Grave Signs (Hellgate Guardians Book 4)
Page 33
I look over at the untouched food still on the center table in front of the sofa and then turn to them curiously.
“We didn’t want to start without you two,” Toreon offers, and I’m stunned by the answer.
He’s starving. I know he’s starving, because I am too, and I was with Morax for far less time than he was. I know I gave him a boost with my power, but that can’t be enough to sustain him without actual nourishment in the form of food and water.
I look over at Vudu and recall his cheeky mention of manners. Maybe that’s a bigger deal where they grew up than I realized. I’m new to all this, and it might be wise to get the lowdown while I stuff my face.
“Ready to eat, Little Mate?” Vudu asks, and I nod and walk over to sit between him and Toreon on the couch.
“I’m sorry for making you wait. I want you to eat without me next time,” I tell them as I lean toward the table and pick up a platter that has little finger sandwiches. I don’t even care that I’m not sure what kind of meat or condiments are slabbed on there, I’m going to eat everything.
“We wanted to wait,” Toreon tells me, and I can’t help but smile as I grab a couple of the sandwiches.
“Here,” I say, holding the platter up to Toreon. He grabs a few before I pass it to Vudu. The thin slices look tiny in Vudu’s big gray palm, but he grunts out a thanks before he takes the platter and passes it over to Ire.
I shove both sandwiches into my mouth, barely tasting them as I swallow them down. As soon as I get going, I just want more and more, and Toreon is in the same boat, because we both start grabbing platters and plucking food off them before passing them down the line.
I eat fruit, some cheese, a hunk of surprisingly buttery meat, and I’m just about to shove some powdery pastry in my mouth, but Vudu plucks it out of my fingers before I can. Mouth open and teeth chomping, I try to follow the pastry, but he just smiles at me and then plops it in his own mouth.
“Hey!” I whine.
He chews around a smile, some yummy powdered sugar left behind on his lips. “It’s for your own good. I don’t want you to get sick,” he tells me.
I huff, pouting a little. “But I’m still hungry, and that looked really good.”
“Giant is right,” Ire says while he picks up the platter of sugary goodness and helps himself to one too. “You need to take it easy and let your stomach settle first.”
I narrow my eyes at him, but when I see a hand inching out in my peripheral to snag one of the last pastries, my lightning-quick reflexes have me slapping Toreon’s hand before he can reach it.
“Ouch!” he says, as I turn to look at him. “What was that for?”
“If I can’t eat more, you can’t eat more either. Our stomachs are gonna settle and shit. Together,” I stress with a pointed look.
Toreon laughs and holds up his hands in surrender. “Alright, alright. You win.” He looks over at an old-time clock ticking on the wall. “If neither of us have puked our guts up in an hour, we get to share the last one.”
“Deal,” I say, but then I turn to my left and look at Vudu, who still has that enticing powder on his lips. Without hesitation, I quickly lean over and press my lips to his, surprising him, and I flick my tongue out to lick up the last of the sugar before pulling back. “Yum,” I say with a mischievous grin.
But then I notice that all the guys are looking at me, and I suddenly get nervous. “Crap, is that...not okay?”
Ire cocks his head. “Is what not okay?”
I gesture around to them. “Umm, you know just…” My cheeks fill with a blush because once again, I don’t know what the norm is in Hell. “Show affection?” I go on with uncertainty. “I don’t know if what I’m doing is disrespectful, or if there are rules, or—”
“Humans don’t have multiple mates?” Ire guesses.
“No. I mean, not usually. So I’m not sure what the protocol is here.”
Toreon runs a finger down my arm in a soft gesture of comfort. “You don’t have to hold back affection from us, Sable,” he says, easing my worries.
“Are you sure?” I ask, turning to look at his golden eyes. “I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings or make anyone jealous.”
“Will you rebuff or ignore any of us?” Ire asks flat out, drawing my gaze.
“Of course not,” I answer honestly.
He shrugs. “Then, we’ll be fine.”
