Everlasting Bad Boys by Noelle Mack, Cynthia Eden Shelly Laurenston Page B

as we do. But when the war ended, we found other wars to join and he came back here. To his horses and his…uh…”
    Shalin smirked. “His women?”
    Kyna gave a little wave of her hand, clearly deciding not to go down that road. “Only we fight as human in these wars.”
    “So you spend most of your time as human, too?”
    “Not as much as Ailean. ’Course, don’t think anyone does.”
    “That’s true,” Kennis agreed.
    “We do like it. Doubt we could live this way forever, though.”
    Kennis made a face. “Och! Never.”
    “Is it true you plan to be an Elder?”
    Shalin tensed at the sudden change of topic. “Aye.”
    “You don’t seem like an Elder.”
    “Well, I’m too young at the moment. Another three or four hundred years at least.”
    “Even then.” Kyna pushed her empty bowl away, as did her sister. Always the same, those two. They moved the same. Talked the same. Nearly everything synchronized. It was…strange. Especially because Shalin felt the twins did it all on purpose.
    “Even then what?”
    “Even then you don’t seem like an Elder. Is that what you really want?”
    For one hundred and forty-nine years, no one had asked her that before. Now she’d been asked twice. She looked down at her half-empty bowl of porridge, suddenly feeling no hunger at all.
    “They say I’ll make a good Elder. Fair.”
    “That’s not what I asked you, luv.”
    Shalin pushed her bowl away. “I promised her.”
    “Promised who?”
    “My mother. I promised my mother I’d become an Elder.”
    “The dead one?”
    Two pairs of eyes locked on Kennis and she winced. “Sorry. That came out wrong.”
    “How does that come out right?”
    “What my sister means, Shalin, is how can you base your future on something you promised someone who has long left this world for another?”
    “Honor. That’s how. I promised her.”
    “What about what you want?”
    “I didn’t say I didn’t want to be an Elder.”
    Kyna shook her head. “That’s not what we mean, Shalin. And you know it.” But before Shalin could press them on what they did mean, the twins abruptly pushed back their chairs, and stood. “We have to train.”
    “Something wrong?”
    “Not at all.” Kyna patted Shalin’s head and Shalin realized she’d have a lovely headache from that “gentle” touch. “We just realized how late the day is and more storms coming.”
    Shalin didn’t like the twins’ abrupt ending of their conversation, but she decided to ignore it, since they were too frightening a pair to push about anything.
    She slipped out the book she’d stowed away under her chair and flipped it open. She didn’t know how long she was reading before she sensed someone had sat next to her. Glancing up, she smiled. “Good morn to you, Arranz.”
    “And to you, mistress. Everything all right?”
    “Fine.”
    He leaned in a bit and whispered, “I was wondering, Shalin, if you could help me with something.”
    Other than reading, she had absolutely nothing to do. “Of course.”
     
    Ailean stomped down the hallway toward the kitchens. He needed a new rag and Madenn’s skills to stop the bleeding on his arm. But he abruptly stopped in the middle of the hallway and took several slow steps back.
    He looked into the room that held all the maps and documents necessary for when they made battle plans. He glared.
    Arranz sat at one of the tables, his feet up on the thick wood, his hands laced behind his head. Shalin stood before him in a dress Ailean had never seen. Even more annoying—she’d been posing when he walked in.
    “What in all the hells is going on?”
    Shalin gave him a quick, shy smile that had his entire body burning. “Arranz wanted to see this dress on me to see if it would look nice on his lady friend.”
    “Lady friend?”
    “Aye,” his brother answered, smugness personified. “She’s a tall human. About Shalin’s size and I wanted to make sure the dress would look good before I gave it to her. Since it