Page 127 of Sky’s Edge

“This is just—” Laura started.

“Bizarre,” Monique finished.

“No, it’s unacceptable,” I spat.

“It really is,” Laura agreed, her tone shifting from shocked to angry.

“Why haven’t you mentioned any of this earlier?” Monique asked Gayle.

Gayle turned away, took another sip, then a visibly deep breath, but she didn’t come back to us.

I knew why.

I saw the pain on her face.

However, it warred with something vastly different.

She wanted to be there.

Because Cormac was hers. Or he should be.

And he was there.

I thought of the longing I felt for Tanyn during our brief separation. It was almost unbearable. I had no appetite. It was hard to sleep. And he was on my mind all the time.

What would have been more unbearable was, if I’d elected to stay at Berg Castle, with him close, but still oh so very far away from me.

No, that wouldn’t have been more unbearable.

It would have been agony.

Gayle and Cormac were linked.

By fate.

I knew Laura came to this same conclusion when she whispered, “Oh, honey.”

Gayle didn’t return to us but admitted to some wall in whatever room she was in, “It’s like, I live for him to show up just to piss me off.” We watched her close her eyes tight, open them and come back to us. “It’s stupid. It’s crazy. I keep reminding myself what an asshole he is, but it doesn’t work. I just…somewhere deep down inside…feel like I’m…gods…”

She stopped talking.

We all waited.

She finished glumly, “Home.”

“Now, be totally honest with us about how it was since you figured out it was Cormac, and then he left after the Midnight Masque,” Laura bossed. “Were you able to cope with it, or were you putting on a brave face?”

“I care about Sirk, a lot,” she stressed. “He’s a good male. We enjoy each other. That wasn’t about settling. It was about moving on.”

“Okay, we get that,” Monique said. “But it doesn’t answer Laura’s question.”

“It’s not Sirk,” she said miserably. “It’s not right. And Sirk feels it. In fact, before Cormac kidnapped me, we had a date, and the way Sirk made that date, I’m pretty sure he was going to break up with me.” She pulled her shoulders forward in a defeated movement before she went on, “I mean, he has his own mate to search for. It wasn’t like we’d last.”

Although that was true, none of this was making me any less angry.

In fact, it was making me more so.

“I don’t want to talk about me anymore,” Gayle said. “I just wanted to see you gals. And I wanted you to see I’m fed, I’m watered, I’m working. It’s kind of like being on a weird vacation broken up with doing what I’m paid to do by my employers. I’m reading a lot. Taking a ton of walks. There’s a lovely pool here where I can swim. I don’t have to worry about supplying my Cook-Companion or staying out of the way of my vac-bot or making sure the detergent levels in my closet’s laundro are good.”