I arch a dubious brow. “Just like that?”
Ire places his elbow on the armrest and balances his jaw on his finger and thumb. “I’m not saying we won’t have bumps along the way, but that’s every relationship, is it not?”
“I guess so,” I concede. “But if I’m doing something wrong or falling short somehow, I want to know. I want you to talk to me about it. Because I don’t want to screw this up,” I say, my mood shifting into worry. “I just really want to be a good mate to you guys.”
Rough fingers grasp my chin, and Vudu turns my face to look at him. “It’s not all on you, Little Mate. We’ll all be finding our footing.”
Beside me, I feel Toreon shift, and I look over to see him running a hand down his face. “I’m sorry, Sable,” he says, dropping his hand to look at me. “We’re probably not making this any easier on you,” he admits.
“You don’t have to apologize. This is new for all of us.”
Toreon glances over at Vudu. “V told me that he talked to you a little bit. We’ll get used to not being in hiding. Hopefully,” he says, giving me a smile, though I can tell it’s strained.
“Where exactly did the two of you hole up before the Ophidian found you?” Ire asks.
I feel Toreon and Vudu tense beside me, and they both share a quick look, silently communicating with each other. I don’t know if Ire feels the change in them, but I sure do. They don’t trust Ire.
“We were in the First Ring,” Toreon answers carefully. “My family bloodline was all Nihil, same as V. But we stayed in Ūnus to keep a lower profile.”
“We thought Gatekeepers have been extinct for centuries. The last one was Grim,” Ire says. “Why did your family decide to go into hiding?”
Vudu cuts his red eyes over to him. “Because their family is always being hunted,” he says harshly, “demons and angels alike, always trying to find a Gatekeeper to make portals for them or to twist their power.”
I look to Toreon, and he nods in affirmation. “Centuries ago, nearly all my family was wiped out completely, all because a faction of demons took it upon themselves to attack the Hellgate and go to the Mortal Realm in search of free reign. Gatekeepers were seen as nothing but jailers, made out to be the villains keeping the demons in. They’d forgotten the importance of balance. That was the last straw, so to speak.”
“So what happened?” I ask.
He lifts a shoulder. “My kin hid in the Mortal Realm for a long time. We already had created portals around different places that could take us to Hell’s Embrace, so we stayed with the humans and snuck through the portals to strengthen the Hellgate as needed. We tried to do our duties quietly, to sneak in and out. There weren’t Gate Guardians back then, so protecting the Hellgate and portals fell to us Gatekeepers. But we got picked off one by one, killed every time we risked our safety to go there, when we were simply trying to do our duty. We made the ultimate sacrifice to continue to protect the Hellgate, and our sworn protectors were slaughtered right beside us,” he says, glancing at Vudu.
I turn to look at my giant. “So nearly all of your family was wiped out too.”
“Yes,” he says simply, but I don’t miss the flash of pain in his red eyes.
“Finally,” Toreon continues, “all that was left was my many times great Matron and her cousin. Both were pregnant at the time, and they fled back into Hell to save their children, abandoning the portals and the Hellgate, knowing that if they stayed, they would only be slaughtered too.”
“That’s awful,” I say, feeling so horribly sad. “What about Lucifer? Why didn’t he step in?”
“The Gate Guardians have been struggling for centuries to sustain the Hellgate,” Ire says, drawing all our attention. “Without Gatekeepers, it’s been weakening.”
Even though Ire speaks without emotional inflection, Toreon stiffens defensively. “Well, I certainly didn’t see any of the Seven Sins coming down to help defend my family while we were all dying,” he says, golden eyes growing hard.
A tic appears in Ire’s jaw. “The Sins aren’t responsible for the slaughter of your kin. Lucifer blessed your bloodline with sworn protectors,” he says, gesturing to Vudu. “We thought you had your duties well in hand.”
Toreon scoffs. “Spoken like a true Sin progeny.”
