He Used Me For Her, I Revealed My Royalty

Chapter 4

"What way could you possibly have?"

Drake's voice had crossed into pure impatience.

"Still trying to play tough at this point? I knew it. I knew you couldn't be trusted with anything, and now you'll come crying that it's my fault, that I did this to you."

"Drake, sweetheart, don't be hard on her."

Tiffany tugged delicately on his sleeve, then turned to me with her softest, sappiest voice. "Elena, if you're really stuck,I do know a guy down at the harbor who runs a seafood freight boat. The smell's a bit strong, but he sometimes takes passengers along…"

She tapped at her phone and turned the screen toward me.

A hastily snapped photo: a battered fishing boat, the deck heaped with stinking nets and dead fish, a few drunk sailors sprawled out napping on top.

I stared at the disgusting little image.

"No."

I refused again, my eyes flicking between them, the corner of my mouth lifting just slightly.

"My way home is a little faster than the cruise."

Drake clearly didn't believe me. He'd decided I was just clinging to my last shred of pride.

He waved a hand, washed of any patience. "Fine, fine, do whatever you want. Don't blame me when you can't get back."

"Tiffany and I are leaving first thing tomorrow. Just don't forget those seats."

He grabbed Tiffany's hand and turned to leave.

Move-out day arrived with surprisingly beautiful weather.

I'd just rolled my little suitcase out of the dorm building when, behind me, came the two voices I least wanted to hear.

"Elena, you didn't get a ticket and you're still going?"

Tiffany hurried up beside me, her eyes flickering with interest. "So you're… off to beg the fishing boat captain after all?"

Drake frowned, looking me over the way you'd size up some clueless lower-rank wolf making a fool of themselves. "You said you didn't have a ticket. Where exactly are you headed with that suitcase? Don't tell me you're catching some smuggler ship."

The disgust practically oozed off him.

"Those things are filthy. Crawling with stray wolves, every kind of lowlife you can imagine. Last term some Omega took one and came back smelling like cheap tobacco mixed with rotting fish,gave me a headache for days."

He folded his arms and pointedly stepped half a pace back, as if I were already contaminated by some odor he couldn't bear.

"If you actually take that thing, don't show your face around me for a while. I'd be embarrassed. My Luna can't have that kind of taste."

His expression said I was about to humiliate him.

"Drake, sweetie, don't be so harsh… Elena obviously had no other choice."

Tiffany turned to me with that same saintly, considerate look. "That seafood boat I mentioned,sure, it stinks, and yes, it's slow, but it's something. I can send you the contact right now. Better than crawling onto a smuggler ship."

She made it sound as though I'd hit absolute rock bottom and needed her to throw me a lifeline.

Drake heard her and shook his head at me. "See how kind Tiffany is? Stop being ungrateful."

"Take the contact, take the ferry,anything's better than running around blind. And the sooner you're on the island, the sooner you can save those temple seats."

I watched the two of them play their little duet, and the last sliver of expectation I had left in me went to ice.

I twitched my mouth into a smile. "Don't trouble yourselves. I have somewhere to go."

"Somewhere to go?"

Drake's brow knit harder. He clearly didn't believe a word. "Where? You don't have any other Pack on this side of the ocean."

"Home," I said calmly.

"Home?"

Drake said it like he'd just heard the funniest joke of the year.

"Without a ticket? How? You gonna fly there?!"

His tone was meant to be venomous mockery.

I nodded, perfectly earnest. "Yes. By helicopter."