by Mary Martel
I absolutely did not like the way this conversation was going, but it did explain the conversation I’d listened in on outside of the kitchen. They did expect me to date them all. Well, save for the two who thought I was too young and didn’t seem to like me. I was beginning to think this was all one long dream I didn’t know how to wake up from. Who the hell were these people?
Brothers of the flame.
That’s what crazy Uncle Quinton had called them. What did that even mean?
“We never believed for a second that we would be blessed enough to have a female witch of our own. Quinton is angry, hateful and has always done shit that makes him seem like a stone-cold motherfucker. He’s our leader and I don’t think there’s many people who would see all of that as a potentially good catch. Until you get a good look at his bank account, that is. Quinton is loaded. Ty’s got more money and he used to be a lot less like Quinton. He was once the nicest guy we knew, and he never, not ever, lost his temper. It wasn’t until after Annabell that he became more like his Uncle.”
It was hard to imagine the Tyson he was talking about. I couldn’t line him up with the Tyson I had met on the first day of school. Even now that we were friends and he treated me with care I could still sense the darkness within him just below the surface. At every moment he could snap, the switch to his temper flipped and then he’d turn into the aggressive asshole I’d first met. He was like a caged animal. With Quinton, he was an animal who’d long since escaped the confines of his cage and he had no leash. I had no problem with believing the things he’d said about Quinton because that was simply the man he was, he didn’t try to hide it. I really liked this about Quinton.
“When Annabell turned seventeen she decided to go from coven to coven to see if she could find a place better suited for her than the coven she was born in to. She didn’t want to stay where she was. Her father had died when she was just a little girl and her mother had died while giving birth to her. The Elders in her father’s coven raised her. Growing up with their children, their sons, she was treated better than the rest of the children and it rotted her on the inside. She’s a vicious, spoiled bitch and the men she grew up with knew it. Still, they wanted to keep her for themselves. She, however, wanted more for herself. The only covens she stayed with for any length of time were the ones with the wealthiest people, like Quint and Ty. Not all covens are well off like ours is. She showed up here right after Ty’s parents died. He was a vulnerable wreck and Quinton was closed off from the rest of us and angrier than his usual self. She latched on to Ty like a leech and she tried to bleed him dry. She wanted to manipulate him into being her puppet. She used him and tried to turn him against Quinton because she didn’t like him. She didn’t like most of us. In fact, the only one’s she liked were Ty, Julian and Damien.
“She got to Ty because he was drowning in his grief and needed something to focus on. What’s better than a pretty girl with magic who sleeps with you and whispers sweet things in your ear when you’re having a bad day. We’re taught from birth that there isn’t anything better than a girl with magic. Hell, she doesn’t even have to be pretty for people to desire her. Lucky for us you’re pretty and sweet.”
Abel’s body shook with laughter from behind me. I didn’t find any of this tale to be amusing, though, I appreciated him calling me pretty. I had a ball of dread sitting like a brick in the pit of my stomach. I wasn’t so sure I wanted to know about Annabell anymore, and I certainly wasn’t sure I wanted to hear about what she’d done to Tyson and what Quinton had done to her in return.
Abel stopped laughing. He put pressure on the hand splayed between my breasts and pushed me back until there was no longer any space between our bodies.
Addison placed his big hand on top of my head and he absently played with my hair while he continued on with his story.
“She had Tyson, too, she had all of him, heart and soul. He bought her things, expensive purses and jewelry and shoes. Clothes, whatever she wanted he bought for her. We thought we were going to be stuck with her for the long haul and my twin and I were miserable. For a while we thought we were going to have to leave our coven and find another one. I mean, we get the whole sharing thing, we don’t even mind it. We always knew we’d share with each other because we share everything, sharing with our brothers isn’t such a big deal to us. Not only that, but it’s something we are all taught as acceptable so long as she has magic. But the thought of putting that bitch in-between my twin and I turned my stomach. Not even for Ty’s happiness could we pull that off. We didn’t even try to hide our distaste for the greedy cow. She moved from Ty’s bed to Julian’s bed to Damien’s bed. All the while she whispered in their ears, telling them she loved them one second, and trying to turn them against us in the next. We thought it was weird that she only worked on those three and we brought our concerns to Quinton. Every day we watched in horror as she pulled our brothers further and further away from us. Too lost in his own sorrow, Quinton hadn’t noticed a damn thing until we said something to him. Finally, it was the thing that snapped him out of his grief and he started paying attention again. Quinton checked in with the other covens she’d visited the longest and what they told him… Ariel, it was bad. She’d gone from coven to coven and handpicked the ones she liked. She had planned on splitting us all up and creating her own coven, she wanted to rule us all. And the fucked-up part is she used magic on everyone she slept with, that’s how she got them on her side. She broke one of our most sacred laws and because she was female there wasn’t shit we could do about it.”