Ire sits up, temper flaring as his wings unfold to do the same. “Don’t lay your hate on me because your family was killed. I had nothing to do with it.”
“Yeah, you had nothing to do with it, because none of the Sins or their armies ever lifted a finger to help us. You all knew we were getting picked off, but no one cared. Not until we went into hiding and then the Hellgate started to weaken. Only then, when things were an inconvenience, did anybody fucking care,” Toreon spits out, every word rife with vitriol.
“T,” Vudu rumbles in warning.
Toreon shakes his head. “Vudu and I were forced to hide our entire lives. Do you have any clue what that’s like for children? To not be allowed to go outside? To be hidden away in the middle of fucking nowhere without any friends or acquaintances other than our cousins and each other? It was even harder as adults. Vudu and I always had to hide what we were, always had to look over our shoulders.”
I glance from him to Vudu, my stomach churning uneasily, the food sitting heavy in my gut.
Toreon shakes his head and looks down at his feet. “Even then, it wasn’t enough, because the Ophidian tracked me and my cousins down and took us anyway. I saw two of them get drained dry right in front of me when we were forced to make the portals, and then Morax tossed their dead bodies aside like a piece of trash,” he says roughly, his throat working with emotion.
My mind immediately flashes back to Toreon collapsed on the ground below the portal to Heaven, his gaunt and graying body being sucked dry of power and life, and I curl my arms in front of me, like I’m trying to ward the memory away.
“And that was going to be me next,” Toreon goes on, his eyes haunted. “That was my fucking future to look forward to, the thing my family warned me about my whole life. I hid in a cage of my own making, just to be shoved into another one by the Ophidian. So don’t say that everyone thought we had our duties well in hand. The truth is, no one gave a shit about us.”
My breath is shaky in my chest at the tense moment. I’ve always wondered about the details of Toreon and Vudu’s past, but this...this is hard to hear.
My eyes shift to Ire uneasily, because his lips are pinched and his harsh brows are drawn close together in a frown. “Don’t,” I warn him in our minds. Because I can see that he’s a second away from reacting badly.
He glances at me, and I watch as a dozen emotions flicker across his face. I feel his irritation and his rising temper, but then his gaze softens slightly, and he tamps it down, though it takes a lot of effort. “You’re right,” he finally grits out, looking over to Toreon, and the admission makes my green-skinned demon blanch. “You and your kin weren’t protected as they should’ve been.”
Toreon blinks at him, as if that was the very last thing he expected Ire to say. Considering the uncomfortable way Ire shifts in his chair, I’d say that even Ire is surprised he said it.
For a beat, no one speaks, like all four of us expect a shouting match to break out.
“Agreed,” Vudu says, filling in the shocked silence. “Now, let’s not upset our mate.”
Toreon turns his head to look at me. “I’m not trying to upset you,” he says, face troubled.
I reach over and place my hand on his thigh. “I know you’re not. And I know you’re angry about everything that happened, and you have every right to be,” I say, looking between him and Ire.
Toreon sighs, and his shoulders slump, as if all the anger just leaked out of him. He seems exhausted all of a sudden. Deep circles are caught beneath his eyes, like he hasn’t slept in months. Given our situation before, he probably hasn’t.
I’m about to suggest that we all go get some much needed rest when a knock suddenly sounds on the door. Ire opens his mouth, either to tell someone to come in or to go away, but before he can say a single thing, the door is thrown open, making me jump.
We all whirl around at the intrusion, a mix of reactions going through us as we see who comes stalking inside with self-assured presumption.
Great. My Pride-full father is here.
42
“Oh look, our Sire-in-law has come to drop in for an unannounced visit. Lucky us,” Ire mutters dryly.
“Taz? What are you doing here?” I say, getting to my feet alongside Toreon and Vudu as he comes right in and walks around the table to face us. I notice a few nervous looking guards in the hallway, but Ire waves them off, and they scatter, shutting the door behind them.
“I came to let you know that the party will be in one week,” Taz answers.
