by Mary Martel
“Come on, Ty, give me a little credit here. It’s not like I’m gonna do her right here on Marcus’s front lawn.”
My mouth dropped open to accompany my bugged-out eyes and I gaped at Quinton in what I imagine looked a whole lot like horror. I did not like the way he’d said that at all.
“Nobody’s doing anybody,” I breathed out.
They both started laughing and I backed away from them, slowly.
I didn’t find anything funny and I certainly didn’t like the casual way they were discussing having sex with me. I hadn’t agreed to have a relationship with any of them and no way was I ready to talk about sex with them.
Maybe I shouldn’t have let Quinton stick his tongue in my mouth? Did he think just because I had allowed him to kiss me that now I would be open to other things? I surely hoped not. My life was a mess, I couldn’t imagine how much messier it would get if I started knocking boots with multiple people. Maybe we could talk about it after my life got straightened out and I was no longer in mourning and probably going to end up homeless in my very near future. Then again, maybe not.
Since they were both still laughing and completely ignoring me, I figured it was safe to escape them and their utter madness. I turned and ran. Ran away from them, ran away from their laughter, their particular brand of crazy. If I ran fast enough maybe I could make it to the door and lock myself inside so I could go back to avoiding them because they were all fucking crazy.
I was half way across the lawn when something slammed into my back and I was tackled to the ground. I let out a shriek right before my body hit the ground. A heavy weight landed on top of my back and I ended up with a mouth full of grass.
I spit the grass out and coughed. What the hell?
“Get off me,” I yelled and tried to buck the heavy weight of someone’s body off of me. It was no use.
“Shh,” Tyson said from his place on top of my back. “If you don’t stop yelling, Mr. Cole is going to come out here and think we are trying to murder you. He’ll probably shoot us.”
I ignored his suggestion, and yelled, “If you don’t get off me right this second, Tyson Alexander, I am never, ever going to speak to you again. And, I’m a girl so I know how to hold a mean grudge.”
Before this thing with Chucky, I’d actually never held a grudge against anyone in my whole life and had no intention of Tyson being the second person on my grudge hit list, but he didn’t need to know that.
His weight left my back and I was able to pull in a full breath for the first time since he tackled me. Hands grabbed ahold of me under my armpits and I was hauled to my feet.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Quinton’s voice vibrated with rage. “You could have seriously hurt her, you fucking idiot.”
The person holding me, which I realized was Quinton after he’d spoken, shook me so hard my teeth rattled and my head snapped back and forth with the force of it.
“Are you okay, Ariel?” he asked and his voice was a whole lot gentler than it had been a few seconds ago. And he was calling me by my first name again.
I thought about his question. Was I okay? My body wasn’t injured, or at least I didn’t feel any injuries. I looked down at my body just in case I missed anything important and I realized I had grass stains on my knees. Other than that, I was fine.
Tyson moved so that he was standing in front of me.
He bent forward so that our faces were almost touching and whispered, “Did I hurt you? I didn’t mean to hurt you. I swear it, Ariel. I would never intentionally hurt you.”
I shrugged and told him the truth, “I’m not hurt.”
But I was baffled. Why in the hell would he chase after me and tackle me from behind? We weren’t playing football. We hadn’t been playing at all.
Quinton finally let go of me and I bent forward to brush off my knees and forgot Tyson was standing so close to me. My forehead smacked into his and we both jerked back.
“Ow,” he whined.
I rubbed at my forehead with my fingers and thought about just how absurd this whole night had been. It had started with me trying to escape a terrifying nightmare. Then I’d seen part of some kind of full moon ritual. I’d then went on to see three of my friend’s boy parts. Afterwards, I’d thrown a rock at scary dude Uncle Quinton and bloodied his nose. Then, Tyson got crazy and tackled me. And now this.
I couldn’t help myself. I started laughing. I laughed so hard my entire body shook with it.
