#Chapter 385 – The Long…Long Road
Ella
It takes me just a little over an hour to realize that…I hate road trips.
“Oh my god,” I murmur to Cora as the vibrations of the gigantic RV continue to shake through us, making poor Rafe grumble uncomfortably. “Is it night yet? Can we stop?”
“You’re being a baby, Ella,” my sister replies, looking up at me with a smirk, jumping her red king over three of Roger’s black checkers and capturing them. “It’s fun!”
“You’re only having fun because you’re kicking Roger’s ass for the third time at that game,” I murmur, sighing as I glance out the window.
“Seriously,” Roger sighs, leaning back against the white leather of the kitchenette’s booth. “You should quit that, Cora. For Ella’s sake – she’s trying to enjoy herself.” He runs a frustrated hand through his hair, staring at the board.
“Yes,” Cora replies, laughing. “For Ella’s sake, I’ll go easy on you.”
“I just thought it would be prettier,” I sigh, looking out the window at the endless highway miles. “Like, purple mountains majesty. Fruited plains. Etcetera.” Instead, it’s just hour after hour of looking at cars, and asphalt, and the sad little pine scrub that borders the highways.
“Maybe when we get further out,” Cora offers, hopeful. “Nah,” Roger replies, making his next move on the checker’s board. “After the forest it’s all corn for days.”
I groan, leaning my head back. “I hate corn.”
“No, you don’t,” Cora chides, instantly making her next move on the board and capturing two more of Roger’s pieces. He gasps in protest and then slumps back again.
“How are you doing this,” he murmurs, studying the board. “Are you a witch?”
“Maybe,” she says with a shrug.” Guess we have to ask mom.”
I smile at her then, bouncing my fussy baby in my arms. And I inhale a deep breath, silently ordering myself to cheer up because even if I decidedly do not like riding in the RV, I’m still excited to take this trip for my sister, to get her the answers she so desperately wants.
Eventually Cora and I retire with the baby to the bedroom where Sinclair suggests I might not feel the movement of the RV as much. The boys all stay together up front, studying maps and discussing ridiculous things like terrain and gas mileage things. they find endlessly fascinating for some weird boy reason. But I shrug and leave them to it. Cora and I curl up in the incredibly comfortable bed and spend our time chatting, watching movies, and napping lightly with the baby between us.
It ends up being a wonderful day in the little sun-soaked room at the back of the RV, laughing and talking with my sister, reconnecting with her and with the peace that I’ve been missing from my life since that terrible day when those men broke through my window.
“Do you think it’s all really over?” I ask her in a quiet moment as the sun starts to sink to the horizon.
Cora doesn’t bother to ask me what I’m talking about – she already knows. “I don’t,” she sighs, telling me honestly. “I think…well, Ella, I think we picked mates with big lives. I think we’re going to have to snatch at moments of peace whenever we have them because the next challenge is always coming. And that we’re going to have to fight to make that peace in our lives, because…something is always going to try to steal it away.’
I sigh, looking down at my napping baby, trailing a little finger down his belly. “Are we dumb?” I ask quietly. ” Did we choose wrong? I mean – neither of them are our fated mates. We picked this…should we have chosen simpler lives?”
“You don’t want a simpler life,” Cora laughs, and I look up at her in surprise to see her smiling and shaking her head at me.
“What?” I ask, sitting up straight, ” Cora, I was a nanny – I was ready to be a broke single mom, to live quietly alone with my baby.
“Nah,” she says, waving a hand at me in dismissal. “That was just the start of your story, Ella, always. Yes, you were always going to be a mom,” she says, cocking her head to the side, “but…you were never going to stop helping people. I think it kind of makes sense that you ended up being such a good pair for Dominic. He opens a door for you to help thousands when he is king, and I think that was always your fate.”
“Huh,” I say, considering what she’s saying. And I guess…well, I guess I think she’s right. That this was perhaps always the life I wanted, even if I want to pretend sometimes that I wanted a simple life.
“And also,” she adds, her voice dropping lower. “I’m actually…I’m not sure if Roger isn’t my fated mate,” she says, considering.
“Really?” I ask, my eyes going wide. ” But you’re a human -”
“I know,” she says, frowning. “But… Ella, this thing between us,” she says, shaking her head. “It feels really big. I don’t…know how to explain it except like that.”
“Did you feel a mating bond snap into place?” I ask, curious.
“I don’t know,” she says, turning back to me. “But Roger said it first, when we were out in that rainstorm – that day when we had to stop at the roadside motel.”
I grin at her, knowing what happened that day, and she blushes a little and rolls her eyes. But I lean forward eagerly, wanting to know. “What did he say?”
“That I was his mate,” Cora replies, giving a little shrug. “But the way he said it so definitive. Not I choose you as my mate. Just…that I was.”
“Wow,” I say, impressed, a little jealous. I have no hesitations about Sinclair as my chosen mate, and I know that what’s between us is far beyond anything he had with his own fated mate. But still – it’s an experience I’ll never have. “Well,” I continue, “did you ask him about it?”
“No,” she says, shrugging again.
“Why not?”
“Because,” she sighs. “I…like the idea. I don’t want him to tell me that I’m not.” “Well, I’ll go ask -” I say simply, scooching forward on the bed, ready to jump off.
“Ella!” she gasps, grabbing my arm.
“What?” I reply, looking at her wide-eyed.
“Stop meddling!” she laughs, tugging me back down. “That’s between me and him!”
“And me now! Since you told me!”
Cora laughs, throwing a pillow at me.” Lay down, trouble,” she growls, doing her best impression of Sinclair. I laugh and snatch the pillow out of the air. Then I do as she says, sighing as I lay down and reaching out to gently pull my little baby closer to me.
“Okay, I won’t,” I murmur, smiling up at my sister. “But you have to tell me as soon as you know. Do you think you’ll ask mom?”
“Probably,” she says, smiling contentedly. Then her face falls a little as she cocks her head at me. “Do you think you have a fated mate somewhere out there, Ella? Looking for you?”
“Nah,” I say, smiling down at my baby. “Not everyone gets one, they’re pretty rare. So,” I shrug, smiling down at my baby and leaning over to give him a little kiss on the head. “I think the Goddess gave me Sinclair, and he’s more than I could ever ask for.”
“Damn right I am,” my mate says, coming into the room and leaning against the wall, smiling down at us. He and Roger switched driving positions about an hour ago at a rest stop where Cora and I picked up some more snacks. “What are you two talking about?”
Cora opens her mouth to bring up the fated mate question, but I interrupt, not wanting Sinclair to even have to consider it. “Who loves their Sinclair brother more,” I say simperingly, smirking at him. “Me or Cora. We just can’t decide, we’re both so obsessed. with you two -”
Sinclair growls playfully, coming swiftly to the side of the bed and laying himself down on it, fitting his body close to mine. “You’d better be winning, little mate,” he murmurs, nuzzling me as he slips an arm around my waist and pulls me close. “I can’t let Roger have this one.” I laugh and assure him that I am indeed winning as his stubble rushes against my skin, tickling me and making me laugh.
Cora pretends to gag and stands up from the bed, snatching a bag of pretzels and heading for the door. “I’ll be out here!” she says, waving to us over her shoulder. “Don’t do anything weird in my bed!”
Then, as she disappears from the room, I half turn to my mate and wrinkle my nose at him mischievously. “Want to do weird stuff in her bed?” I whisper, trailing a finger down the length of his chest.
“Absolutely I do,” my mate murmurs back.