“Quinton lost his damn mind,” Abel added quietly. “I thought he was going to kill her anyway and damn the consequences. She almost tore our family apart and she did the same thing to three other covens. Some of them still aren’t recovered from her. She turned brother against brother. Even if she did use magic to get what she wanted out of them, their betrayal still stung. If it weren’t for Quinton our family would likely be in ruin after Annabell.”
“Quinton attacked Tyson,” Addison said, taking the story over once again. “They beat the shit out of each other, all the while hurling horrible insults at each other. It took four of us to pry them apart. When Quinton told us the truth, that she was stealing members from each coven so she could build her own and she’d used magic to do it, all so she could be some sort of Queen. Well, it’s safe to say that didn’t go over well amongst us. We finally stopped fighting each other. The other covens she’d played with wanted their pound of flesh from her. The Elders wanted to lock her away for her own safety. What they really wanted to do was protect her from the rest of us all because she had a vagina. And her original coven, well they wanted her back because they loved her and she hadn’t even had to use magic on them to gain their love and loyalty. They loved her because she was a beautiful girl with magic.”
When Addison paused, Abel picked up the story for him. “We were told by the Council of Elders to send her back to her original coven. To our surprise, Quinton agreed.”
“But Quinton is Quinton,” Addison said. “You don’t fuck with his family and simply walk away from it unharmed. He made an example out of Annabell, he wanted the other covens to know just who they were dealing with if they fucked with us. He made something special just for her and he mixed it in with her facewash. It ruined half of her face, Ariel. And I mean ruined. Half her face looks like it was shoved in an open fire pit. Annabell the Beautiful had her beauty stolen from her which is what Quinton had wanted. Without her beauty, she’s forced to rely on her charm. Which is unfortunate for her because she’s rotten to the core.”
“Dash blames Quinton for letting Annabell get so close.”
Ah. Abel’s words explained something I had been curious about having heard outside the kitchen.
“Quinton is scary,” I whispered to the both of them.
“Quinton is scary,” they both agreed in unison.
I shivered, thankful I didn’t have to sleep alone in the dark on this night.
> I understood them better now, if only a little and my heart hurt for Tyson. He was quickly becoming my favorite and the thought of someone purposefully harming him had my chest clenching painfully. I didn’t so much care about Julian or Damien’s broken hearts because they didn’t mean anything to me yet.
It was the yet on the end of that sentence that frightened me. I didn’t think I wanted to care for all of them, but I was certain I didn’t want to have an intimate relationship with all of them.
I thought about their story of Annabell the Beautiful, the treacherous cow, and I knew I was in over my head. I couldn’t have a relationship with simply one of them, they wouldn’t allow it. They were a package deal and it seemed there would come a time when I had to choose; all or nothing.
Even with Addison watching over me and Abel holding on to me tightly my sleep was restless and filled with disturbing things.
I dreamed of a raven-haired beauty. She had the blackest eyes I had ever seen and plump, ruby red lips. She stood before a large, oval shaped mirror, naked. She had small, high breasts with tiny, dark nipples and a narrow waist. I thought she was beautiful in the face, but childlike in body.
She raised her hand and laid her palm flat against the mirror, covering up half her face. Slowly, the visible side of her face melted down to nothing but gruesome burns. Even half her mouth was ruined, forever drooping in a melted frown.
Annabell.
I dreamed of Annabell.
And somehow, I knew that was exactly what she looked like in real life.
Over and over again, she pressed her hand to the mirror, covering half her face. And over and over again, I watched as the other half of her face melted away. It felt like it lasted for hours and when I finally woke up in the morning I felt like I had every tiny detail of her body memorized, even the ruined side of her face.
Yes, Uncle Quinton was definitely a scary dude to have done that to her.
A small part of me, a part I’d never admit to anyone else, felt like my luck might have changed simply by having Quinton in my life.
I spent the weekend going between Tyson’s room and the twin’s room. They gifted me with books about magic, candles and answered any question I threw their way. They taught me things, incredible things about magic and I learned a lot from them.
I didn’t go downstairs again until it was time to get ready for school on Monday morning. I didn’t have to see the rest of them the whole weekend. I didn’t know if I was excited about this or disappointed.
Chapter Twenty-six
Shit.
He hadn’t been there when I’d gone into the bathroom, but he was certainly there now. And with his eyes locked on me I knew he was propped up against the wall waiting for me to leave the bathroom.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
I frowned at him. I did not need whatever this was going to be and I certainly did not want to be alone with him. Not ever.
“What do you want, Chuck?”
He frowned at me. “It’s Chucky, not Chuck.”
I almost laughed. Chucky’s the name of a cute little boy with pudgy cheeks and a freckled nose. A little boy with short, messy dark brown hair who wore one of those ugly horizontally stripped shirts moms, for whatever reason, always make their little boys wear. That was a Chucky. Chucky was not the name of an almost full grown boy man. At least not a self-respecting one. He should have lost the y after middle school. But, whatever, it wasn’t my name.
“Okay, Chucky, I’ll ask again, what do you want?”
“You don’t have to be a bitch, Ariel.”