Weeks, I had spent without them and even though I had had Mr. Cole with me almost constantly, it had still been what seemed to me like some of the loneliest weeks of my whole life. Yes, my depression had been a direct result of what had happened with my mother. But the loneliness had nothing to do with her death. I’d had but a small taste of their friendship, Tyson’s friendship the most, and I had been empty of emotions without it, without them. I had no idea how I had allowed it to happen.
I stopped laughing. It didn’t seem appropriate anymore.
I swallowed down my emotions, took a deep, shaky breath, and looked Tyson in the eyes. It was now or never. I had to put myself out there. I had to stop holding myself back. Had to stop pretending they weren’t as important to me as they were.
“I missed you,” I whispered hoarsely, honestly.
It was one of the hardest truths to ever come out of my mouth. To admit I missed him was to admit I needed him in some way. And I did not like needing another human being. Not in any way. It had just been me for so long, with only myself to look after, only my own feelings and welfare to care about, I didn’t really know how to go about doing it for someone else. I had already messed it all up by running away from them. What if I messed up worse than that after I let them in? What if I ended up all alone again? I didn’t want to be alone, I was honest enough with myself to admit that. But if I opened myself up to one of them they expected me to open myself up to all of them. With them, it was all or nothing.
The problem was, I didn’t want all of them.
Only some of them.
And I feared that wouldn’t be enough.
Chapter Six
Quinton had backed off the moment Tyson wrapped his arms around me in the tightest hug I had ever experienced. I thought about asking him to ease up a bit, but, truthfully, the hug felt nice. I had missed him very much.
“I’m sorry, girl,” Tyson whispered, “but you tried to run from me. I missed you so much and I am so tired of watching you run away. Don’t run away from me anymore, Ariel. I don’t think I could stand to watch you do it again.”
The pleading and sorrow in his voice broke my heart.
I pulled him in closer to me, as close as he could get and I clung to him for all I was worth.
“Missed you,” I whispered fiercely. “Thought about you every day. Thought about calling you just so I could hear your voice. I’m so sorry for-”
“You don’t have anything to be sorry about,” he whispered back just as fiercely. “I can’t even begin to imagine what you’ve been going through. It’s killed me not to be there for you when you needed me. You have no idea. So I’m not letting you run away from me because I can’t handle it.”
Guilt ate at me from the inside like a vicious thing. I hadn’t meant to hurt anyone, I’d just needed some space to make sure I didn’t fall apart and to get myself sorted.
“I’m not running,” I murmured.
“Girl, you just tried to.”
Since he was right, I didn’t try arguing with him.
He rubbed his face against my hair and inhaled deeply.
“Do you want to go back to the clearing?” he asked me.
Did I want to go back to the clearing? Where the Salt and Pepper twins were naked and Julian, Damien and Dash had just arrived and were probably naked under their robes too? Yeah, I didn’t think so.
Quinton was suddenly there, hovering over me. He placed his hand on Tyson’s shoulder and pulled him away from me.
“It’s late,” Qu
inton said. “Ariel needs to get inside where it’s safe and she needs to go to bed. What she doesn’t need to be doing is gallivanting through the woods with you in the middle of the night. She’s had enough of that for one night. Now, she’s going to bed. Alone.”
Tyson’s face darkened and he scowled ferociously at Quinton. There he was, I missed him. I grinned at the both of them. Time’s like these made it easy to tell they were related, they both shared the same scowl, the same dark looks. A lesser person would have backed away from that dark look on Tyson’s face. Quinton gave one of his own in return.
“You know what I find interesting, Uncle Quint?” Tyson rumbled scarily. It was the same voice he’d used on me the first time I accidently ran into him.
“What?” Quinton ground out.
“We all agreed to give her space, we thought she needed it after everything she’s gone through and we didn’t want to scare her off. Now I see you out here with her and the other day I caught you leaving her house. How long have you been sneaking over there to see her behind our backs?”
Quinton took a step closer to Tyson and I quickly moved my body between them.
