by T Shadow
They look from my face back to Finnegan, who is no doubt smiling like the cat who got the cream behind me. Without saying anything, they seem to grasp the concept of what’s happening, that is, until Remington pops out from underneath the duvet that has gathered at my waist. His action breaks the mild tension in the room, causing both Leland and Landon to go quiet once again, but I, in the midst of all of this madness have to quickly suppress my laughter. It works for a short while before I notice the looks on both of their faces and my laughter breaks free of its confinement like a racehorse about to, well… race.
I manage to push out a few words between each burst of laughter and it’s enough for them to see the hilarity of the situation and laugh along with me. “Y-Your faces, God I was fine until I saw your faces.”
“You can’t blame us!” Landon shouts, his finger points towards Remington accusingly. “He fucking popped up like one of those weird cards and confused us all over again!”
I poke at the dark head of hair nestled between my legs, “you hear that Remington, not only are you a whack-a-mole, but you’re also a pop up card!” I laugh, clutching my sides as I lean back a hysterical Finnegan, “pop goes the weasel!”
He sighs before burying his head against my stomach, his breathing laboured like he’s run a marathon or something, “I’ve been called much worse.”
I go to pity him, but when I realise his head is right next to my coochie, I erupt in laughter all over again, which inevitably starts all the boys off. As Finn holds me steady, Remington laughs silently against my pelvic area and and the boys by the door clasp their sides as they try to stop themselves, I realise that this is where I really belong. At home, here, with them. Instead of staying segregated, Leland and Landon drop their shopping bags to the floor, peel their shirts from their bodies and climb into bed with us. The first real cuddle puddle we’ve ever had, our bodies intertwined as our hearts beat as one.
•°•
I love them. Oh my God, that sounds so corny. But I do. I only realise it when they leave to go back to the hotel to pick up their things. They said they needed their computers and other stuff, so I let them go to pick their stuff up because, you know, I actually like them being here. Even the hour or so that they’ve been gone leaves me lost and confused, because I don’t hear the loud crashes of voices from the kitchen, the scuffle of shoes on the floor or even the excited or annoyed hissing of Lucius, depending on who is antagonising or loving him at the time.
I wait for what feels like four hours, but it's probably only forty minutes. Sitting on the sofa does nothing for me anymore, so when I get up from it to begin pacing back and forth, Lucius looks at me like I’m some sort of idiot. I think I manage to make fifteen laps of the whole lounge before there’s a knock at my door signalling the arrival of more idiots. But they’re my idiots. Calming myself, I give it a minute before letting them in. There they are, stood with their belongings in their hands like they got kicked out without a moment’s notice. I move out of the way, letting all of them struggle in with their belongings. It doesn’t seem like they have much of anything, really. One suitcase each, except for Leland, who has one small suitcase and a large one which I’m sure holds anything but clothes. As they shuffle in, they all look at me with a lost puppy expression, and it undoes me quicker than… well, I don’t know, but it hits me right in the ‘feels’.
“There’s a chest of drawers in the spare bedroom and a wardrobe. They’re both empty so… for the moment, you can have them, I guess.” Landon takes off first with his suitcase, stopping momentarily to kiss me on the cheek as he passes, Remington and Finnegan follow behind, muttering something about the Hotel, but Leland stands near the front door, eagerly eyeing my mostly unused desk that sits alone in the dark corner of the lounge.
“Ca-can I use the desk?”
“Go for it, Kid.”
I think I hear a feminine squee, but before I have the opportunity to address it, Leland has moved around me to start setting up his absolute monstrosity of a computer. I become increasingly confused when I see more than one screen, millions of wires and these connector thingies… it’s enough to make any non-technologically minded person go insane. I leave him to it, considering he’s currently engrossed in the task of plugging the right thing in the right hole. As I go to turn around, the front door opens again as Mika strolls inside. I haven’t spoken to her since before the Mr. Grigori incident, but now seems like as good of a time as any.
“Do you wanna tell me what happened?”
She’s sitting herself on my sofa like she always does, and I follow suit, curling into the opposite end. I give myself a minute before I start, but it’s probably not what Mika wanted to hear. “Why now?”
“I can’t answer that for you, but we can talk about it.”
“I’m trying to think about everything that could lead to this moment. I think back to the day I left, and the moments in between that made me question myself. That ultimately led me here.”
Pulling the blanket from the back of the sofa, Mika wraps us both in it, “what do you really remember from all those years ago?”
“Hearing the shouts was the first thing,” returning to a memory I pushed away a long time ago, I see it vividly, almost like it was yesterday. “I stayed in the Guard housing like the rest of them, but I heard the shouts. Then the bells, and then there was that horrid, ear-splitting siren that could be heard all over. It doesn’t get played unless it’s an emergency, so I ran as fast as I could towards the two people who I’d sworn to protect. But I never even managed to get my foot through the door.”
