Chapter 180
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I spray my area with some body mist, wanting to get rid of the burnt flesh scent lingering on my clothes. It’s going to be a long time before I can stomach barbecue again.
“Me too, please,” Ragnar says and lowers the windows. I spray him and the steering wheel.
The two of us sit in the car for a while once we get back to base. Being this close to the beach makes me feel at ease. The tension in my body relaxes enough for me to take a deep breath without feeling like I want to throw
- up.
“Are you okay?” he asks after a while.
“I don’t know,” I answer honestly. “I thought I had a pretty good idea of how things were going to go, but the only one who met my expectations was your father.”
“You shouldn’t encourage his behavior,” he huffs.
“He’s amazing at being an Elder. I don’t know what behavior you speak of,” I roll my eyes. He laughs, shaking his head.
“And that’s why you’re officially his favorite,” he smirks.
“You’re upset too. I can feel it,” I reach out to take his hand.
“I wouldn’t have been able to watch her die,” he whispers after a pause.
“With the way that he’s been acting, I think he would have killed her himself if he got her alone. I don’t think we’re going to see him for a while.”
“You tried talking him out of it?”
“I tried to convince him to banish her. Some wounds are a little too deep, though. There are things we can’t forgive. He saw them before going inside. She handed them off to her parents.”
“I don’t understand how she couldn’t tell,” he shakes his head.
“He’s probably as much to blame for that,” I reach to open the door. “You’d tell me if I were being rude to you, right?”
“Oh, yeah,” he smirks. “On the spot, but you’re not-”
“I’m not what?”
“I don’t think you know how to be mean to me,” he smiles. “Or anyone. It’s not your natural setting. You’re not a raging psycho until you’re provoked.”
“Lately, it feels like everyone has a reason to provoke me,” I sigh. He smirks and pokes my cheek.
“There are memes,” he informs me.
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Chapter 180
“What?” I laugh. He digs in his coat jacket and then offers me his phone.
“There are also really cool edits,” he adds. I shut the door and take the phone from him.
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The first thing to pop up on his feed is an edit or me yelling at someone. The camera then zooms in on him, and he’s got a huge, proud smile on his face. There’s another one where he’s laughing, and then it zooms out to me, raging with my eyes glowing blue.
There are articles about me, my work, and my school achievements. There are ads for Omega rights campaigns that have a picture of me arguing in court. There are even some cool ones of Ana and me. She gave an interview in which she said that I helped her heal.
“You’re changing the world, just like you set out to do,” he smiles at me.
“That makes me feel a little better,” I admit.
“Do you want to be here or are you okay with us going for a ride?” he asks.
“I would love to spend some alone time with you,” I nod. That’s all he needed to hear.
“So, I’ve been thinking about our living arrangements at the moment,” he says.
“I’m trying really hard not to think about that,” I admit.
“You’re very calm around the water,” he smiles and reaches out to give my thigh a squeeze. “I can’t live near the beach. The moisture in the air affects my affinity. We’d need to have a fire pit in our room so I can recharge.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know that. Why didn’t you say anything?”
“I sent you here because I know if something were to happen, you’d have an advantage, Baby. I needed you to feel safe, and I knew if I stuck you in a bunker somewhere, all you’d think about was being trapped in there. I didn’t want that.”
“Thank you,” I can’t help but smile.
“Anyway, I was able to find a place near our spot.”
“Our spot? As in the riverbank between the castle and my grandmother’s house?”
“Yes,” he nods. I’ve never thought of it as our spot, and I love that he does. “It’s on the other side of the river and more on your grandmother’s side.”
“Are we going there now?”
“We are,” he smiles.
I take a deep breath and try to shake off today’s events. I don’t want to think about any of it anymore. At least not right now. I want to stay here in the silence of the night with no one around and think of the future I now have with Ragnar.
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Chapter 180
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We stop in front of what looks like a swamp. I get out of the car with him. The gate is rusted and excruciatingly old. When he lifts it up to open it, it falls off the hinges. I laugh and push it over so it’s flat.
“We can drive over it,” I say and head back to the car.
We get back in the car, and he pulls up to the front of what used to be a lake house. Even in this lighting. I know this place had once been beautiful, and with a little love, it could be restored. Ragnar takes my hand and places something cold on my palm. A pair of keys.
“I didn’t want you to overthink it,” he shrugs.
“You bought us a house?” I ask.
“I did. A lot of renovations will be done while we’re away, but I want you to get a feel of it so when we get back. you can help me pick what goes in it.”
“You want my help this time?” I laugh.
“There will be a giant fish tank. I just want you to know that right now. I love that thing,” he laughs.
“I can live with the fish tank,” I agree. Especially after he told me why he had put one in our suite in the first place.
“Come on,” he says, pulling me with him.
He leads me up the stone steps. I can barely make them out with the height of the grass. The front doors are barely hanging on. The windows are mostly broken, and that’s a lot, considering most of them are floor–to- ceiling. The lights come on when we step inside, and it’s a mess, but the potential is insane.
The high ceilings are beautiful. The staircase is a lot, but there is plenty of time to redesign it. I hope. There’s a living room to the right with an amazing view of the mess in the front area. And towards the back, there’s a phenomenal view of our spot.
The back wall leads towards the kitchen. It’s beautiful and very vintage. The view of the riverbank continues and curves back towards the front of the house, where the dining room is. There’s a lot of water damage in this room.
“Six bedrooms. Six and a half bathrooms, a study, and a gaming room,” he informs me. I slide the back door open and step out onto the deck.
“Six bedrooms. That’s a lot of space,” I smile, looking back at him.
“I know,” he nods. “I know we’ve never talked about this, but I’ve always wanted a big family.”
“I’m thinking four,” I say and turn my attention to the water. “Maybe five, but four definitely.”
“Four,” he repeats, coming up behind me. “I can live with that.”