“He hasn’t been sneaking over to see me,” I rushed to assure Tyson. “I had an issue with Chucky showing up at my house out of the blue and he was weird and a serious jerk. Quinton came over to rescue me. And I went into the woods on my own. I followed you and the twins. Quinton followed me to make sure I didn’t get lost or something.”
I left out the part about Quinton sticking his tongue in my mouth. I didn’t know how Tyson would take that.
Tyson studied my face and his angry glare softened then faded away altogether.
“I also appreciate that you guys gave me space,” I murmured. “Thank you, I needed it. But I let it go for too long and I’m done hiding now, done running away. So you don’t have to worry anymore. Okay?”
I felt this bottomless need to assure him I wasn’t going anywhere in hopes of getting rid of some of the guilt I had been burdened with when he told me how much he’d missed me. It would likely take a whole lot more than a few reassuring words on my part. It would take time. With time, he would learn I meant it when I said I wasn’t going to run from them anymore. I had made my decision and I would stick with it. I could go with Mr. Cole and avoid all of this boy drama that the seven of them represented but I couldn’t do it. I didn’t want the fresh new start to life that Mr. Cole offered me. I wanted to stay with my coven. Well, some of them. And they wanted me. Well, some of them. So I wasn’t going anywhere. Not unless they decided they no longer wanted me.
That thought caused a ball of dread to form in the pit of my stomach.
“Why was Chucky at her house?” Tyson asked.
I didn’t like him asking Quinton instead of me when I was right there and fully capable of answering for myself. It had been my house Chucky showed up at, me who had just told him about it, me who he should have asked. Not Quinton.
I opened my mouth to tell him just that when Quinton squeezed my shoulder gently and spoke before I could. It’s like he knew I was going to tell Tyson off. Quinton the mind reader. Scary thought.
“He’s in love with her,” Quinton said and he sounded amused. “And he missed her because she hasn’t been going to school. Can you blame the poor guy?”
“He’s only in love with me because you used some crazy love potion on him and forced him to fall in love with me. Which, in case you missed it,” I snapped sarcastically, “I’m not happy about it at all.”
I moved out from between the two of them and turned so I was facing them both head on. Quinton bit his bottom lip while he watched me like he was waiting for me to do something crazy.
It was Tyson who spoke and he did so sounding tired.
“I’m sorry, Ariel girl. There’s no stopping him. I used to try but stopped when I realized there was absolutely no point and it was a wasted effort. With Uncle Quint, it’s best to simply let him do his own thing and always expect the unexpected. You’ll get used to it. You might never get used to him, but you will get used to expecting crazy shit from him.”
Quinton shrugged, unrepentant.
“I already told you,” he said. “This is who I am and what I am. There’s no changing me.”
I didn’t want to change him. I didn’t want to change any of them.
I sighed, suddenly tired. It had been a very long night for me and I was ready to go back to bed.
“What were you doing outside?” Quinton asked me in a serious voice, changing the subject abruptly. “You never told me before and I want to know. Don’t lie to me and tell me you just felt like taking a walk because I won’t believe you and it will piss me off if you lie to me.”
I thought about how to answer him. I wanted to lie but at the same time I didn’t want him to be mad at me.
When in doubt, tell the truth. Or something close to it.
I rubbed my fingers across my temple and closed my eyes, wishing I were already snuggled in my bed underneath my warm, comfy blanket.
“Leave her alone, Uncle Quint,” Tyson rumbled angrily.
I sighed. Again.
I wasn’t interested in listening to them bicker with each other. Why were they always fighting? I couldn’t remember ever seeing them get along.
“I couldn’t breathe,” I blurted. Quinton’s mouth pinched tight and he scowled at me. Tyson’s brow pinched together and he frowned at me.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Quinton growled at me. “Did someone hurt you? Where the fuck was Marcus?”
“No, no,” I said hurriedly. “Nothing like that. I dreamed I was drowning. I dreamed she-”
I snapped my mouth shut at the sight of the matching scary looks on their faces.
“You, what?” Quinton whispered in a dark voice.
