by Mary Martel
Julian was a different, rarer breed of male. One I liked a whole lot at the moment.
I would investigate the books on magic and whatnot at a later time, when I was alone and had the time to thoroughly examine them, when I could give them the time they rightfully deserved.
I looked away from the bookshelf to give the room another onceover and gasped in shock when I made it back to the bed. My lips parted, and my wide eyes were unsurprisingly wet.
Oh my god.
They didn’t.
They couldn’t have.
Why would they?
I blinked rapidly as I curled my fingers inwards, balling my hands into fists. My fingernails bit into my sweaty palms, likely leaving the indents of half-moons into my skin. The sharp bite of pain always served well to chase away my tears. I had scars more than on the area around my collarbones. My palms were covered in scars. At least these ones I had inflicted upon myself. The scars were well worth it. Unshed tears had sometimes been what stood between me and a whole world of physical pain. A safety mechanism I no longer needed. I should probably look into a healthier way to deal with my emotions and to stop my tears. I didn’t see it happening in this lifetime. Maybe in the next one, I wasn’t really all too interested in breaking old habits in this lifetime.
“Do you know what these are?” Julian asked quietly, breaking the silence between us. I had kind of forgotten about him.
Perhaps I had been too hasty in my earlier assessment of him. Apparently, he couldn’t keep quiet.
I nodded in answer, words had escaped me. My eyes never left the two beautiful black and white pen and ink drawings that were framed and hanging on the wall above the bed.
“Are you sure you know what these are?” Julian asked hesitantly.
I got his hesitancy. Those two pieces of art hanging over my new bed were priceless heirlooms that belonged to the Alexander family. They were beautiful black and white ink drawings, the details impressive. A true artist had created them.
They were giant, poster size tarot cards.
The Magician and The Moon.
The Alexander family had once owned an entire deck of poster sized ink drawings of tarot cards. They were over three hundred years old and the family had lost the majority of them in a fire years ago.
Only eight of the deck remained. Tyson had four and Quinton had the other four.
The Magician had come from Tyson and The Moon had come from Quinton.
This left them each down to three.
Do you know how many cards are in a full deck of tarot cards? Seventy-eight, that’s how many. And they had a whole eight of them left between the two of them.
And they had each given me one of theirs. I had a hard time wrapping my brain around it.
I had looked up the cards and their meanings after seeing them on Ty’s wall and him telling me which one’s Quint had. The Magician card could mean two things. The first meaning represented control, taking control over your life and having a certain level of success. The second meaning had to do with being creative and talented. Since I wasn’t very creative or talented, I liked the first meaning a whole lot better.
The picture showed a bald man in a cape standing in the center of a pentagram. He held a sword in one hand with the tip pointed towards the ground. In his other hand he held a cup raised high in the air. The words The Magician hung in the air above his bald head.
Because it represented taking control of your life, I loved that they had chosen that card to give to me.
The Moon is the card of intuition, dreams and the unconscious. I found this choice in cards interesting because of the dreams I always had. They meant something, and I couldn’t always figure out what.
The card showed a moon glowing high in the sky. Wolves were on the ground with their heads thrown back, howling at the moon hanging high in the sky.
They were both awesome, but I liked The Moon more.
This was important. These drawings were important to Tyson and Quinton.
Why had they given them to me?
I wasn’t certain sure, but I thought I knew.
And what I thought scared me.
Chapter Twenty-Three
“Ariel,” Julian called, making me jump.
As nice as he was, I needed him to go away.
I wanted to be alone to explore my new bedroom. Or one of my new bedrooms. Quinton had said they had a room for me at the big house. I had no intentions of seeing that one.
I turned in time to see Julian drop my bag at the foot of the bed.
“I’m going to go make dinner,” he said. “That’s what I was planning on doing before you showed up. You take as much time as you need, honey. Get comfortable in your new space and come down when you’re ready.”
He smiled kindly at me as he left me alone in the room.
My space. I liked the sound of that. Mr. Cole would be gone for good in just a few short days and I needed a new place to call my own. If I could get over being jealous and crazy, this place might actually work for me. It was cute, and I liked how they had set it up for me.
I closed the door and froze.
“What in the…”
On the back of the closed door was a white poster with a unicorn covered in glitter. Below the unicorn in dark purple lettering and all caps read: YOU ARE ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS!
I stood there frozen and with my mouth hanging open as I stared blankly at the offensive thing. It had to go. If I stayed, I was getting rid of that thing for sure. There were far too many glittery things in this room.
Yikes.
There was one door other than the main one and I had a feeling it didn’t lead to the bathroom. After sticking my head inside and pulling on the string hanging in front of my face, the light came on. I was right. There was no bathroom. The space was a tiny closet the size of a coffin.
I couldn’t keep the stupid grin off of my face. Now here was a closet that was more my size than the giant monstrosity I had now. I could fill this one up with my clothes and still have room to spare. It was going to get colder, perhaps I could fill the rest of the space with hoodies or sweaters and the floor with some fabulous knee-high boots. I didn’t have any knee-high boots, but I could see myself sporting some and looking fantastic in them. I needed to get a job to pay for all the crap I wanted.
