“Michael knows I have been here before, he knows Tegan is his sister. I wanted two rooms beside each other, we will be in the family wing.” Leonid answered easily as he started up the staircase. “He’s not saying we are family, he is keeping us away from the other Sentinels.”
“Got all the answers, haven’t you?” Sloane watched Leonid carefully.
“No, I wish I did.” Leonid turned left at the top of the stairs and headed down one of the halls. “I know which section we are in, but I do need you to tell us theactualrooms.”
“You sure?” Sloane asked sarcastically, as he moved in front of them to lead the way. Leonid caught Tegan’s eye and winked as they followed.
Tegan felt her shoulders loosen as they followed Sloane. He was her cousin, an actual blood relative. She was still ignoring the fact she had been in the room with her father, no, her biological father and her half-brother, she wasn’t ready to deal with that. But Sloane? Sloane was a cousin and he seemed friendly, laid back and almost… playful? Apart from the food stealing – she was not okay with that.
“You’re in here,” Sloane opened the door to the bedroom and looked at Leonid.
“And Tegan?” Leonid asked without even looking into the room.
“You, my beautiful cousin, are here.” Sloane opened the door opposite the hall from Leonid’s.
Tegan walked in and immediately noticed the connecting door. “Who’s through there?”
Sloane strolled over and opened the door with a flourish. “Why me, of course.”
“Of course,” Tegan laughed softly.
“Ooh look, you laugh,” Sloane tilted his head to the side as he watched her. “I didn’t know if it was possible.”
“I do that,” Tegan said with some excitement.
“What? Laugh?” Sloane asked curiously.
“She tilts her head when she’s thinking. A trait you both have from Cornelius,” Leonid explained.
“Cool.” Sloane’s smile grew slowly as he watched his cousin.
“Tegan, I will leave you for this evening. Try to sleep,” Leonid said as he directed a pointed look at Sloane. When Sloane answered him with a wink, Leonid left the room, shaking his head, closing the door behind him.
“He’s odd,” Sloane declared.
“He can still hear you,” Tegan reminded him as she lifted her pack onto the bed and unzipped it.
“I don’t care, I would tell him he is odd if he were still here,” Sloane shrugged as he sat on Tegan’s bed.
Tegan stopped pulling her clothes out of the backpack as she looked at her cousin. “You try to take my food from my plate, now you sit on what is to be my bed?”
“You don’t like sharing?” Sloane asked as he propped himself against the pillows. “Do you think it’s because you’ve been raised as an only child?”
Tegan stared at him, at a loss for words. “What?” she finally managed to get out.
“You know, it’s just you and him in wherever you stayed, he doesn’t eat, so… did he forget to feed you? Is that why you don’t share?”
“No!” Tegan gave her cousin her full attention. “Are you genuinely asking me that? Was Istarved?”
“Sloane likes to ask ridiculous questions to get a rise out of people,” Michael said as he came into the room through the connecting door. “You get used to him.”
“A rise?” Tegan asked.
“A reaction,” Michael explained as he sat in the chair at the dressing table.
“Oh,” she turned to look at Sloane. “Is that why you tried to take my food?”
“It was a carrot!” he laughed as he made himself comfortable. “And no, I took the carrot because I was hungry.”