“I didn’t have your damn mate! I brought her back to you.”
Jaime redirected his glare at Tyrisey.
Slowly a sinister smile began to grow on Ty’s face. “If I’d had your mate, she’d not have wanted to return to you.”
Jaime lunged, but Pearl swept her foot out, causing him to tumble to the floor.
Ty took a step back and snickered at Jaime on the floor.
“Stop goddamn throwing me to the floor!” Jaime yelled while getting to his feet.
“Stop making me want to throw you to the floor,” Pearl answered.
“Do not raise your voice at my woman!” Ty shouted at Jaime.
“Oh, you can fucking steal mine, but I can’t raise my voice at yours?” Jaime yelled back.
“I didn’t steal yours!” Ty yelled.
At the same time Ruby yelled just as loudly. “He didn’t steal me!”
Then Ruby turned her attention to her sister. “Stop putting my man on his ass. He won’t fight back because you look like me. It’s not fair.”
Then the snarling started again.
“No! Nooooo! We are not going to do this! You are going to be nice to each other. And you are not going to hit each other.”
“Baby!” Jaime started.
“Don’t baby me, and if you do start hitting each other, I’m going to leave with Pearl and you two will be left here all alone hating each other like idiots!”
“You can’t leave!” both Jaime and Ty shouted at the same time, though their eyes were focused each on a different sister.
Jaime was suddenly pulling Ruby in and holding her gently to him.
Ty stepped closer to Pearl, taking her hand in his. “Please don’t leave. I must speak with you.”
“I’ll be here for a few days. We can talk,” Pearl answered, looking up into the gorgeous eyes Ty had focused on her and her alone.
“They’re very human, aren’t they?” Pearl whispered to Ruby, without taking her eyes from Ty’s.
“Turns out, they are human, just another branch of the species, with bat tendencies.”
Pearl was never one to go for the normal type of man. She loved skulls, and vampires and tattoos and anything that was the complete opposite of normal. She took a second to really look at the male. He was tall, had a suede like quality to the skin on his face. He was dark, some would call the color of his fur and his skin black, but when the light reflected off it, it could have been a little lighter, it was hard to tell. His eyes were dark and human-like with human lashes. His lips a darker shade than the rest of his skin. Small tips of what she thought were fangs showed between his lips when he smiled at her. He had a slender body, yet was obviously muscled and toned, like a swimmer’s.
Ty's wings shivered a little at her perusal of his body.
Pearl’s eyes flicked to his wings. “Are those things real?”
Ty lifted his wings and extended them for her benefit, smiling a slow seductive smile. “They are.”
“Oh, holy hell in a hand basket!” she rushed out. “I am in so much trouble,” she mumbled.
“I shall save you, my fire,” he promised, gazing at her intently.
“You are the trouble!” she shot back at him.
Mildred decided maybe she needed to relax things a little. “Is anybody hungry. Tyrisey, honey, why don’t you and Jaime sit down and have a nice long talk. Ya’ll have things to figure out. Been hating each other and operating under falsities for far too long. I’ll throw together some food, and everybody can get to know one another.”
Jaime looked at Ty, who was looking at Pearl. “You want to talk to me?”
Ty flicked his eyes to Jaime’s briefly, barely sparing him a glance. “Yes.” Then he returned his attention to Pearl.
“Ty was only told part of the prophecy, and I didn’t know it well enough to tell him the parts he’s missing. Maybe you could tell him and ya’ll could figure this all out together,” Ruby said.
“What part do you not have?” Jaime asked.
Ty looked away from Pearl, a condescending look on his face. “How would I know that?” he asked.
Jaime balled up his fist and started for Ty, Ty balled up his fist and started for Jaime, and Ruby jumped in the middle.
“I’m leaving! You two are hopeless!”
“I’m trying to be nice!” Jaime said.
“You’re too touchy!” Ruby snapped. Then she looked at Ty. “You’re taking advantage of the fact that he’s defensive. How did you feel when you thought I really was yours and I’d been claimed by Jaime? Pissed you off, didn’t it? Well, I’m his, and your psycho granddad almost killed me and kidnapped me. So, give Jaime a break!”
