said it was a gift to his father from a Cat in Egypt named Merti,” Penny says.

“Why didn’t you simply take the ring?” Toshi asks.

“What?” Penny asks.

“The ring. Why take a picture of it when you could have brought the ring?”

“It’s a good point,” I say, my eyes turning to Penny. “That’s kind of what you do.”

“I’m not a thief. I’m a scavenger. There’s a difference,” she says.

“It would’ve been better if you brought the ring with you,” Toshi said.

“Your fleas biting you a little too hard today?” Penny asks.

Toshi’s eyes harden on her as I prepare to interject myself. The last thing we all need is a squabble between us. We have all been on our respective journeys, and we are all here for Clarissa. The topic needs to stay on that. On finding this underground clan of warriors and taking them down.

“Toshi, what did you find?” Clarissa asks.

We all watch him look around before he lowers his voice.

“It wasn’t what I found. We didn’t find anything in Thailand. Not a whiff of one single primal. But Hiro and I did stop to get some drinks after our journey, and there was something he said that caught me off-guard.”

“What did he say?” I ask.

“He said ‘You are a good one. Not like the others, but their end is coming.’”

“The hell does that mean?” Sebastian growls.

“What were you two talking about?” I ask.

“We weren’t. I was ordering us drinks,” Toshi says.

“So you found nothing, got drunk, and come back to us with another prophecy from the old man,” Sebastian says.

“What did he mean by ‘their end is coming’?” Clarissa asks.

“Who’s ‘they’?”

“I don’t know,” Toshi says, shrugging. “He had to go to the bathroom after that.”

“So you didn’t even bother to ask him? Or follow him? Or corner him until he told you?” Sebastian asks with a growl.

“We don’t operate the way Wolves do. We don’t garner our information via methods of intimidation.”

“Seeing as you betrayed us once, I find it curious you’re not the least bit concerned about your friend’s words.”

“Enough,” Clarissa says. “It sounds like our only lead is Egypt.

Penny, you said the cat’s name was Merti?”

“Yes,” she says. “Merti from Egypt.”

“Then that’s where we need to go next.”