by T. S. Snow
Pain flashed in his eyes. His smile faded, and his jaw clenched. He nodded jerkily and turned, but I kept a hold of his arm, pulling to get his attention.
“The problem is, I think I was falling for you too. It may be selfish, but I’m not entirely sure I can give you up either. I don’t actually fucking know what I want. I’m not…propositioning you to be my side piece or whatever. I would never do that to Bast or to you. I’m just… Urgh, this is such a mess! Why are feelings so complicated?”
Blaze walked to me like a tiger who’d just spotted its prey, and in two steps, he had me in his arms, kissing me like he needed me for his next breath.
I clung to him for a second, fisting his shirt, before the reality of the situation came crashing on me like King Dedede’s hammer straight to my head. I let go of his shirt and broke the kiss. “No. We…we can’t. I’m sorry, but we can’t.” I shook my head as I said it, trying to fight against my libido for once and do the right thing.
“You guys are no fun!” Blair called from the sidelines, and it was an even bigger reality check. I took two steps back quickly, tripping over my own feet but somehow managing to not fall backwards to my demise. “I was really enjoying the boy-love show. Although, I’ll admit I never thought I’d see my brother as a teenager kissing a young Blaze. It would’ve been such great spank bank material if not for the fact that Andres is my brother. Now it’s just gross,” she remarked, and I wanted to keel over and die.
Just kill me dead already.
Playing opossum just wouldn’t work. I needed to go full ghost. Maybe an ostrich. Whatever worked. I just wanted to not be here right now.
Blaze and I looked at each other, and he started to laugh when he saw me blushing.
Unable to help myself and half out of desperation, I started to laugh too.
I’d completely forgotten I was wearing someone else’s face in an illusion.
Boy, Blaze must really like me.
We all kind of burst out in awkward laughter, and I shook my head.
“Andres?” I asked, and Blair nodded, still laughing.
Oh man, I couldn’t wait until I told Andres he had kissed Blaze.
He’d probably gloat for days.
Blaze would never hear the end of this, I was sure of it.
Was it bad that a part of me was thrilled that Andres would have something to annoy Blaze about? Andres was a funny guy, and picking on Blaze a little would probably help him get some of the cheerfulness back. Give him a reason to smile, even if just for a bit.
Not that I was willing to forgive him quite yet, but nobody deserved to have their own uncle stage a coup against them while their dad was sick.
But such was the life of the members of an Arcane family.
Being stabbed in the back by someone you thought you could trust was just another ordinary day.
It was no wonder they were all a little paranoid.
I shared one last smile with Blaze before ducking my head and heading in Blair’s direction.
“C’mon, guys, are you two just going to stand there dillydallying all day? We got work to do!”
I swore I could hear Blair and Blaze rolling their eyes at me as I clung to the stair railing and started to slowly make my way up.
I didn’t understand why I was always having to face stairs lately when they were my nemesis, but there was no way I was taking chances.
Blair caught up to me in no time and smirked when she saw me climbing up the stairs like an old lady who’d had her hip replaced.
“Shut up. This is better than falling. Just go scout out the area or do something useful while I catch up,” I suggested, and she shook her head at me but went on ahead.
Blaze reached me next, but he didn’t say anything, he just grabbed me, threw me over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, and climbed the stairs two at a time like this was just something he did every day.
I was too speechless to be snarky about it.
But hey, at least I had a nice view of his butt and I didn’t have to climb the stairs.
That made it a double win in my book.
8
Bastille
Looking at Blair while knowing that my grandmother was the one wearing my sister’s face was weird as fuck.
Looking at Blair while she did a whole sensual dance and knowing my grandmother was the one doing it was something that would be burned in my retinas for the rest of my life and no amount of therapy would be able to cure.
The more Andres groaned and begged her to stop, the more it spurred her on.
I was pretty sure she had a whole bunch of ghosts acting as background dancers too, just for the hell of it. Thankfully, neither Andres nor I could see them, even if we could hear her encouraging them and see the eventual lifting of Gran into thin air as one of them picked her up, no doubt.
“Bast, please make her stop,” Andres requested, before whining when Gran started to shake her booty with her back end turned to us.
Brain bleach.
That was what I needed.
A gallon of mind bleach.
Andres covered his eyes, and I smiled a little. I knew Gran was only doing this to punish him for acting bratty, but I didn’t understand why I had to suffer too.
She was probably punishing me for not punching him a couple more times for good measure.
After a particularly lively chorus of “Lady Marmalade,” I decided to interfere before she broke a bone or something.
Or before I completely lost my damn mind to the literal hell in front of me.
“Gran, I hate to spoil your fun, but we really need to get going. If we stay here any longer, Andres and I will end up seizing from sensory overload in this room of horrors. Besides,” I added when she just grinned even bigger and vigorously shook her booty once again, “we’re running out of time.”
That, more than anything, had her stopping.
“You’re right. Well then, lead the way,” she told me before turning to Andres and batting her lashes at him. “Come here and give your gran a kiss, boy. I’ve missed you.”
