by W. J. May
It was enough to make Rae’s head spin.
Devon was the last one out. He paused at the top of the steps, looking slightly overwhelmed as he gazed out over the impromptu gathering. Then Julian gave him a little nudge, and he jogged briskly meet the girls.
“Hey, babe, not a moment too soon.” He gave Rae a swift kiss on the cheek before turning to do the same to Molly. “Molls.”
There was a sharp note of accusation to his voice, and she flashed him a little grin. “Nice tie.”
His lips twitched up with an exasperated smile. “Well, a tie seemed appropriate. Given that we seem to be hosting a party.”
“You’re not hosting it,” she said quickly. “I’m hosting it. Your only job tonight is to sit there and look pretty and try not to get too drunk.”
Rae bit her lip, while Devon raked his hair back with a grin.
“You sound like Jules’ and my old handler.”
“I’m serious, Dev—”
He held up his hands with a look of supreme innocence. “I will look pretty and try not to get too drunk.” But as she grinned and darted into the house, he couldn’t help but add, “Although I can’t promise the same for the rest of them…”
Rae gave his hand a sympathetic squeeze as they gazed out over their suddenly cluttered front yard. Half a dozen awkward conversations were trying desperately to get off the ground, but unless Molly had some serious tricks up her sleeve the evening was going to be rocky at best.
At least no one tried to stab anyone yet…
Her blue eyes flickered up to the porch before returning to her fiancé. “So, I take it you didn’t have a hand in this—”
“Oh no,” he interrupted quickly. “I was just as surprised by all of it as you. Annie and I were hunting crickets in the back yard, when all of a sudden my mom walked out.”
Rae could imagine what a shock that must have been. Devon hadn’t had any contact with his beloved mother in years, save for a few months ago when he showed up out of the blue to tell her that he had a fiancé and superpowers. It had gone as well as could be expected.
“Wait a second,” she looked up abruptly as his words sank in, “hunting crickets?”
He flushed self-consciously, dropping his eyes to the pavement. “…we’ve been working on her pouncing skills…”
A soft chuckle escaped Rae’s lips, one that faded quickly when she saw that Mary and Tristan were standing at opposite sides of the yard. “Well, I guess we’d better get this over with,” she murmured as the two of them started heading inside. The smells wafting out of the house were enough to put those fish and chips she’d just scarfed down to shame, and since no one in the house had any particular skill at cooking, she was guessing that Molly had made arrangements to have the entire thing catered. “I’m sure Molly spent a small fortune trying to get everything but the guest list just right.”
“Anything for a party.” A faint grin flitted across Devon’s handsome face, and he reached suddenly for Rae’s bag. “Here, let me get that for you.”
She jerked it away with such force he looked up at her in alarm. A scarlet blush blossomed in her cheeks as she self-consciously tucked her hair behind her ears. “Sorry, it’s just…you can’t see it. It’s my dress.”
He shook his head blankly. “For tonight? Why can’t I see it, if you’re about to put it on—”
She glanced around quickly before clutching it tighter to her chest. “No, it’s my dress-dress. My wedding dress.”
Devon’s eyes shot down to the bag like it had suddenly sprouted wings. His hand dropped at once. For good measure, he even walked on her other side. An odd smile played around his lips. “Ohhh.”
She glanced up at him with a grin, a wave of that same fluttering excitement she’d felt in the store flushing her entire body from head to toe. “What do you mean—oh? You’re the one who said you wanted to get married in a hurry. Have you thought about getting a tux yet?”
“Maybe,” he teased. “I might just end up going casual. Or borrowing something from Kraigan. It’s important to me that the guy feels included…” He shrugged. “You know, something borrowed, something red.”
Rae snorted with laughter, thanking the gods of party planning that he was still out of town. “It’s blue.”
Devon’s eyebrow rose. “Your wedding dress is blue?”
“No,” Rae rolled her eyes, “it’s ‘something borrowed, something blue.’”
“So, you want me to wear a blue tux?”
