River Cast: Part Two in the Tale of Lunarmorte Read Online Free PDF Page B

Lucien’s, and it was your father’s.
It was the pack’s fault we didn’t protect you. But Caia.” Ryder
shook his head in anger. “That girl did everything she could. She
risked everything to find you! And don’t you forget it.”
    She wanted to scream at
him; wanted to rail and rage that he had no idea what she had been
through, so how dare he?! But in the end she knew he was right. No
matter how much she wanted to blame Caia for Ethan taking her, deep
down she knew if there was one person in this world she might count
on, she was guessing it was Caia Ribeiro. Ryder obviously thought
so too, and obviously had a lot of respect and admiration for her.
A sneaking feeling swept over. His defence of Caia was quite
vehement. Did he... did Ryder have a thing for Caia? For some
reason the thought irritated her more than his condescending
lecture.
    “ Point well
received,” She sniped. “And just so you know I thanked Caia for
saving me. I thanked Sebastian too before you bring that
up.”
    Another tense silence fell
between them, until finally Ryder heaved a sigh. “Look. I’m sorry.
I didn’t mean to-”
    “ Why don’t we
just sit in silence for a while, hmm?”
    He nodded and seemed to
relax more into his seat.
    And just as Jaeden felt
herself drifting to sleep, Ryder chuckled.
    “ I heard this
really funny joke on the radio the other night. You want to hear
it?”
    She shrugged.
    “ I’ll assume
that’s angry teenage girl gesture for yes.” He smirked. “OK. So one
day, there’s this koala bear, up in his tree, smoking a joint, and
this little lizard walking past looks up and notices. “Hey,” the
little lizard calls, “What’s up?” “Nothing.” Shrugs the koala.
“just smoking a joint, getting stoned. Wanna join?” “Sure,” says
the little lizard, and he slithers up the tree and starts getting
stoned with the koala. A little while later, the little lizard says
his mouth is dry and he needs a drink, but on the way down the
tree, he leans over too far and falls into the river. A big
crocodile sees it happen and swims over. “What’s up?” He asks the
little lizard, “You OK?” “Sure.” The little lizard nods. “I’m just
too stoned from smoking some joints with the koala bear.” “Joints?”
The big crocodile’s eyes lit up. “I gotta check that out, man.” So
the big crocodile swims out of the river and takes a wander into
the trees until he reaches the one the koala bear’s in. “Hey!” He
shouts up, and the koala looks back down at him and shouts “Fuuuck
duuude! How much water did you drink?!” Ryder slapped the wheel of
the truck, laughing as he finished the joke. “Ah man, that’s
funny.” He shook his head, wiping at a tear in the corner of his
eyes. “It kills me.”
    Jaeden hadn’t said
anything. She had managed to hide her answering grin to the joke by
looking out of the passenger window.
    “ What?” Ryder
huffed. “Come on that was funny! That was comic gold right
there.”
    She shrugged, enjoying
teasing him. “It was OK. Kind of elementary.”
    “ Elementary?
It’s an effing joke.”
    “ Whatever.”
    His groan could probably
be heard for five miles. “Aw this is going to be a looong drive
home.”
    Jaeden hid her grin with
her hand. Teasing and arguing with Ryder was the most normal she
had felt in a long time. She sneaked a glance at him again, and a
rush of old feelings hit her like a battering ram. She remembered
how just the thought of him had sent butterflies into chaos in the
pit of her stomach, back when she had been naively carefree; how
just daydreaming about him had gotten her through her boring
history class; how she had promised herself that when she turned
eighteen, she would finally let Ryder know that his mate had been
under his nose the whole time.
    A golden peace whispered
through her briefly with the memories.
    Goddess, she had made a
mistake leaving the pack. Instead of running from them, she should
have let them fix her. And maybe