Andres shifted his weight between his feet before he dropped the illusion on Gran, hugged her, and kissed her cheek.
As he straightened back up, a dark forest green activation circle appeared, and the illusion fell upon Gran once more.
She looked like she’d just grown a few inches, her hair went from pearly white to black and curly, and her weird peen dress—yes, my grandmother wore a dress with a peen print instead of a floral print—disappeared and gave way to Blair’s standard leather outfit.
The resemblance was uncanny.
If I hadn’t seen it happen before my own eyes or couldn’t see the activation circle slowly vanishing, I wouldn’t have believed it.
“You ready?” Andres asked me, and I nodded. Another magic activation circle appeared, this one in front of me, and that was when I felt a weird sensation, like I was breaking the water’s surface.
“The spirits tell me you make a dashing young lady, Bast dear,” Gran remarked, clapping her hands excitedly.
I groaned. “You couldn’t have just changed my appearance a little bit so nobody could tell I was me?” I asked Andres, half wondering why we’d decided to help him in the first place.
Andres smirked. “What, and lose this opportunity? Not on your life. Besides, it’ll be more believable if I have some arm candy with me, and you make for such a pretty plus one.” He batted his lashes at me as if the look had any effect on me at all, and I scowled.
“Now now, babe, where’s that smile I love so much?” Andres teased, and I wanted to punch him. Instead, I plastered a smile on my face that was more like a grimace and turned my back to them both, as well as Gran’s room of horrors.
The sooner we got there, the sooner I could get rid of Andres and Gran and go back to my Char.
I just hoped everything was going well on her end.
As it turned out, if you showed up to an Arcane family’s residence accompanied by its heir, nobo
dy batted an eye.
That was how Andres managed to smuggle a Necromancer and a supposedly dead Soul Mage into his family home.
We drove over in his Ferrari and entered through his front door as if we belonged there.
Nobody stopped us.
There was no second look, no questions asked.
Granted, I was clinging to Andres’ arm and looking around like some honest-to-Goddess eye candy, but only because he’d sworn that would be the only way.
I had my doubts, but I didn’t want to risk my life over them.
Besides, with all the crap going on in his life, Andres could use a few moments of joy.
What I had not expected was for the Illudere mansion to be so…peculiar on the inside.
Honestly, this was the kind of place Gran would fucking love.
The floor from the entrance was all clear glass, and underneath it was a pool. A motherfucking pool, made to look like a lake or a pond or some shit. It even had lily pads floating in it. The illusion was so well done, with the lighting coming in from above, I half expected to see some frogs hopping around the room, jumping in and out of the water.
Suddenly, the floor underneath me cracked and started to open.
Heart in my throat, I jumped away from it, cursing and running to my grandmother, who was right on the path of the break.
“Run,” I yelled. My voice came out feminine and high-pitched thanks to whatever extra illusion Andres had cast on me before we left the car.
It wasn’t until I reached Gran and half dragged her to the door that I heard Andres laughing.
Motherfucker.
“Really?” I demanded, putting my hands on my hips like I’d seen Blair do a hundred times when she was frustrated and pissed.
I’d love to get out of character, but the risk kept me from punching Andres again.
“Oh man, you should’ve seen your face,” he said between bursts of laughter.
Gran hit me in the side of the head. “What was that for? You trying to attract attention to us and blow our covers?” she hissed.
“But he made the floor seem like it was opening underneath us. I was trying to save you!” I protested.
Gran just hit me again. “What are you, five? I taught you better, boy. You know damn well that boy is a joker if I ever saw one, and a flirt too. I can’t believe you’d fall for such a cheap trick,” she chastised.
I felt like I was a kid all over again and had gotten caught eating all the cookies from the jar before dinner.
Fucking Andres. He was just begging me to set him up somehow.
And my revenge would be sweet, especially when I knew I could count on Char to help me out.
The little shit wouldn’t know what hit him.
We heard a door opening, and the light moment was broken. Andres’ grin faded, and so did the spark that was so common to him.
“Right, yeah. Sorry. You guys ready? Let’s go before my uncle shows up to ‘pay his respects,’ or whatever excuse he’ll come up with this time to make sure my dad truly is dying.”
We nodded and followed after him as he led the way up a circular staircase that looked like it was made of glass, and to the first floor. From upstairs, we had an even better view of the pond-like illusion, and I had to admit it was pretty cool, even if most humans would probably find it a bit tacky. Considering what I knew of the Illuderes, it made sense that they’d both want to make a statement with their interior décor and also leave the perfect setting for their magic and all the possibilities it brought when it came to pranks and entertainment.
Andres turned left, heading to the door farthest from the entrance, and we followed. Gran gasped before we even reached the door, and her hand around my arm tightened, even as she said nothing.
Andres knocked on the dark wooden door and someone inside told him to enter, but he stood still. He took a deep breath as if preparing himself for what would be on the other side of the door and then opened it, stepping aside to let us both inside.
It wasn’t what I would’ve expected at all.
The room was all cast in shadows, and I could vaguely see a form on the king-size bed. Next to it, sitting on a chair, was Serena Illudere.