“You should run that blue and ‘going casual’ idea by Molly. See how she takes it.”
It was unfortunate that their over-enthusiastic friend chose that exact moment to scream at a team of terrified caterers.
A shiver ran across Devon’s skin, but he shook it off quickly. “Have you gotten me a ring yet?”
She looked up with a start as his bright eyes sparkled mischievously into hers. Freakin’ A! His ring! I knew there was something I was forgetting. “Of course I have,” she lied smoothly. “And, quite frankly, until I slide it onto your finger, it’s really none of your business. So, I’d appreciate it if you stopped asking questions.”
“Aw, Kerrigan, you forget again…” He draped an arm over her shoulders with a grin as the two of them headed inside. “…I’m the one who trained you how to lie.”
* * *
Never before had there been a stranger gathering of people. Most of them had, at one point or another, tried to kill the others. And it wasn’t like that was all terribly far in the past. Rae would be surprised if they made it through the cheese course without someone pulling out a gun.
And on that note…
“You don’t have any more firearms hidden in the house, do you?” she whispered to Angel as people milled about aimlessly in the living room. “No secret weapons I should know about?”
“No,” Angel replied with a strange smile. “No secret weapons…”
Rae shot her a curious look, watching as she tossed back her long blonde hair and took a sip of Champagne. A tasteful yet revealing cocktail dress clung to her alabaster skin, stunning her poor boyfriend senseless every time his eyes flickered anywhere below her chin.
But it was the smile that had Rae concerned. And she wasn’t the only one.
“Why are you so pleased with yourself?” Molly demanded, swooping up behind them. “The only thing I asked you to do was fold the napkins, and I’m pretty sure you delegated that to Luke—”
“I didn’t say anything,” Angel interrupted, her eyes glowing with excitement. “Not a single word. Not a single phone call.”
Molly blinked in disbelief. “Congratulations super-spy. After all this time, you’ve finally discovered how to keep a secret—”
“Not a secret. A surprise.” Angel stood up a little straighter as she glanced around the room, beaming with unmistakable pride. “A surprise party. Without me, it wouldn’t have been possible.”
Rae bit back a smile as Molly stomped away in a rage to finish the preparations. She should have guessed. Relatively speaking, things like this were still rather new to Gabriel and Angel.
Surprise parties. Animated films. Windows without bars.
“And what about you?” She turned to Julian, who was still watching his girlfriend with a dreamy smile. “You didn’t see anyone…I don’t know…killing anyone else, did you?”
His eyes twinkled affectionately as he threw back his head with a laugh. “Rae, I’m on a lot of painkillers right now.”
He swayed slightly where he stood, and Rae rolled her eyes with a rueful grin. “Yeah, yeah. The door to the future’s closed. I get it.”
At that moment, a deafening gong shook the entire house.
Rattling the silverware, micro-fracturing the glass, vibrating through people’s very bones. Rae, Tristan, and Devon, the people with enhanced hearing, winced in unison—as if they had been struck upside the head, while Annie whined and hightailed it upstairs to hide beneath the bed.
Molly emerged a second later,
looking nothing short of delighted. “Dinner is served!”
With no small amount of trepidation, the gang followed her into the dining room. Only to stop immediately in their tracks.
The place had been transformed.
In just the few short hours that Rae had been out shopping, followed by another half hour of cocktails and chit-chat, Molly had somehow managed to create a winter wonderland right there in the living room. Most of it had been delegated to professionals, of course, but the entire thing had Molly’s electric little fingers all over it.
Explosions of ivory flowers covered every available surface. Dripping out of vases, and trailing along the banister. Rae’s favorite bouquet had been strategically placed in front of a picture of her, Molly, and Devon, angled so that he was blocked out and only the girls remained. The table was set with starched linens, sparkling silver beneath the light of a crystal chandelier, and a thousand little twinkle lights peeked out from every corner, filling the room with an ethereal glow.