With a sigh, I left the closet, closed the door and made my way towards the bed.
I picked up my bag off the floor and tossed it on the bed. The contents spilled out across the pretty comforter. I really needed to get a big bag that had a zipper on it. This one was black with thick, wide yellow straps. I think it was meant to be a beach bag for towels, sunscreen and whatnot. It was new, and I had no intentions of using it for a beach bag. It was my overnight bag. I had to buy a new one because the last one was left at Tyson’s when I spent the night with him. I had left it there with all my clothes inside it and never gone back to retrieve it. The next one I got would come with a damn zipper so my clothes wouldn’t spill out of it all the time.
Since I figured it would be more than likely that I moved in here, I decided to unpack my bag.
I dumped the bag upside down and everything fell onto the bed. Bra and panties, red and matching. Black cotton short-shorts with a matching tank top. They were covered in tiny white stars and were my pajamas. Two pairs of leggings. One black, one red. A black tank top with a green army tank on the chest. A red, short-sleeved t-shirt with a gold and black crown on the front. Two pairs of fuzzy socks. One black, the other one light blue. A hairbrush with a yellow handle. A tube of sparkly lip gloss (I liked sparkles when they came in my lip gloss!). A leather-bound journal and a black ink pen. And my toothbrush. I hadn’t packed any makeup, not that I had much. And I hadn’t brought a whole lot of clothing with me. I wasn’t sure I was staying more than a night at the moment. I wanted to be home when Mr. Cole came back from his trip so I could spend some time with him before he was gone for good. I could bring the rest of my stuff with me after he was gone.
I grabbed my pajamas and re-folded them. I piled my bra and undies on top with the black fuzzy socks and walked them over to the dresser. I clutched them to my chest as I opened the top drawer.
There were brand new fuzzy socks in there with the tags still on. Red, orange, yellow, green, leopard print, zebra striped, pink, white and purple. The animal prints were cute, and I immediately wanted to put on the black and white zebra striped ones. Someone really had been paying attention. And they’d probably gone through the bag I’d left at the big house.
I dropped the small pile into the empty side of the drawer and pushed it shut. Thankfully, there weren’t underthings in there too. That would be crossing a line.
Out of curiosity, and because I would be putting the rest of my clothes in there, I pulled open the second drawer. This one only had one thing in it and it was silky. Purple and silky. I pulled it out of the drawer and held it up in front of me for examination. It was a robe like the one Dash wore but longer. This robe would likely kiss the floor when I walked in it. I brought it closer to my face to read the tag. Silk, it was made of silk. Had Dash gotten this for me? How kind. And overly priced. I folded the piece of clothing carefully and put it back in the drawer. When I got some clothes hangers, I would hang it up in the closet. It wasn’t something I would normally wear but I think I might have to wear it anyways so there weren’t any hurt feelings. I wasn’t sure purple was even my color, but someone sure seemed to think it was.
I opened the next two drawers to see if there were any more surprises waiting for me and couldn’t tell if I was disappointed or relieved when there weren’t. The rest of my clothes went into the second drawer alongside the pretty robe.
My hairbrush, phone and charger, I put on top of the dresser. My now empty bag, I placed on the floor in the coffin sized closet. The journal and pen, I placed on an empty shelf on the bookshelf.
I had been writing in the journal since my mother’s death. I wrote about everything other than how I was feeling. I wrote about the books I read, the magic I learned, what I hoped to learn, any questions I had. But never about my feelings. Those had been too raw even for me to put down on paper. Maybe now I would be able to get it all out of me and in my journal.
I was sifting through the books on the shelves when there was a soft knock on the door.
“Are you coming down for dinner?” Damien called through the closed door.
I looked around the room frantically, searching for anything that would give me an excuse to not have to talk to Damien. I had never spoken to him before and he was kind of a dick.
He knocked again.
“Ariel?”
Shit.
There was no way out of this one.
After a quick glance at myself in the mirror above the dresser, I moved to the door. I opened it a crack and peeked out.
Damien looked down on me with a blank, emotionless face and bored eyes. The sleeves on his dress shirt had been rolled up and his arms were crossed over his chest.
He did not look impressed.
Well, two could play that game.
I crossed my arms over my chest and tried to make my face look as bored as his did. I think I failed because he frowned at me.
Whatever.
Maybe he was just wondering what I was doing behind the door. Yeah, that was it. Because it was only open an inch or two and he couldn’t exactly see me.
“Can I help you?” I whispered.
Shit.
I should close the door in his face and put myself out of my misery.
“Are you alright?” he asked carefully, and I noticed he no longer looked bored but concerned. He probably thought I was a moron.
Great. Just what I needed, one more reason for him not to like me.
“I take it there was no one outside,” I said to change the subject and take the heat off of me.
“No,” he said firmly, and his eyes bored into me making me fidget behind the door. “No one was out there.”