It was always kind of startling how much Andres looked like her, from the golden skin to the dark hair, though he got his eye color and personality from his father.
Even when she found out about Blair, she’d done her best to welcome her into the family rather than cast her aside or resent her for her husband’s past. That said all I needed to know about her.
“Blair, hi. Thank you for coming by to check on him.” She smiled at who she thought was Blair before she turned to me and her smile disappeared. “Really, Andres?” She cast him a mom look before turning to me. “Perhaps you wouldn’t mind waiting for Andres in his room, dear? Or the sitting room? I could have someone bring tea. I’m sorry about this, it’s just that it really isn’t a good time.”
Before I could say anything, Andres closed the door behind us and dropped the illusions.
Serena gasped.
“Oh dear, I’m sorry. I thought you were Blair,” she told Gran, blushing.
Gran snorted. “That troublemaker? I’m the original.” She winked at Serena Illudere, and I resisted the urge to chastise Gran. She could at least pretend to be a polite old lady in the presence of Andres’ parents.
There was a groan from the bed that had us all turning to it. Serena jumped up from the chair with surprising speed and grabbed a pitcher and a cup that were near the nightstand, filling the cup with water and offering it to Andres’ dad.
Gran wasted no time in marching up to his bed and touching his forehead before he could so much as drink a sip of water.
“Mom, it’s okay. That’s Alma Siela-Tumba. She’s a Soul Mage. I brought her here to see if there was anything she could do for Dad,” Andres explained, while Gran murmured under her breath, probably discussing something with whatever soul she’d dragged with her.
“Oh! You’re Blair’s family,” Serena exclaimed, sitting down, probably from shock.
A yellow activation circle hovered over Diego Illudere’s stomach, and Gran’s mumbling grew worse.
I was pretty sure I heard her calling someone incompetent and then cursing under her breath, but it was too low for me to be entirely sure of what I heard.
Serena stared wide-eyed until Gran was done. She then grabbed Serena’s arm and kept the other woman in place as yet another activation circle appeared, this time over Serena.
“Don’t worry, no harm will come to you from her,” I said, trying to comfort Andres’ mom.
Andres was no help. He just stood near the bed, staring at his father with a haunted look on his face.
“How long has he been like this?” Gran suddenly asked the room in general, and Serena almost fell from her chair in surprise.
“Uh…about… A few days, but he’s been getting sicker and sicker for weeks now. At first, he’d just feel nauseous from time to time, then he started vomiting. We thought he’d caught some stomach bug so we called in a Healer, and things got better for a while, but then it got much, much worse.” Serena paused when Gran released her.
“After that, everything started to happen kind of at once. He grew weak and kept complaining about not being able to breathe properly. We sent for the Healers again and they ran a couple of tests, but nothing showed up. He kept getting worse, but nobody knows why.” Andres walked to his mother and put a hand on her shoulder.
Both of them were lost to their pain.
“Did you find out what was wrong, Gran?” I asked when she started to poke around the room as if she had every right to.
Serena’s eyes followed her progress, but she said nothing.
Gran hummed and kept poking around. Occasionally, she’d mumble some more, but it was clearly not a conversation meant for our ears.
“Gran?” Andres asked, and she shushed him.
“I’m sorry about her,” I said at last to Serena, tryi
ng to ignore the noise Gran was making as she poked inside a drawer. Since she couldn’t see the way we did, she resorted to touch a lot. That, and she’d once told me that since his death, my grandfather’s ghost had become her eyes. He’d been at her side this whole time, and he told her everything she needed to know. That, or she borrowed his eyes and saw through them. At least that was the leading theory in the family. Whichever the case, it had worked for twenty-plus years.
“Yeah, she doesn’t get out much,” Andres added, and suddenly, there was a yellow activation circle on top of Andres and he was yelping in pain. “I give, I give! Sorry, Gran! Sorry! Please make it stop,” Andres yelled while he contorted from side to side, as if trying to escape invisible hands.
Gran didn’t turn or stop her mumbling for one second, but eventually, Andres seemed able to breathe again and the activation circle vanished.
I watched it all with a smile. Andres should’ve known better than to say stuff like that to Gran out loud when she was on a mission.
“An…dres?” A weak, sickly voice came from the bed, and we all turned, even Gran.
Diego Illudere was trying to get up on the bed and see who was in the room, but he was too damn weak to even manage to sit up, so Andres and Serena both rushed to his side to help him.
“Hey, Dad, it’s me. It’s okay,” Andres said while his mom fixed the pillows behind Diego, Andres holding him in a half-sitting position to make things easier for his mom.
Seeing the man my mother had once loved like this—pale, frail, with hollowed cheeks and no life in his gaze—it was quite a shock, to say the least.
Diego Illudere had always seemed like a force of nature. I’d never actually met him in person, but since I knew he was Blair’s dad, I’d helped her keep tabs on him. The man we’d seen in the news and online looked nothing like the man lying in front of me now.
His gaze swept the room, and when his eyes found Gran, they widened.
