“He sent a text,” Val said. “Said he’d be here any minute.”
I heaved a sigh. “And here I was having such a good time.”
Skyla choked on a sip of her drink. Hugh pounded her back until she caught her breath and said, “Thorin can be a little prickly when you first meet him.”
“A little?”
“Your brother looked up to him,” Hugh said.
“Really? I never saw Mani pay much respect to authority.”
“Thorin’s not your average boss,” Skyla said.
“Glad you all think so highly of me.” Speak of the Devil, and he doth appear. Thorin appeared beside the table, silent and wary. He wore dark slacks, a white shirt loosened at the collar showing the gleam of something metallic around his neck, and sleeve cuffs rolled back to reveal an archaic pair of bracelets made of a dark metal. The strange accessories should have conflicted with his urbane facade, but they had the opposite effect. I suspected he wore them for reasons other than fashion.
The only empty seat at the booth was the one next to me. That meant spending the evening crammed between Thorin’s not-so-subtle disdain and Val’s flirtatious advances. I gritted my teeth and scooted over. Thorin slid in beside me. “What’s in the pitcher?” he asked.
“Margaritas!” Skyla said, her enthusiasm a likely side effect of imbibing said pitcher’s contents.
“Dos Equis,” Val said in a more reserved tone.
Thorin slid an empty glass toward Val, and he poured it full of beer. Thorin turned his attention to me. “Hello again, Miss Mundy.”
I nodded and offered a thin smile. The way he insisted on keeping formal terms chafed me, but I didn’t correct him. Voicing an objection might have given him the impression that I cared. I leaned back in the booth and tried my best to observe without drawing further attention. Thorin offered little conversation, but his dark eyes took in everything.
The waiter came by again and dropped off a giant platter of nachos. Everyone dug in, but my appetite had slid away the moment Thorin arrived.
Skyla noticed my empty plate. “Not hungry, Mundy?”
“I think I filled up on the salsa,” I said.
Val forked up a gooey pile of nachos and plopped them onto a plate. He handed it to me. “You have to have some, just a bite.”
Because refusing might seem rude, I scooped up a gob of chips and shoved them in my mouth. The gooey concoction coated my tongue in a greasy kind of bliss, and I licked cheese and crumbs from my fingers. The hairs on my neck prickled, and I turned to find Thorin watching me, as intense and somber as usual. His eyes flicked to my mouth before meeting my gaze. His irises weren’t black as I had presumed, but a deep, sable brown flecked with chips of copper. I suppressed the urge to shiver.
Later, after the pitchers were drained and empty dinner plates cleared, Val turned to Thorin. “We’ve got that day hike tomorrow at nine, right?”
Thorin nodded. “I gave you the itinerary yesterday.”
“Yeah, I just thought it was about time for us to hit the road.”
“Sure.”
“You coming with us?”
“No, I’m staying the night. I have business.”
Skyla snorted. “Is that what you’re calling her these days?”
Thorin narrowed his eyes at Skyla, but he refrained from saying anything more until after we paid our check. Thorin slid out from his seat and held his hand out for me. Oh, the clichés about electric touches, I knew them all. They were the trappings of fairy tales and romance novels—for everyone but me. In my world, those kinds of touches were literal, and disturbing. I slid my palm across Thorin’s larger, rougher one, and in the length of time it took for a spark to jump from his hand to mine, I saw an image of a giant man wearing a helmet that shielded his face. Over his shoulder he carried a massive weapon, something like a sledgehammer but more elegant.
I was no empath or telepath. I didn’t sense feelings or moods or read people’s minds, but if an idea was vivid in a person’s thoughts, I sometimes got an impression of it when we touched. The phenomenon was inconsistent, and I suspected it had to do with the intensity of the other person’s thoughts rather than my own sensitivity. Of course, I had never subjected my theories to scientific methodology, so I was open to explanations.
My visions also usually lacked the necessary context for interpretation, and no way was I going to push Thorin’s buttons by asking him why he was thinking so strongly about helmets and hammers. People tended to react badly to invasions of privacy, and nothing was more private than the content of a person’s thoughts. Thorin must have sensed something, though. His brow wrinkled as he pulled me to my feet, and he didn’t immediately let go. “Good night, Miss Mundy.”
I had to swallow before I could answer him. “Good night.”
“Drive carefully.”
“I’m not driving.”
Before Thorin could reply, Val drew me away. “I got it under control. She’ll be safe as houses.”
“Safe as what?” I said as Val turned me toward the door.
Val ignored my question and lowered his voice when he said, “Watch yourself with him, Solina.”
On the way home, Val spoke little and mumbled monosyllabic replies to my attempts at conversation. The others either didn’t notice or chose to ignore his peculiar mood. I said nothing about it until Val delivered me to Mani’s front door and issued a tersely worded goodbye. I slid my key in the deadbolt, clicked the lock open, and turned to confront him. “What got stuck in your craw?”
“Excuse me?” Val said with faint amusement.
“You barely said a word all the way here. Is it something I did?”
Val turned grim. “I’m serious about Thorin. He’ll eat you up. Women are his favorite snack food. You should keep your distance.”
“He’s condescending and aloof. I don’t think that will be difficult.”