He was right, I didn’t have to be a bitch, but he also didn’t deserve kindness from me either. I looked at him and decided to wait him out.
He didn’t make me wait long.
He blew out a deep breath and stared down at his tennis shoes. When he spoke, his voice was quiet, careful.
“While I was in the hospital I had a lot of time on my hands and nothing to do but think. I thought a lot about you. Actually, you’re pretty much the only thing I really think about now.”
He had a lot of time on his hands? To my knowledge, he’d been in the hospital for a whole two days. Two.
He shook his hands out at his sides then balled them into tight fists. He was nervous about something. Being alone with me? Did I make him nervous now? Why did that thought bother me so much?
I had a bad, bad feeling about where this was going.
“On the first day of school, what I did to you,” he shook his head while still looking down at his shoes. “I should never have done that, not to you of all people. And I’m so sorry, Ariel, so very sorry.”
That dreaded day was always coming back to bite me on the ass. I couldn’t escape it. Wait, had he said not to me of all people? Did that mean he’d be cool with treating other people in such a way? He was such an A-hole.
“Listen, Chuck-”
“Chucky.”
“Whatever,” I rolled my eyes. “I need to get back to class so thanks for the apology and I’ll be seeing you.”
I started walking away but stopped short when he did the most unexpected thing. He dropped to his knees in front of me. His hands came up and he placed them together, palm against palm in a prayer position. The look in his eyes confused me; he looked frantic.
What was going on?
“Uh, Chuck-”
He let that one go. Big of him. “Ariel, please, please, I need you to forgive me.”
I looked at him on his knees before me, begging me to forgive him. There were no dimples out now. He’d never looked this sincere before.
“Why do you care so much, Chuck? Why is this so important to you?”
Why are you on your knees before me? Why do you seem like a different person than you were last week? These were the questions I really wanted answers too but didn’t feel brave enough to ask.
Why? Why? Why?
“It’s important to me.” He shuffled closer to me and I had to fight off the urge to take a step back. This was too close for comfort and he was being a weirdo. “You’re important to me. So very important. They had to sedate me in the ambulance and when I woke up in the hospital you were the only thing I could think about. It’s actually kind of weird. Even though you were a freak with piercings and with the goth thing I still thought you were hot and I wanted to have sex with you but… Now it’s different. It’s so much more. Ever since waking up in the hospital all I can think about is how beautiful you are, how sweet, how perfect you are and how I’d do anything, anything for you. Ariel, I need you to forgive me. Please, please.”
He started to cry. Fat, silent tears slid down his face as he bent forward and wrapped his arms around my thighs. He held on tightly like he never wanted to let me go.
Um… No?
What did one say in this type of situation? I had no freaking clue.
I patted him on top of his head as if he were a dog. “There, there,” I told him as I gave him one last pat on the head. Lame, Ariel Kimber. I almost shrugged. What could I say, holding hands and soothing hurts wasn’t really my specialty.
“Please,” he whined as he rubbed his face against my thigh, way too close to my crotch for comfort. “Forgive me.”
“Okay, Chuck, I forgive you.” I lied to him.
“Promise?” He whispered.
“Sure,” I lied some more, beyond caring at this point.
He relaxed against my legs and his arms loosened their hold on me. Now how did I scrape him off of me the rest of the way?
“Thank you, thank you,” he chanted over and over again with his face still pressed up against my thigh. He rubbed his nose against my leg getting closer and closer to my crotch.
Alright, this was taking things too far. I’d had more than enough and I’d been nicer than anybody I knew probably would have been to him.
“Chuck, you need to get your face away from my crotch and take your hands off of me,” I said in a quiet, careful voice.
Immediately, he sat back, his arms
loosened and he let me go. He sat back on his heels, blinked and stared up at me with big eyes.
“Whatever you want, Ariel.”
I didn’t like the sound of that.
Before I could tell him to get off his feet the bell rang and the hallway flooded with people. Oh, holy shit, I did not need this on top of everything else.
The vomiting up blood incident was all anyone could talk about and I’d been invisible all day because of it. Even the twins and all their masculine beauty was lost to the background of what had happened in the courtyard on Thursday. This was a game changer and would put me back on the high school drama radar.
“Get up,” I hissed. “Right now.”
He didn’t squabble and immediately climbed to his feet. This was not normal behavior, minutes ago he’d been clinging to me and now he was following my every command without even the tiniest of protests. The whole thing was bizarre, I tell you.
He grinned at me and his dimples came out. I frowned at him, not understanding what he had to smile about.
“Whatever you say, Ariel,” he semi repeated.
Whatever you want, Ariel. Whatever you say, Ariel. What did he even mean by that? Who was this person? Had Chucky had a lobotomy while he’d been in the hospital? I had a strong urge to smack him upside his dimpled face.
“Ariel, what are you doing with this prick?” One of the twins asked from directly behind me.
“Yeah, you never came back to class. We were worried about you. Then we come out here and find you with this asshole. What the hell?”
