Chapter 231
“Thank you,” I finally managed. That was all.
Dominic’s mother squeezed my hand once, then let go. “Speak of the devil,” she whispered, nodding her head toward a space a little ways down the field.
Dominic was standing about thirty feet away, talking to one of the pack elders. He had his hands in his pockets and he was nodding along to whatever was being said, but his eyes had drifted over to us.
When he saw me looking, he didn’t glance away. He just looked back. And smiled.
It was a small thing. Hardly anything to bother dwelling on. But despite my best efforts, I found myself smiling back.
“Go on,” his mother said, nudging me toward him.
My feet started moving before I could stop them. I walked over to Dominic, stiffly at first, then a little faster until I was standing beside him. When I glanced over my shoulder, his mother was gone, leading me to wonder if I had just had some kind of hallucination or talked to an angel. Or perhaps some kind of fae trickster that would come back to bite me in the ass.
“Hey,” I said as the elder excused himself, leaving us alone.,
“Hey.” Dominic turned to me, looking at me expectantly, waiting for me to say something. My face heated as I realized that I had come over without any purpose, which was unheard of these days. And I had no idea
what to say.
Just then, over by the capture the flag setup, I noticed that a group had gathered. I pointed. “Want to play?”
I cringed immediately. I felt like a kid on the fucking playground. But Dominic smiled. “Sure!” he said, and then grabbed my hand and pulled me over.
When we arrived, the attendant handed us each a vest. Dominic pulled his over his head, and I put mine on.
We were on the same team.
The game had already started, with the guests split across both sides of the roped-off field. There was a group of some players crouched behind a hay bale, whispering.
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Dominic looked at me. “Left or right?”
“Left,” I said. “Always left.”
We split off. I ducked around the left side of the field, staying low, keeping an eye on the flag planted at the far end. Someone on the opposing side made a run for ours and got tagged out immediately, which caused a loud argument. I ignored it and kept moving.
At some point, Dominic appeared beside me again, having apparently come to the same conclusion about the best angle of approach. We didn’t say anything. He went left and I went right, and I made it to the flag and grabbed it at the same moment someone grabbed the back of my vest.
“Got you,” said the person, who turned out to be a teenage boy about half my size, looking extremely pleased with himself.
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“Fair enough,” I said, and handed the flag back.
Dominic was laughing when I turned around. His head was thrown back, dark hair catching the sunlight. I felt a smile split across my face before I could stop it, and for a few moments, I didn’t try to stop it.
But then I froze.
Behind him, I saw a figure moving closer. They were wearing the opposite team’s vest, but it wasn’t that—I knew this person. And not in a good way.
For a split second, I saw a vision of my past life. An assassin in a dark cloak. A terrifyingly cool face staring at me from beneath a hood. And a poison-tipped knife plunging into my body.
That was the assassin from my past life. I was absolutely sure of it.
I stood there, frozen, my mouth hanging open. The person, whose face was still partially covered by a hood just as it had been in my past life, caught my eye. I saw a glimmer of blue eyes looking at me, and the faintest smile tugging at one corner of the slender mouth.
Then, before I could say anything, the teenage boy darted in front of me with the flag, jumping out of
Dominic’s reach.
“Hey!” Dominic laughed, chasing the kid. “Get back here, little twerp!”
By the time the kid and Dominic were gone, so was the assassin,
But I knew that it was him.
I felt it in my bones.
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