If he said so. I wasn’t sure I believed him. They hadn’t been out there for very long and we were deep in the woods. I would have to let it go. I fingered the doorknob without taking my eyes off of him and was relieved to find the little button to lock it. Not that it would do me much good, but it was better than nothing.
My pulse sped up as he continued to stare at me. What was this, some sort of test? I didn’t much care for being tested. I licked my dry lips and refused to be intimidated by him. I would not fail this test, and I would not blink first.
He shifted his weight from one foot to the other and pursed his lips, looking very displeased. Hopefully not with me because I hadn’t done anything wrong, not to him.
He cleared his throat and looked away first. Score! I won, not that I had the slightest clue what I was winning. No one had explained the rules or the name of the game to me.
“Dinner is ready,” he mumbled awkwardly before rubbing his hand over the back of his neck. He seemed nervous all of a sudden and would no longer look me in the eye.
These people were so freaking weird sometimes.
Without another word he turned and walked away. Down the stairs he went, and I was surprised by how quiet he was. He didn’t make a sound as he went down. Huh. He and Julian had sounded awfully loud when they’d gone down them earlier.
Dinner with Dash, Damien and Julian… I didn’t think I was ready for that. It was bound to be incredibly awkward. If I had known the other two were going to be here I don’t think I would have come.
My phone chimed from its place on top of the dresser. I practically skipped across the wood floor to get to it I was so thankful for the distraction.
I picked it up, swiped the screen to unlock it and opened up my messages. There was one from Tyson.
Tyson: Where are you? The house is locked up tight and it looks like no one is home. Are you over there?
I frowned at my phone. I probably should have told someone where I was going. I would probably have to do that from now on. That was going to get old real fast. I texted him back quickly before he could question me anymore.
Ariel: I’m at Dash’s.
I put the phone back on the dresser and, after a quick look through the room, I walked to the door. I didn’t bother to shut it behind me. There was no one up here and I didn’t think they would go pawing through my things so soon. And if they did, whatever, it’s not like I had a whole lot of things here for them to go through.
Trust was important when living with someone and if I was going to live with Dash fulltime then I would need to trust him. He had to be able to trust me too, that was important to me, which is why I didn’t open up the two closed doors and peek inside. Though, I very much wanted to. I hoped a bathroom lay behind one of those closed doors. It would suck to have to go down the stairs every time I had to go to the bathroom or wanted to take a shower.
I made it half way down the stairs when I stopped. I turned around and went back to my room.
I kicked my flip flops off and sat down on the edge of the bed. I put the light blue fuzzy socks on my feet even though I really wanted to put on one of the brand-new pairs.
Then I went downstairs, and I was just as quiet on the stairs as everyone else had been.
“What’s she doing here?” I heard Damien say when I made it to the bottom of the stairs.
I stopped cold at his words and my heart squeezed painfully in my chest. I did not want to hear this crap.
“Shut up,” Julian snapped. “She should be coming down here and minute now and she doesn’t need to overhear this bullshit and take it the wrong way.”
The fist wrapped around my heart loosened just a little bit.
“I didn’t mean anything bad by it,” Damien shot back. “I just figured Quint or Ty would have said something about her coming over here. What’s wrong? Why did no one call to tell us she was coming? Why is she here?”
Since eavesdropping did me absolutely no good and I had learned my lesson the hard way, I to
ok the last step off the stairs and woodenly walked to the kitchen.
“She’s moving in, which means this is her home now,” Dash growled darkly. “I want her to feel welcome in her own home. I want-”
“Nobody knew that I was coming,” I said into the now silent room. I looked at Dash, ignoring the other two for the moment. “If they had known, they would have let you know, I’m sure. And, I realize I absolutely should have told you I was coming over, but it was kind of a spur of the moment thing. Mr. Cole had a last-minute business meeting pop up that he had to go to. It’s a overnight trip and I really didn’t want to be alone.” Here’s where things were going to get awkward for me but to hell with it. “It’s really depressing being there with all the moving boxes everywhere and I just had to get out of there. I couldn’t go next door because… well, to be honest, I am still avoiding going over there. But you already know about that because that’s why I’m moving in here and not there.”
And, oh god I was rambling. My fingers were tangled together in front of me, twisting every which way. I was incredibly nervous and all three of them were watching me like hawks. Even Damien eyeballed me.
Dash moved away from the counter and opened a drawer. He rifled through things until he came out with a silver key on a little circular key ring. He held it up for my inspection before tossing it my way. I caught it in mid-air.
“Key to the front door,” he told me. “It’s yours because this is your home too. You can come and go as you please and you don’t owe any of us an explanation for showing up out of the blue.”
I shifted from foot to foot nervously as I clutched the key to my chest. “Yeah, but I wasn’t supposed to move in yet and I really should have called.” Which I could not have done because I didn’t have his phone number. Best to leave that part out.
“Doesn’t matter.”
I frowned at him. Why was he being so easy about this?
