by Mary Martel
I almost argued with him that it hadn't been my fault I'd been injured and bleeding, but his fault because he'd scared the bejeezus out me, but he was being very sweet, and it would make me not so sweet at all to have pointed that out to him and the others.
“You shower, and we can talk after.”
It sounded so reasonable that I agreed to do what he’d suggested, and I didn’t even argue with him once.
Quinton looked like he was fighting off laughter as I walked out of the dining room, but I didn’t care about that, either. I was too busy floating on the happy cloud that meeting Rain had brought into my life.
Chapter Thirteen
Rain Kimber
My eyes stung as I looked around the room that my teenage daughter called her own and slept in every night. I couldn't remember the last time I'd cried, and I wouldn't do so now. Not when I wasn't alone.
They'd made no sound as they came into the room not long after I had, but I knew they were there, standing behind me. I felt their presence like a physical touch. One burned brighter than the other; he was more gifted. The other's light was harsher, colder. He didn't hold a natural talent within him, but he housed the ability to be ruthless and merciless when the need arose, and he was a danger to those who threatened him. It wafted off of them in waves, and I highly doubted anyone else in the house was aware of the energies the others were giving off by the second.
Except maybe Ariel.
She had a special light all her own that I knew she was very unaware of, and I wondered just what she was capable of.
Watching her go toe to toe with that hot head in the kitchen, and having her defend the rest of them against me when she thought I'd care about how Vivian had died had made me extremely proud to call her my daughter. At the same time, it had made me want to bawl my eyes out like a fucking baby and unman myself in front of my daughter’s boyfriends. Something no father ever wished to do, certainly not this one. It had been a struggle, though, a very big struggle inside me, one that standing in her bedroom was threatening to make sure I failed at.
She'd grown up with Vivian as the only mother she knew, of course she was fierce and brave. She'd have to be to survive that witch. I swallowed thickly past the bile and emotions that threatened to overtake me and force me to wretch all over the floor that the thought of my daughter forced to be with that woman brought out in me.
"What?" I asked snidely. "You don't trust me to be in here all alone? Do you think I'm going to steal something?"
I laughed humorlessly.
Their auras flickered around the room with uncertainty. I had made them uncomfortable with my blunt, confrontational questions. Good. Because she was a girl and had magic, my daughter was a rare gem. That she came from a family descended from rogue hunters made her the rarest of rare. Her talents would grow and quickly surpass those around her, they would surpass even that of the Council itself. She needed to surround herself with people who were willing to do whatever it took to protect her, and she needed to learn how to protect herself now that she was on the Council's radar. If they found out just what she was exactly, she'd never be free of them. They would lock her away, claiming it was all in her best interest, when really they would be doing it for purely selfish reasons, and she'd only be allowed out of her gilded cage when they needed to wield her magic like a weapon and use it to their advantage. She didn't need to be surrounded by pussies who flinched at the thought of confrontation with me. I thought the elder Alexander might be up to snuff, but I wouldn't know until I filled him in on what exactly it was he'd be facing, and we'd see then if he flinched or not.
Somehow, I doubted he'd flinch.
I liked that one. He had a real pair of balls on him, he'd faced me without backing down once, and he'd never showed fear.
Yes, Quinton Alexander would do quite nicely for my daughter. The others, I wasn't so certain of.
Out of all of Ariel's potential boyfriends, I had only heard of the James twins and Dash Flynn. And, them I had only heard of because I had paid for information about any of the witches in the U.S. covens that had stood out, and those three definitely stood out.
The Flynn boy had been a huge sore spot for the entire Council. His grandmother had been the daughter of a great and powerful Council member who, if I remembered what my father had told me about all the Council members correctly, had bragged far and wide about how he'd just known his pregnant wife's unborn baby girl was a witch and would grow to have great powers worthy of any Council member. My father had laughed when he'd told me about the man. He'd laughed because the man had been incredibly full of himself, and entirely full of shit. The Council didn't allow women to join their ranks, feeling as if they should be coddled instead. Well, coddled was as nice a word as I was willing to use for it. As the story goes, the Council had laughed in his face when his only daughter had been born a mundane, average human, devoid of any kind of magic. If it had been my girl, I would have just been happy to have had a healthy baby born, and I wouldn't have given a shit she had magic or not. Not all men were like me, though. That particular Council member hadn't taken kindly to being laughed at so he tried the next best thing. He tried to breed his daughter with a male who was a witch. The story got even better here, because she had a child and it was a girl. Another girl with no magic to her name whatsoever. The mother raised the child to be bitter just like her. The mother eventually tricked her brother’s son into coming to visit her and meeting her daughter. She drugged him, and her daughter then raped him. Nine months later, Dash Flynn was brought into this world, a healthy baby boy who had magic. There were rumors floating around the coven community that the boy had suffered greatly at the hands of those two women after his own beloved father had died, but no one was able to confirm or deny the rumors. That young man was now who my daughter was living with.
