Page 29 of Justice
He had a choice, but I suspect the leader in him refused to accept it. “So then, what do you want to do? We go to them?”
He looked at her with disgust. “We aren’t going anywhere. I am going to them.”
She smirked. “With what money?” The realization hit him hard that she was right.The. King. Was. Broke. “Maybe you could call them and have them wire you funds. But wait, do you have their numbers? Should we look them up in the phone book? I wonder if they could even work the internet to wire it to you. By the way, can you work the internet to receive it?”
“Enough,” he boomed. “I’ve got your point. I’m dependent on you all.” He most definitely was not thrilled about this fact. He cleared his throat. “Would it be possible to hitch a ride to Arizona? Please.”
Liberty ignored the sound of his teeth grinding together as she smiled broadly. “A ride to Arizona, you say?” She looked to Sterling who gave her the nod of approval that his plane could go to that destination. “Well, it’s a good thing we just bought all these snacks. We’re about to have a nice little ride ahead of us.”
She skipped away, and Justice followed, grumbling under his breath, “I’m fucking thrilled.”
Chapter 14
JUSTICE
The fact was,I wasn’t thrilled about depending on a bunch of vampires to find my pack. I wasn’t thrilled about being moneyless in a strange world. I wasn’t thrilled about taking anyone back to the bunker I had bought on a whim what seemed like forever ago, and I most definitely wasn’t fucking thrilled to have my mate look at me like a pitiful, broken puppy she found on the side of the road.
I wasn’t broken. Not yet. Not ever. Just a bit scarred and slightly damaged.
But I wished the mate would stop looking at me like she feared I would snap. I hadn’t cracked yet. Not completely. And if I did snap, it most definitely wouldn’t be in front of her. She already saw me as weak, already had a predetermined notion about me and the stability of my mental wellbeing. I absolutely couldn’t fuel her judgment further.
“We’re almost there,” she announced as if I hadn’t seen the preppy one – Sterling – whisper it in her ear as she giggled like a fucking liquored-up preteen just moments before.
“Thanks for the update, mate.” I glared at the man whose hand was resting on her thigh, creeping further up her leg than I liked. I wasn’t delusional. I had no doubt that my mate fucked around with every single one of them, a disgusting but actual fact. That didn’t mean I wanted to witness it firsthand.
“It’s Liberty, not mate.”
I sneered. “One and the same.”
Her posture straightened, her eyes locked on to mine. Whereas most would recoil at the mere glance from me, my mate’s back stiffened with challenge. “Actually. It’s not.”
“In our society –” I began to explain thatmateis often used instead of a name. It’s a symbolic connection. It’s ownership. It’s- not anything I want to display when my crest was already seared into her skin for all to see.
Luckily, she saved me from explaining further. “I’m not part of your society, and I would prefer my name.”
Yet. I wanted to tack on the word to her declaration, but it froze in my throat because I wasn’t sure I actually wanted her there. It was the mate bond I knew, forced upon us by the fates. “I cannot and absolutely will not call you Liberty. Our names together sound, so –”
“You guys sound like a cheesy superhero team,” Sterling pipped in, and she reached her fingers over to his leg and pinched him. He made a show of acting like it hurt, but he was immortal; I doubt he felt a simple pinch.
“What he said.” I sighed because I actually didn’t understand what he meant, but I knew for a fact that if she pinched him for it, then it went with my reluctance.
“You both are children,” she spat.
Sterling didn’t look a bit put off by her animosity. In fact, he only grinned further before curling his body around her and kissing her neck. A growl rumbled in my chest, and it only made Sterling’s grin grow in the most taunting of fashions. If he weren’t fronting the cost of this journey, I would have torn my teeth into his jugular already, and it would have had nothing to do with my mate and everything to do with his cocky grin.
“I haven’t been a child in many years, Mate.” I raised an eye in challenge.
Her eyes fell on each of us. “I sometimes forget how old you guys are. I’m surrounded by a bunch of old men.”
“My performance isn’t old,” Sterling added.
She laughed at that, and I had never been more jealous in my life than I was right now at that arrogant bastard. Her hand patted his cheek lovingly, and he melted – literally melted- into her touch. “That most definitely is full of youth.”
I growled again, and her eyes turned to me. Such mesmerizing orbs of blue, like looking at the spot where the blue sky meets the ocean. I cleared my throat. “If I cannot call you mate, I don’t know-”
She cut me off. Silencing the king without a fucking thought. Lesser of a being could have, no, would have been punished. “Libby.”
“What?”