On the wall, a tasteful banner was mounted. Weaved in sparkling silver thread.
Congratulations Rae (and Devon)!!!
Yep. This had Molly’s fingerprints all over it. Right down to the trio of ice sculptures that were standing in the corner. At least, Rae hoped they were ice sculptures. Realistically speaking, there was no telling what Molly might have done to the caterers.
For a moment, everyone simply stood there, stunned. Even the ear-shattering gong seemed to have been forgiven. Then, at the same time, everyone in the room turned to the happy couple.
“Congratulations, sweetie,” Beth said softly, staring at her daughter with a tender smile. “I can’t begin to tell you how much it means to me, to see you so happy and so in love. I am so unbelievably proud of the both of you.” Her breath caught in her throat. “Andrew would be, too.”
Rae’s eyes misted over as Devon wrapped a strong arm around her waist. She wasn’t expecting anyone to make a speech, and before she could begin to recover from her own mother’s words Devon’s mother stepped up to the plate.
The woman was a beauty. A stunning beauty. With an effortless grace, and the kind of face you saw in picture books growing up as a child. She swept confidently towards the center of the floor with Tristan’s eyes trained on her every move.
“Rae, we’ve only ever met once. I don’t presume to know you well, we simply haven’t had any time together. But given the time I have spent with you, I can come to only one conclusion.” She cleared her throat as the emotions threatened to overwhelm, and without thinking her husband walked forward and took her by the hand. The two locked eyes and shared a fleeting smile. “You’re a woman worthy of my son,” she finished simply. “I can give you no greater compliment than that.”
Devon kissed Rae on the forehead before releasing her and crossing the floor to his mother. They embraced in a tight hug, separated by about a foot’s difference in height, before she pulled back with a fond smile and pushed his long hair out of his eyes.
“You’ll have to cut that before the wedding, you know.”
The rest of the room laughed quietly as Julian gave Molly a discreet nod. Best to end to the speeches with the mothers. The last thing anyone wanted was for Simon Kerrigan to give it a shot.
“Shall we sit down for dinner?” Molly asked sweetly, ever the gracious hostess. There were murmurs of assent as people settled themselves around the huge table.
To be honest, it wasn’t nearly as awkward as it could have been.
Luke, one of only two people without any ink, was seated next to Simon. A choice that might have been strategic, but the guy was so damn charming you’d never know. Devon’s parents sat together, which seemed to surprise Devon but please him at the same time. And the rest of them divided up the remaining space. Leaving only a single chair left open.
“I’m going to kill him,” Molly murmured as conversations started up and the food was passed around. “I specifically told him to get here at seven.”
As if on cue, the door opened and closed, sending a wave of chilled air into the cozy dining room. A second later Gabriel appeared from around the corner, holding a bottle of Champagne.
“You made it!” Rae greeted him enthusiastically. Even Devon nodded a warm greeting as Angel flashed him a grin. “I was worried you might not come.”
“And miss all this?” His eyes flickered briefly around the table before returning to hers with a crooked smile. “Not a chance.”
He set the Champagne in the middle of the table and greeted Beth, circling back around to give Rae an ostentatious kiss on the cheek. Devon smiled and started spinning his steak knife between his fingers, while Gabriel took the opportunity to murmur discreetly into her ear.
“It’s an…interesting table you’ve got here.”
“Right?” She snorted under her breath, and nodded to the empty chair. “It wouldn’t be a true Kerrigan family get-together unless there was a chance that someone might up and die.”
When he didn’t say anything she glanced over her shoulder, only to see him staring at the chair with a look of cold disbelief. “You have to be fucking kidding me…”
It didn’t take a genius to see what the problem was. The only chair available happened to be directly across from Rae’s father. A man Gabriel would have gladly beaten to death, even before he’d recently tried to steal Gabriel’s tatù.
“Molly,” Rae muttered under her breath, “can’t you do something?”
Molly turned her head and gave Gabriel a saccharine smile. “No, I can’t. Maybe if he’d showed up on time, he wouldn’t be in this situation.”