It was surreal. Before I could get my foot anywhere near that damn door, one of the serving girls let out an ear splitting scream whilst pointing at me. I knew then that it was a possibility that I’d been blamed for something I had no part in, so I turned and high tailed it out of there. The shouts followed me as I clinged to the dark alleyways and the long, isolated roads back to my sisters home in the Wastes. The swamp-like environment clung to my shoes and the humidity stuck to my skin like glue, but before I’d even had the opportunity to raise one tightly clenched fist to knock on the door of my sister's home, it swung sunwards, revealing my identical, yet non-identical twin.
She stands there not saying anything, but I see the way her eyes communicate with me. A pack is thrust towards me, and as I open it to check what she has put inside, I feel a tap on my shoulder which shouldn’t be ignored. Raising my eyes and neglecting the contents of my pack for the moment, I stare at my sister while she completes a series of complicated and uncomplicated hand movements. I understand what she says perfectly. It was something like, “leave, don’t come back. Don’t look back.” So that’s what I did. I never questioned any of my sisters intentions, finding my pack filled with things I would have needed, and some things that I didn’t. I never felt like I needed to be worried about my only family when I was on the run to save my own life.
I don’t realise that I’m actually talking aloud until Mika’s voice cuts through that heavy fog again, “that’s a little… odd… isn’t it?”
“That she answered the door before I knocked?”
Mika tilts her head and looks at me like there’s more than just a few screws loose, “no, you dummy, that she packed your bag for you.”
We thought the same thing. It was uncanny how I could put that small spec of information out of my thoughts for years before having to think about it again. “Yeah. It was weird. It has the essential things in it, the orb and my journal.”
“The orb? That weird thing that’s always covered in the desk at work?”
“That's the one.”
“Huh… now it is a little coincidental that she packed things that you didn’t need, and didn’t have much conversation with you before shoving you out of the door?”
The sound of footsteps stops us momentarily as the guys reenter from the spare bedroom sans suitcases. They must’ve heard all of the conversation, but without having to repeat the whole deb
acle, they weigh in on it anyway. Not that I mind. Sometimes more heads are better than one.
“You said your sister gave you that orb,” Finn remarks. “Do you remember when she got them, how long she had them for or why it was given to you?” Seeing my expression, his softens, “I know it’s hard to remember, but it might help in the long run.”
I sigh and rub my temples, hoping and praying that I remember every detail correctly. “So one day she comes home with these orbs, explains what they do and how they work. But we never used them. I hid mine in a draw in her house because I thought it was weird. She’s superstitious, believes and dabbles in different sorts of magic that I wouldn’t dare touch. She has a flair for it, I guess you could say.”
“So your sister is some weird, black magic dabbling dragon who may or may not have set this all in motion a few centuries ago?” Finn moves his way around to the armchair, sitting in it seconds before Remington goes to make a move for it. They have a small, somewhat heated stare off, but it ultimately results in Remington going to make a tea rather than fighting for his favoured seat. Landon sits on the floor beside me, leaning his head on my knee as Mika taps away on her phone, the beeping of the buttons the only sound among us for the moment.
“So,” Landon starts, “putting it mildly, your sister is a bit bat-crazy, is into some weird fucking magic voodoo shit, and possibly set up the biggest plot twist of all time?” He shakes his head, laughing under his breath, “God, I thought you were crazy, and you’re telling me your sister is worse? Fuck me sideways.”
I smack the back of his head with enough force to shut him up, which he does without hesitation. His jaw snaps shut like a mousetrap and he glares at the hand that smacked him, but he says nothing. Mika notices and hides her smile behind her phone that she’s still texting on, Leland is still setting up his computer so I can’t see his face, but Finnegan doesn’t try to hide his smile. He sits there and wears it like a thousand pound necklace, he flaunts it almost.
I’m sure Finn is about to say something combative, but Mika’s shrill voice cuts him off before he ever has the chance to say it. “You made a cup of tea and didn’t offer me one?” She glares at Remington who’s stopped with one foot raised. Stopped in his pursuit of entering the front room, he looks from his cup to Mika and back, confused about the consequences of the situation. “It’s a common courtesy to offer everyone in the house a drink,” she mutters under her breath, “you uncultured swine.”
I watch the interaction with an amused expression. Mika’s face conveys all types of hurt, whereas Remington looks like he’s stuck between a rock and a hard place. I can see the gears and cogs turning in his head as he considers all the outcomes and possibilities to his current situation and I recognise the moment when the idea clicks because without a second thought he hands his cup of tea to Mika before turning to make another one for himself. He stops on the border of the kitchen and looks at everyone before he heads in, mentally asking if anyone else wants one, but silently begging that we don’t. Finn raises his hand and Leland and Landon shake their heads. His green eyes land on mine again, and I shake my head too. With that, he wanders off into the darkness beyond. Before we have the opportunity to discuss other topics, the subject of my sister is brought up again, but this time it’s wild conspiracy theories and outlandish ideas. Ignoring the men in the room for the moment, Mika gestures towards me with her phone.
“You want pizza?”
A chorus of yeses sound from all around us and within half an hour, we’re surrounded by six pizzas, four guys debating conspiracy theories, two people arguing over how to make a cup of tea properly and one fox who’s sneakily peeling pepperoni off of a slice and running away.
Welcome to my new life.