Ty watched Ruby for a few moments considering her words. Finally he inclined his head. “Apologies.”
Then he turned to Jaime. “My apologies, brother. I shall bait you no more.”
“I won’t try to hit you anymore. At least not tonight,” Jaime answered.
“You two and Mildred are all you have left. Not counting psycho granddad. So you really need to learn to get along,” Ruby said softly.
“Come on, boys, have a seat,” Mildred said, walking past them with her serving tray laden down with food. She unloaded everything at the booth that Clarence and Francis usually used, then waited for both her nephews to slide into the booth, one on each side. She leaned over and kissed Jaime's forehead, holding his head to her breast. “Be the patient, good man I know you are. Remember how hard it was for you growing up. It was even harder for Tyrisey.”
Then she let go of Jaime and kissed Tyrisey the same way. “I’m very happy you’re back. I know you are a good man as well. But he was without your parents, too, and he didn’t take them from you. Be patient. Listen.”
Tyrisey was trying to remain hard, cold, calculating as he’d been taught all his life. But the warmth, the acceptance this woman, his aunt, gave him unquestioningly was almost more than he could bear. He’d never been treated with kindness or tenderness. Love was a foreign concept to him, something only dreamt of in his inner most fantasies.
Jaime couldn’t believe it. His own aunt was hugging Tyrisey as though he was a long lost part of the family. Well, he was, but that was beside the point. They’d avoided him, and he them for so long, it was hard to see him as anything other than a threat. And here was Mildred, kissing the man — Bat? Man? Male? Jaime shook his head, trying to decide what the right term was.
They sat there staring at each other.
Ruby slid into the seat next to Jaime.
Ty’s face immediately softened. He smiled at Ruby. “I felt her,” he said, indicating Pearl who had just cracked open an ice cold beer and was swigging it down on barely more than a gulp. “She is just like you. Now I understand why I was confused. Thank you, Ruby, for insisting that I bring you home.”
Ruby cast a look over at Pearl who winked at her and popped a potato chip into her mouth. “You’re welcome. But I’m afraid she’s not just like me. If she’ll have you, at all, you’ll have your hands full.”
“She will have me,” Ty said confidently, his eyes wandering to Pearl. “She is mine. And I do not share, so if she has anyone at all, it will be me.”
“You two are so much alike,” Ruby mumbled, shaking her head.
Jaime reached out and took Ruby’s hand in his own, curling his fingers, sharp with his own bat-like claws as a result of his Alpha prowess being on full display, in response to Tyrisey’s. He got it, he did, there were a lot of similarities. But there was a lifetime of resentment to overcome. If they even could be overcome. And just because they were brothers, didn’t mean they had to like each other.
Ty, momentarily assured that Pearl was not leaving, since she took a seat at a table near the front of the diner and opened another beer, wasted no time getting to the point. “Where are our parents?” Simple, direct and straight to the point.
“I don’t know. With you?” Jaime snapped.
“They are not with me. They never have been. When w
as the last time you saw them?” Ty asked.
“No conscious memory of it, but it would probably have to be the day they threw me out into the desert to roast in the sun and die alone.”
Ty sat back, regarded Jaime for a moment, then gradually allowed his eyes to wander over to Pearl again.
Everyone startled when Ruby yelled sharply. “Pearl!”
“What?!”
“Come sit down. You're distracting Ty and he’s not going to be able to talk unless you're sitting here.”
“Fine. But I’m not promising anything.” Pearl walked over and slid into the seat beside Ty. “I can still whip your ass. Just saying,” she said to Ty, before taking another swig of her beer.
Ty didn’t argue, just smiled at her and gently pushed a plate with some meatballs and a few French fries toward her.
Ty turned back to Jaime who watched him while quickly running out of patience.