Rae tried to interject, but they only had eyes for each other.
“No, it’s fine. This is exactly where I want to be,” he answered bitingly. “At Rae’s engagement party. Sitting across from her father.”
Most people would have visibly recoiled from the acid in his voice, but Molly only grinned. “It’s settled then.” She pushed out the chair, and cocked her head towards it. “Just don’t play footsie with him, and you’ll be fine.”
Gabriel’s eyes narrowed like he was seriously considering saying something he would regret, but in the end he forced a tight smile and settled himself down. Simon glanced over immediately but Gabriel turned to Julian instead, acting like the man sitting two feet away simply didn’t exist. “How’re you feeling?”
An interesting question, seeing as the psychic was having a hard time holding his fork. After a few seconds of trying, he set it back down again with a wistful sigh. “Oh, you know. Like I got stabbed.”
On the other side of the table, things weren’t going much better. While the adults were clearly making a supreme effort to try to get along, the scars between them ran too deep to ignore.
“I think I met you once,” Mary was saying to Beth, leaning across Tristan with a friendly smile. “It was years ago. Tris and I ran into you and a friend at dinner.”
“That’s right,” Beth’s eyes softened at the memory. “The four of us couldn’t have been much older than the kids are now. Andrew hadn’t even gone to work at the school yet.”
“Andrew?”
“Her husband,” Tristan explained softly. “He recently passed away.”
Mary retreated at once, offering a sincere condolence. But Tristan’s quiet words had caught the attention of someone else as well.
“Your husband?!”
For a split second, the table fell dead quiet. Utensils froze in place as everyone tried to avoid looking at the epic staring match between Beth and Simon. Not the easiest thing to do.
“This whole time,” Simon breathed, “I always knew the two of you were very close, but I never imagined…” His eyes flashed with soft menace. “You actually married him?”
A cold chill ran up Rae’s spine as everyone’s eyes flashed back to her mother. People weren’t even pretending to be minding their own business anymore; many of them were starting to look seriously nervous. Lately, their group conflicts had tended to end
rather explosively. Literally.
Tristan saw the direction things were headed, and was quick to intervene. It helped that he was sitting on Simon’s other side, fencing him in with Luke. “You’re not going to get anywhere at this table by hating Andrew Carter,” he warned in a voice so soft that even Rae and Devon could barely hear. “You were dead, Simon. Let it go.”
Wise words, but Simon was in no position to hear them. He jerked compulsively, like he was about to spring to his feet right then and there, but never made it off the floor. It wasn’t until Rae glanced discreetly beneath the table that she realized Tristan had him in a death-grip.
The tension in the air was palpable, and linen napkins were laid casually aside as everyone around the table braced themselves in whatever way they could. Julian’s eyes flashed white to check the future, Molly’s hands glowed blue with static energy, and Devon pushed his chair nonchalantly back a few inches, ready to leap over the table and intervene at a moment’s notice.
But Beth didn’t look remotely on edge. In fact, she was staring up at Simon with a strange fire burning in her eyes. A heroic defiance. One in which she took both vengeance and pride. “Of course I married him. He was the only man I ever truly loved.” As if these words weren’t cutting enough, she dug the knife in deeper. “He died to save your daughter’s life. Funny how that works, isn’t it? One man saves her, while another condemns her with his every breath.” Her eyes flashed ice-blue as she looked him up and down. “Tell me, Simon, which one was the real father?”
Someone’s going to be killed tonight. Rae sighed.
The room went quiet. Dangerously quiet. The kind of quiet that threatened to suffocate everything in its path. Knuckles whitened, bodies braced, as the entire room held its breath.
Until, all at once, a quiet chuckle echoed through the air.
Rae turned in shock to Gabriel. It was like he couldn’t control it. He was still grinning as he reached forward and took a swig of his Champagne. Their eyes met and he flashed her a wink.
“Now I’m having a good time…”
* * *