Night fades into morning, and suddenly I’m waking up in bed, surrounded by the guys but feeling more alone than ever. I think that I finally understand how Mika feels when she’s having an anxiety attack. I feel a tightness in my chest that causes a shortness of breath, and within seconds I’m clutching my heart like I’m having a fucking heart attack. This anxiety is an accumulation of everything at the moment. The shit with Radley, with Mr. Grigo— I mean Neptune, with the orb and the guys and all the other things hitting my life at the same time. I can’t take the idea of betrayal, but now, more than ever, it's the stress of feeling overcrowded. Seclusion was easy, no one else to worry about, no stressing or feeling concerned, but now with all the people around, I feel smothered, almost. How can you love and hate a feeling at the same time? My chest rises and falls quickly under the palm of my hand, and I can feel the beat of my heart inside my neck as much as I could hear the force that a drummer uses to repeatedly pound the skin of his instruments.
The feeling of a warm, rough palm breaks through the dense fog and I instantly recognise it as Leland. I blink a few times before turning towards him, just to realise that he’s actually still in the land of the dreaming. The move was an unconscious one, but that makes my heart warm even more. His palm rests flat against my upper thigh, his fingers curled slightly as if he’s holding on, but not from the fear of losing me, but the reassurance that I am real, and I’m still here. My merry band of broken boys manage to balance me out and keep me from throwing myself off of the proverbial edge more than I thought they would. It’s a shame that I haven’t had the opportunity nor the courage to walk them into the other half of my life, the one that’s hidden from view mentally and physically. But now, amidst a shit storm, it isn’t the best time.
The hand on my thigh only works for so long before the questions and lingering fearfulness creep back, but this time, rational thoughts and answers stumble after them in their wake. My first question is; when the fuck did my sister have the time to meet a God? A Roman fucking God at that. If I ever see that snidey little bitch, that’s the first thing I’m gonna ask. The second question is how the hell did she save his life, followed by many more important questions like, “why did you choose to fuck up my life right now?” It sucks donkey dicks and monkey balls and many other unsightly animal genitalia. Corkscrew penises and barbed dicks come to mind, but that makes me question: why is it only the males that get the destructive cocks?
I wish that the self-destructive thoughts would take a hike and fuck off in the other direction, but there’s only one known cure to fight off the surrounding madness. One cure that I drunkenly made the first time, but I’m reluctant to make a second, third and fourth time. The mating mark helps calm the psychotic voices, but a solidified bond would vanquish them all together. But idle thoughts do not strong bonds make. Broaching the idea of a mating bond should be well thought out, structured and in some capacity, intimate. It’s a sacred moment and I don’t even think the guys want one right now, bringing up a mating ritual might worsen the whole situation.
“You want a mating ritual?” The groggy, sleep filled voice shocks me, and instead of jumping off of my bed like an animal spooked, I curse loudly before clutching the sheets between my fingers. Looking around the puppy pile, I notice there’s only one pair of eyes that are open and looking at me. They belong to my concerned mate Landon, the only one not to pressure me into opening a mate bond. As his chocolate brown eyes stare back at me, I think hard about my answer. There’s a lot of moments where I feel we sit in silence, but this one feels more weighted and heavier than the rest.
“Yes,” I whisper, trying not to wake the other guys, “of course I do, but I don’t want to rush it just because I feel my descent into madness more clearly than ever.”
“You sound scared, I wouldn’t ever think of you as scared.”
“Oh,” I chuckle darkly, “I am scared, more than you’ll ever know, but fear can strengthen you, or break you. I won’t be broken, Landon. Not now or ever.”
“I hear you girl, I hear you loud and clear.”
We sit there, our spoken words hanging between us like they were those lights on strings, an unspoken understanding and a silent promise all merged into one. Unless, that’s what I thi
nk it is until he speaks again, his words sinking into my chest like a bar of unfiltered lead.
“I think we should do it.”
“It?”
“The mating ritual,” he says, drawing the words out slowly as if he’s speaking to someone who just had a lobotomy. “It’ll help ground you, and it’s not like we all don’t want it. You know that we’re not leaving anytime soon, so why wouldn’t we?” It’s a surreal yet warming statement, one where you feel lost at sea but comfy at home at the same time. Guess it would just never happen to me. I manage to snake my hand across to hold his, which in reality is the best and only answer I can give him right now, and he returns my wordless response by rubbing his thumb against mine.
•°•
It doesn’t take me long to figure out that Landon told the guys, who somehow managed to get hold of Mika, tell her and plan something. It was only a fleeting idea that I managed to have this morning, but now it’s turning out to be a fully realised, carefully planned idea. Mika stepped into her role effortlessly, but there was a harsh rule about no black at the event. Not that it really is much of an event. The guidelines of the ritual are easy, simple in fact.
The dragons wear their corresponding colours, the mating is to be in the wood, with only one person as a witness to the Claiming. A set of vows are exchanged from the female to the males, or vice versa, and then they are to be claimed in the presence of the witness. The bonds seal on the claiming of the female, and after that the witness doesn’t have to stick around to witness the sordid after-party.