“I was told I was deserted because I looked like this. Our grandfather told me you were the chosen child, our parents left me and lived a perfect life with you in the human world. I grew up hating you. Hating everything about you,” Tyrisey said.
“Same. They found me in the desert, alone. I’m guessing it was near the caves you people live in. Got me medical treatment. I survived. Lived my whole life knowing my parents didn’t care enough about me to even give me away. They just threw me into the desert and whatever was my fate was good enough. They’d lived here with Aunt Mildred for a little while, with us. They could have brought me back — just didn’t think it was important enough. I spent my whole life hating you, because they left me to die and lived their lives with you.”
“Who found you?” Ty asked.
“Clarence.”
“Me! I found him. Looked around real quick for you, but you weren’t there. Rushed him to the hospital and called Mildred. Then went back and spent the next few days looking for you. But you still weren’t there. There was nothing else there at all, not even in the vicinity. Just Jaime.”
Ty watched the old man while he spoke, saw the sincerity on his face. Ty’s voice broke a moment of quiet. “Thank you, for saving my brother. And for searching for me.”
Clarence was surprised at the gratitude in the male’s voice. He smiled, then walked over to the table. He reached his hand out and waited for Tyrisey to take it. When finally Tyrisey curiously lifted his hand and held it out, mimicking Clarence’s actions, Clarence clasped it and shook it vigorously. “You’re welcome, Prime.”
Tyrisey pulled his hand back. “I’m not Prime.”
“Of course you are,” Clarence said, turning his back and walking away from the table. “Just don’t get too used to that table. That’s the site of the daily chess game.”
“I went back, too. I searched and searched. I just knew if Jaime had been discarded, you had been, too. But I never found you,” Mildred said.
“Do you think they deserted us?” Jaime asked Mildred, looking at her from the corner of his eye, almost afraid to know the answer.
“I’ve tried to tell you for years. My brother wouldn’t have done that. And when they were here with me, your mother adored you both. She was a good mother. I don’t know what happened. Don’t know if something broke their minds. If they ran away together, or if they were forced to give you up. But I just can’t believe that they would have willingly left either one of you.”
“You think they’re dead,” Tyrisey and Jaime said at the same time.
Mildred sat there, feeling the weight of their words. Finally she looked up and met both their eyes. “I do. I didn’t want to believe it for a long time. But I can’t come up with any other explanation.”
“How did I get outside the caverns?” Jaime asked.
“I don’t know,” Mildred answered.
“My grandfather said that the only one of us that was worth being alive was me. He said I was better off, that our mother and you were a disgrace, and I was better off alone than raised with the weakness that was in my father’s bloodline.”
“He never even missed his own daughter, wanted to send for her, or even try to find her?” Jaime asked.
“No. Never spoke of her unless it was to condemn her. And I stopped asking when the beatings accompanied my questions.” Ty sat there, toying with the glass in his hand. His eyes pinned to his fingers twirling the glass. “He is cold, unfeeling. Vicious. He breathes tyranny, manipulation and intimidation. If you don’t follow his rules, live his way, you are cast out or killed. He’s a psychotic old bastard. It is past his time to step down,” Tyrisey said.
“Surely, he at least showed kindness to you? You’re his grandson, the one that looks like him,” Jaime said angrily.
Tyrisey’s eyes flashed up to meet Jaime's. “If you consider beating me until I passed out from the pain, kindness. Or perhaps, forbidding anyone to feed me so that I’d have to scavenge through the refuse for food for myself a kindness. Or maybe you’d prefer the fact that his people were rewarded for advising him of any little kindness I myself showed to anyone else? Then he’d beat me for my weakness.” Tyrisey glared at Jaime as though it was his fault.
Pearl scooted closer and slipped a hand into Ty’s where it rested on the table. Ty’s fingers tightened around hers and his thumb stroked the side of her hand.
Jaime’s lips pressed into a thin line, his breaths were deep, his anger was palpable. “Did no one even try to defend you? To intervene in any way?”
“And lose their own lives for it? No. He was, is, Most High Prime of our people. No one contradicts him or dares to question his authority in any way.”
