Chapter 283: Finding the Others

“I see you found him,” Lily said blankly to Marcus.

“Yes, my mission was successful, my lady.”

“We are going to have words later, Marcus,” she promised to the man.

When she finally turned to look at Julius, a smile bloomed on her face. He was glad to see Lily come running over to where Aubrey and he were sitting on the grass.

“I’m sorry, but it was all Marcus’s plan,” he said before she could blame him along with Marcus.

“It’s okay,” she said softly before crouching down and wrapping her arms around him tightly.

There was a probe from Lily’s aura directed at him, and he let down some of his own defenses to allow the girl to connect with his emotions. Once they connected, he sensed that she was similarly offering him access to her emotions.

He closed his eyes and released a sigh of relaxation as he felt Lily open her aura to him. The happiness and relief emanating from her were heartwarming, so he embraced that feeling without hesitation.

As he enjoyed that feeling, he felt someone poke him in the side. He opened his eyes to see Aubrey staring at the two of them with puffed-up cheeks. Lily, being Lily, already knew exactly what the girl was asking and created another connection that let Aubrey in as well.

There was no reason to say anything to each other. Their connection expressed their feelings better than they could express them verbally.

It was only after several minutes of sharing their emotions and aura that they finally released one another.

Lily then turned to face him with a stern face.

“Even if it was Marcus’s plan, you still could have contacted me,” she said while wagging a finger at him.

“I thought it would be a nice thing too,” he said to her.

“That’s the only reason why, huh?” She asked with a knowing look.

He looked away guiltily and shook his head. “To be fair, you did send Marcus after me after I specifically expressed my request that you didn’t do that.”

“You really think I wasn’t going to send someone after you? That sounds like you don’t me at all.”

“Good point.”

She was about to say something else but held herself back. “The only thing that matters is that you are okay,” she said with another smile.

“Now tell me everything,” she said with a much more serious look.

***
He ended up telling Lily and Aubrey a pretty quick summary of what happened, from how the whole teleportation fiasco occurred to where they ended up inside the labyrinth-type rift, and then how they got to Blumand and in contact with House Easten.

He did keep a few details secret, but it was pretty obvious he was, and they both knew it.

“Come on, just tell us,” Aubrey said to him.

“Some stuff, I just can’t tell you guys because it is not my stuff to share. Also, I don’t want to have to explain everything again to the other guys.”

Speaking of the other guys, they were all testing some things at the training facilities after they all had dinner. Kyle had created something and wanted Edgar to try it out with Derek.

“Well, then what are we waiting for? Let’s go see them now,” Aubrey said while tugging on Julius’s arm.

He allowed himself to get pulled away, but Lily stopped her.

“Hold up, Aubrey. We still have company,” she said, looking at where Marcus, Stella, and Reinera were all standing awkwardly.

“Oh yeah. Hey there Grace, it’s good to see you are safe as well,” Aubrey said with a heavy emphasis on her name. Which led him and probably everything else to believe that Aubrey knew exactly who Grace was.

At this point, he didn’t think anyone in his friend group didn’t know.

Reinera gave a shy wave back to Aubrey. “Yes, it is all thanks to Julius. I might have died if not for him getting dragged away with me. I owe him a lot.”

That seemed to make Aubrey happy, as she noticeably brightened up and nodded at the girl before bumping Julius on the shoulder.

He gave her a little harder bump in return knowing exactly what she was implying. Aubrey simply grinned at him knowingly before turning to look at Stella.

“Who the hell is this though?”

Lily was the one to answer her. “Don’t be so rude, Aubrey. This is Stella, she works for Derek’s family and is a part of House Quincy, which makes Kyle her family. She also is the other person who helped find little Mr. Troublemaker here. You should be thanking her instead of being so crass.”

“Little?” Julius muttered with a frown. “I’m taller than you though.”

She barely gave him a second glance, but he felt a soft jab in his head due to her psychic abilities.

He saw Marcus notice this and the one-armed man tried and failed to stifle a smile.

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“Oh, my bad. Then, in that case, you have my deepest thanks, Stella,” Aubrey said much more politely. “This dum-dum over here always seems to be getting in a lot of trouble and who knows what kind of mess he would get into if you hadn’t found him in time.”

To her credit, Stella didn’t take offense to the initial gruff attitude and had a wide smile on her face. “It’s no problem at all. I was just doing my job,” she said as she brushed the gratitude away.

“But it’s funny that you mention it. When Marcus and I came across Julius here, we found him.” She paused midway through his sentence because Julius had sent a powerful pulse of ruinous aura at the woman.

He didn’t concern himself with the fact that it would have likely hurt anyone not Tier 4 or above, he was much more concerned about the woman leaking his secrets.

One thing he definitely wanted to hide was that he had been fighting a Tier 5. He didn’t need to give the other even more ammunition to use against him.

Thus, he used his newly improved aura powers to great use and halted the woman in her tracks before she could cause irreparable damage.

The actual aura itself didn’t do much of anything. Stella was much too powerful for that to happen, but it did surprise her just enough that she realized that he didn’t want her to share it with them.