Frowning, I look at my mates and then back to Taz, confused since it’s only been a few hours. “Umm...yeah, we talked about that earlier.”
He pulls out something from a pocket in his shirt and hands it over. I look down at the embossed paper and see it’s a formal invitation to the party at his house, one week from today. “Oh, umm, thanks,” I say.
“You’re welcome,” he replies with a brusque nod.
He’s cleaned up since the battle, his clothes fresh and his blond hair hanging freely around his head. Despite the fact that he just stopped by without warning and didn’t even wait for us to answer his knock before coming inside, he looks oddly...nervous. It’s so out of place from his usual cocksure look that it’s making me increasingly curious.
I immediately notice a paper bag in his hand. “What’s in the bag?”
“Oh, this is for you,” he says before holding it out to me.
I tentatively take it, unrolling the top before I set it on the table and pull out the contents. I blink down at it. “Umm...it’s an electric can opener,” I say with bewilderment.
“Yes. I sent some imps to the Mortal Realm to get it for you as a home warm-up offering.”
Dazed, I flick my gaze up to him. “Do you mean a housewarming gift?”
“That’s what I said.”
I look back down at the can opener still in the box, and wonder idly if Hell even has electrical outlets.
“It’s a...very nice brand,” I tell him.
Taz nods, though I can tell he has no clue what I’m talking about. “I had it on good authority that all humans have one of these in their homes.”
“I’m sure they do,” I say placatingly, but I have to bite my lips to keep them from spreading into a smile. My mates just look on, confused.
My eyes flick down to the second thing that was stuffed into the bag. “And thank you for the…” I pick it up to make sure I’m seeing this correctly, but I immediately notice that the package is opened, and I nearly drop some of the contents. “The opened bag of tater tots,” I finish.
A frown line appears between Taz’s brows. “The imps insisted those were popular as well. Although, I tried some, and they were not to my liking.”
A grin spreads over my face as I look at him. “They’re still frozen,” I tell him, but he just stares at me. “You have to cook them first.”
“Ah. That makes sense,” he says, and I’m so glad my guys don’t seem to know why this is all so funny either, because if a single one of them snickered right now, I would completely lose
it in a fit of giggles.
But I can’t make fun of him. I just can’t. He clearly is out of his element here, and as hilarious and random as this is, I think he was just using the excuse of bringing the invitation and the home warm-up offering as a reason to see me, and that means a lot. It gives me hope for the future.
“Well, thank you for bringing them,” I say as I set the opened package of half-frozen tater tots back down on the table. “That was nice of you.”
Relief flashes across Taz’s gray-gold eyes before his confidence returns full force. “You’re welcome. I will be bringing Medley and Delta gifts as well.”
My eyes alight with ecstatic amusement. “You should definitely do that,” I encourage, hoping like hell that I’m around when he does.
“Also, I wanted to give my apologies,” Taz says unexpectedly. “Though I searched for you, I failed you. But upon my honor, no one will ever hurt you or your sisters again, or I shall make them rue the day that their souls were woven into existence.”
Vudu nods beside me, like that’s a perfectly excellent vow.
Emotion crawls up my throat at his words. This is Pride in front of me, and he just admitted that he failed at something, something I can tell means a great deal to him.
We stare at each other for a moment, his eyes flicking back and forth between mine, studying me, imploring my forgiveness, apologizing to me. I nod silently, swallowing past the tightness in my throat and offering him a grateful smile.
I always wanted visitors when I was little. I didn’t understand when it was visitors day why no one came to see me. I eventually understood that there was no one who cared enough to visit. I got over it, as you do, but as I smile up at Tazreel, this moment holds more significance than he’ll ever know.
“Thank you…” I start blinking away the tears welling in my eyes. I pause, not sure exactly what I should be calling him. Not dad, certainly. Father is a little weird, and using his full name seems oddly formal. “What do you like to be called?” I inquire. “I know Delta and Medley use your name, is that what you prefer?”