“You did. When he wanted to chain me up in that cell again, you stood up to him,” Ruby said, quietly.
“He was not going to touch you again. I’d have killed him before I allowed him to hurt you,” Tyrisey said.
Jaime shook his head, then, lifted Ruby’s hand to his lips, pressing a kiss to her knuckles. He regarded his brother sitting across from him, reliving his painful memories so that they would all understand what built the male who sat with them this night.
“Ty…” Jaime said. “I don’t know how to thank you…”
“Not necessary.” Tyrisey said, before calmly sitting back. His hands still rested on the table, holding Pearl’s in his. “I’ve been schooled by his insanity for so long that I found when I mimicked his behavior he left me alone. I think he worries that he pushed me too far, truly made me into something evil and unpredictable, and now he can’t control me.”
“And has he?” Jaime asked.
Ty smiled. “In some cases. But as I told Ruby, not all is as it seems.”
Jaime held his hand out for Ty to shake. Tyrisey, having already shaken Clarence's hand, knew what Jaime waited for and slowly reached his hand out to clasp Jaime’s. It was the first time the brothers had touched - ever. When they clasped hands it was like a light switch was thrown, all that was wrong in their worlds fell away, and all the right pieces fell into place.
Jaime held onto Ty’s hand when he would have pulled free of the shake. He stared into his eyes. “You’re not alone anymore.”
Ty nodded one time. “Nor are you.”
Jaime sat back, kissing Ruby’s temple. He sighed, then visibly relaxed. He thought about the path he’d been on when Mildred had called to say Ruby was back. “I thought you took Ruby. I was searching for the caverns you live in. I was going to kill you.”
Ty smiled. “You were going to try.”
“Guess we’ll never know the outcome of that one,” Jaime conceded.
“No, thankfully we will not,” Ty said. Then he looked into Jaime’s eyes meaningfully. “I do not wish for you to die. I have only just found you.”
“Same.” Then with Ruby still in his arms Jaime spoke to Ty. “Tell me the prophecy as you know it.”
Chapter 18
Ty nodded. “I was taught from memory. The pages were torn out of the tome all the rest are in.”
“I have that page,” Mildred said. “Your
mother brought it here for safe keeping when she left the colony to come live here with your father.”
“I want to see it,” Ty said.
“I can get it for you. I have it hidden away. I’ll dig it out tomorrow and bring it to you. I’m guessing you’ll still be here? You will stay, won’t you, Tyrisey?”
Tyrisey looked around the table at his brother and Ruby, at Mildred, and finally at Pearl. His precious Pearl. “We’ll work it out.” Then he looked at Jaime and spoke the words of the prophecy he’d been taught his whole life.
“The prophecy the way I was taught is,
Two the brothers, the same.
One born of fire, and of flames.
A people to be banned.
Steal the flame, expose the shame.”
“That’s part of it, but there’s more to it,” Jaime said. “The whole thing is,
Two the brothers, the same.
One born of fire, and of flames.
A chasm to be spanned.
Or a people are banned.
Steal the flame, expose the shame.
Share the fire, become the same.”
Tyrisey sat there, his eyes closed, replaying the words in his mind. “It’s simple,” he finally said. He opened his eyes and smiled at everyone around the table. “I was told my whole life that I would become Most High Prime only after I killed Jamisey, stole his mate for my own and secured our dynasty as Prime leadership of our people. I was taught that if I didn’t, our people would be banned from our homes. Chased away and banished from the land we live on, and those who didn’t flee would face merciless bloodshed at the hands of the humans. This is why he forbid any interaction. This is why he refused to let any half breeds into our colony.”
“How the hell does he get that from this prophecy?” Ruby asked.
“I think he knew the whole thing. He was afraid that if Tyrisey and I reconciled, we’d mate, share the same woman and bring peace to our two peoples. Doing so would bring new ways into the colony,” Jaime said.
“And render him and his tyrannical ways obsolete,” Tyrisey finished.
Wings Page 15
