Hired Hunter (The Rover 2)

He pulled back only enough to meet my eyes.

Here goes nothing.

“Good news, your sister is alive. Bad news, I know this because she’s been visiting me in my dreams. Every single night. A sending. I had the first one before I left your house. It’s why I ran. I wasn’t sure how you’d handle it, and I wasn’t in any shape to pick up the pieces like when you fell apart the last time. If you crumbled so easily for an ex-girlfriend, how would you react to your sister?”

I couldn’t look him in the eye now. I’d said way more than I intended to.

He lifted my chin again, forcing my gaze to his. If any other man had done this, I would have slapped his hand away.

“Is that it?”

“Is that it?” I echoed. What?

I pulled away to look at him better.

He waited, face serious and composed.

“Why aren’t you freaking out right now?” I asked.

“Because up until a few seconds ago, I thought the Black Mage had killed my sister. This is good news. It means she’s alive out there and all we have to do now is find her.”

I didn’t trust the way he stood there taking all this as if it meant nothing more than his morning coffee order. I gave him a once over. “Who are you and what have you done with Fin?”

The corner of his lip quirked up, and he shook his head at me. “I'm glad you're feeling better.”

I climbed to my feet and straightened out my pants before meeting his eyes. “It's not that I feel better. It’s just that I wasn’t sure how to tell you what happened. I know how much your sister means to you, and I didn't want to break your heart all over again.”

I strolled back to the couch and threw myself into its worn embrace. Fin took the chair across from me, crossing one leg over the other before resting his hands on his knees.

“You haven’t broken my heart,” he said. “You’ve given me a gift, actually.”

“Even if Sol is a mage now?”

Fin shook his head. “I love my sister. I’ve always loved my sister and even if she’s a mage, we will figure it out. Was there anything else that you learned from the sending?”

Wow, what a question. To be fair, I tried to pay attention to my surroundings whene

ver Sol visited me, but we always seemed to be in the same empty misty forest with her at the center. How could I explain that to him without ensuring we hunted through every forest on the continent until we found the right one? I let out a long exhale and slowly drew breath back in, calming myself.

“Not a lot. She’s in a forest, but that’s all I could really make out.”

“Nothing else? Are you sure? Really sure?”

I pressed my palms into my thighs, fighting my annoyance. Of course, he would question me to death. Why wouldn’t I have taken that into account before I told him the truth?

“I am positive. I’ve dreamed of her every night since we left the Citadel, and she’s all I’ve been thinking out about during my waking hours. I don’t know where she is, but I promise if I see her again. I’ll try to figure it out.”

He nodded and pushed off the chair to wander into my kitchen.

I followed him in, giving him a look until he started rummaging through my cabinets. I cleared my throat, and he glanced back at me.

“What do you think you're doing?” I asked.

“Looking for a snack.”

“Don’t you have snacks at your house?”

He shrugged and continued his perusal through my kitchen.