“Maybe not. Maybe your atrocious behavior is what saved you,” Einar says.
I don’t like that comment. I don’t think my behavior is atrocious. I do what I need to do in order to survive and stay sane. He’s judging me like a goddamn tutor at the academy.
“So is that a yes on the pancakes, or a not so much?” Rafe interjects again, though his tone suggests he might be losing faith in pancakes.
My uniform leathers and helmet are stacked neatly on the floor next to the kitchen door. One of Kirin’s servants must have done that.
I pick them up and start putting them on. Rafe and Einar watch me with somewhat dumbfounded expressions. It feels good toput the kit on. It feels good to assume another identity, even if it’s the identity of a disposable, interchangeable delivery grunt.
“Where do you think you are going?” Einar asks the question as I spin on my heel.
“Work.”
“You’re not going to work, Darcy. It’s ridiculous for you to work as a delivery driver.”
“Why?”
“For starters, you’re currently missing from the academy.”
“You want me to go back to school? The same school that is apparently fast tracking me into being a harem girl? Make up your mind, Einar.”
“Don’t speak to me that way, whelp.”
He’s getting stern again, which I like. It’s exciting to annoy him. And he has certainly done more than enough to annoy me lately.
“Would you make us some pancakes, please, Einar,” Rafe says. “I’ll deal with this one.”
Without waiting for a response from either of us, Rafe grabs me and throws me over his shoulder. He carries me out of the kitchen and into a dining room adjacent. Like the rest of the house this is full of period drama furniture that is somehow also brand new.
“You can’t rile him up like that before he makes the pancakes,” he says, sitting me down at the table with him. “You could have waited until after, and then you’d be having this argument on a full stomach.”
I look at the man sitting next to me. He’s at the head of the table, and I’m off to the side, our chairs somewhat diagonal to one another. Rafe is really fucking hot, but there’s something about him that’s just… absent. It’s hard to put my finger on, but he has my attention now.
“What is your deal?”
“What do you mean, what is my deal?”
“Literally all I know is that you like pancakes…” I also know he once put his finger in my ass, but I don’t want to bring that up. Other than that, this man is a charming, smiling enigma.
“There’s not much more to me than that,” he says, smiling broadly at me, like this is all some big joke that only he knows the punchline to.
“Well, I’m going to work after breakfast. I signed a contract. And I like it. I’m good at it,” I tell him.
“And you look cute in the uniform, and it annoys Daddy, I mean, Einar.”
“Why do you call him Daddy?” I laugh as I ask the question. It’s hard to stay angry around Rafe. He just doesn’t take things as seriously as either of the other two. Maybe he has less skin in the game.
“Because it annoys him, and pleases him. He’s the leader of this outfit, and more besides. You don’t know a lot about the situation you’re in just yet, Darcy.”
“I know that you guys abducted me. You’re kidnappers.”
“Yeah. Well. About that. We did it for a good reason.”
“You wanted to try anal in a van?” I snap the response, even though the words themselves make me blush.
He laughs, a deep, pleased sound. “No,” he says. “That was just a bonus to the whole experience. Though, one day, I do intend to have the hole experience, if you get my meaning.”
I do get his meaning, and it makes me blush even deeper.