“Have you been… Have you,” Tyson stammered. “Have you been having these dreams this whole time?” He swallowed thickly and looked away from me.
I dropped my gaze to the grass and wrapped my arms around myself tightly.
“I wake up and I can’t breathe,” I whispered without raising my eyes from the ground. I didn’t want to see the pity on their faces. “The room always feels like the walls are closing in and they are going to crush me. I can’t go back to sleep because all I can think about is her hand on my head, shoving me down into dark, icy water. My lungs burn, my chest feels like it’s going to implode. In the dream, I die. When I wake up, it still hurts, I can feel it like it happened in real life. I wake up and it hurts and I can’t breathe.”
I sucked in a great big gust of crispy night air because I could and because it felt good to do so. Talking about the dream brought it back to life and I shivered, not because of the chill in the air but because I remembered the hopelessness, the helplessness I had felt when I drowned.
“Fuck,” Quinton swore harshly. “Ty will go inside with you and he will sleep with you tonight so that you don’t have to be alone. I would do it myself but I don’t think you’d be comfortable with me sleeping with you just yet. And, honestly, when I get you in a bed and it’s just the two of us I have no intention of keeping my hands to myself.”
“I can do that,” Tyson said quickly.
God. Quinton was not to be believed.
“You can’t just demand I sleep with someone,” I snapped, “and expect me to do it. That’s absurd.”
Quinton was suddenly no longer standing three feet away from me but he was there. In my space and in my face. His quick movements and the look on his face frightened me. I stepped back, to get away from him and the look on his face but didn’t get very far because I backed into a hard, hot, male body.
I let out a loud, shrill, terrified shriek as I turned my head to the side and looked back.
Tyson stood behind me with Quinton in front of me. They’d caged me in. I was trapped and I didn’t want to be trapped in between them. Well, maybe I did, but not like this and not with Quinton looking at me like that.
“You do
n’t fucking get it,” Quinton snarled in my face and my breath caught in my throat as I looked into his dark, burning eyes. I had never seen him this intense before.
“Get what?” I squeaked out in a voice three times higher than my normal one.
“You are not alone anymore,” he ground out between clenched teeth. “You don’t ever have to be alone again. In fact, we would prefer it that way. You have got to stop acting like this, like it’s you against the world when that’s absolute bullshit. I’ve told you, Tyson has told you, the goddamn twins have told you. Fuck, Ariel, Julian’s probably said it in front of you. You’re mine. You’re Ty’s. You’re ours. If you were anyone else you would be able to choose your own coven, but you’re not just anyone. You’re you and you’re mine. You’re not going anywhere. I don’t care if you don’t like it, it’s just the way it’s gonna be. You don’t get to choose another coven. You don’t get to walk away, ever. You don’t get to run away and hide anymore. We are through with all of that nonsense. You don’t get to walk away from us, not a single one of us. I don’t give a fuck if you think some of the guys don’t like you. Maybe you’re right. Maybe you’re wrong. It doesn’t fucking matter either way because you’re ours and eventually they will grow to love you, if they don’t already. The point I am trying to make is that your self-imposed isolation has come to an end. You are with us which means you actually need to be with us.”
He raised his hand to silence me because I got over my fear of him and opened my mouth to tell him just how crazy I found him but his raised hand had me snapping my mouth shut.
“I don’t mean sex when I say you need to actually be with us. Sex isn’t everything. Do we want to have sex with you? Yes, absolutely. Is that how this relationship is going to go with you and all of us? Again, yes, absolutely. You can be a prude and young and naïve all you want, knock yourself out. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t only one outcome to this situation. And that’s you with us, all of us.
“You’re a female witch. You’re our female witch. I’m trying to be cool with you because you’re new to this and weren’t raised to know what to expect, but my patience only goes so far. Your time alone is over. Get used to it, babe, and don’t try to fight it. Don’t try to fight me. It won’t do you any good. Nobody walks away from me unless I want them to and I think I already shared with you why you aren’t gonna walk away from me.