The James twins were the talk of a different sort. Their mother had had zero magic to speak of, and their father had still let her into all of his coven's dark and dirty secrets, which is something frowned upon by the Council. You can sleep with the regular humans, even mate with them and have normal children with them, but you never, ever, told them what you were. It was a good way to get yourself on the wrong side of the Council. When the twins were born, one with a head full of black hair and the other a head full of white hair as the only way to tell them apart, it had been all anyone with magic could gossip about for years. They were said to be evil, a bad omen, if you will, and when it was discovered they had magic... Well, let's just say there were those that whispered about having them put down permanently. The Council had forbade it and, eventually, people had found something else to whisper about. I had worked really hard to keep myself and my existence hidden from the Council and most of the witches in the U.S. But there were those, like me, who remembered their fathers and mothers and grandfathers telling them about rogue witches and people with magic gone bad, and what, and who, had been used to put them down. They'd helped me and my family out along the way even though we no longer shared the same last name as my father’s father before him had. It wasn't safe to go by anymore, but we got the ink, we carried the stories with us, and it was never hard to turn the ones who'd grown up on the stories into true believers. Without their aide, I might not be standing here in the room my daughter now slept in.
The next room over housed the bathroom, and the shower running could be heard from in here with the door open.
Ariel had disappeared up here to take her shower, and, after being told where her bedroom was, I couldn't sit downstairs and patiently wait for her return. I had gotten edgy, and my daughter's coven hadn't reacted well to it. I'd asked Quinton where her room was, and he’d directed me up here.
I had only been in here for a few short moments before two of them had entered her space quietly behind me.
"Well?" I asked when neither of them answered my question, and the room remained silent.
I tore my eyes off of the beautifully done tarot cards that graced the wall
over the bed and turned around to face the uninvited guests.
"It's Julian and Damien, yes?"
If I membered their names correctly, Julian was the one who shined brighter with a natural gift. He had honey blonde hair cropped close to his skull in a buzz cut that, no matter the short length of it, would still give off a golden shine in the sun. He was tall, slender, and had a deep tan that said he'd spent a whole lot of time outdoors over the summer, and the tan had stuck with him and likely would year around. It might fade a little over the winter months but would darken right back up again as soon as the weather grew nicer and he started to spend more time outside again. There was a black hoop sticking through one of his lips, and I realized it was through the opposite side of the lip that Ariel had a similar black hoop through hers.
If I were anyone but her father, and of a different generation, I might have thought the matching lip rings was sweet. But I wasn't a different man, and I didn't want to think about where that lip ring had been when it came to my daughter. I scowled at them both.
The other one, the one whose light had burned harsher and colder than the other one, was Damien, if I was remembering his name correctly. He looked like a smug prick, and I completely understood why his aura was different than the other one. It was in his perfect clothes that matched his haughty demeanor. He looked like he spent a lot of time looking down on others, and I wasn't so sure I wanted him around my daughter. Not until I got a glimpse at the humble side of him, if there even was one.
"Yeah," Julian said. He glanced at his friend who shook his head before looking back at me and making excellent eye contact. "I'm Julian, and that's Damien. What are you doing up here in Ariel's room?"
He was direct, I'd give him that much.
"Could ask you the same question," I shot back, just to fuck with him and his snooty looking buddy.
To my disappointment, neither took the bait.
"We're here to make sure you don't touch anything," Damien said and I was right, he did sound like he thought he was better than I was.
More's the pity for him.
I was going to like playing this game with him; I only ever played to win.
"And what is it that you think I might be touching?" I asked in a dark voice. "Surely, it's me who should be worried about you being in here and touching things. Am I right?"
Julian's mouth dropped open in shock. It closed quickly, then flopped open once again, and he looked like a fish out of water. I didn't feel sorry for him a bit.
Damien, it would seem, was made of sterner stuff, and he didn't so much as flinch at the implied meaning behind my words. Not a cheek twitch nor a blush to be seen.
Yeah, I had read his aura correctly alright.
"I have only been in here once before when Ariel was in here," Damien said in an even tone. I was pleased to hear that the haughty was gone and had been replaced with what I assumed was rage. "Admittedly, she spent a large portion of that time without her clothes on, but it was only because she was trying on other clothes to see if they fit her well enough. You see, your beautiful daughter has lived a life where she hasn't had a whole lot of good in it. So," he gestured to the man standing beside him, "my brother Julian and I took it upon ourselves to get her nice clothes. If we hadn't done it when we did, the others would have. There's no guarantee she doesn't already have a whole lot of other things just waiting for her at the big house that the others have gotten for her but have yet to give to her because she doesn't like receiving gifts. She feels like it’s a waste to her to have more than she needs, and she doesn't know how to receive love just yet. If I were any other kind of man I might lie and tell you that was the one and only time I had ever seen her in some form of undress, but, like I said, that would be a lie, and I'm anything but a liar."
I didn't like the way he'd said any of that, not one little bit. I had to fight against my initial reaction to want to snarl at the man. I had better control over myself than that, though, and I managed to keep my emotions off of my face. I had had plenty of practice, and heartbreak had only served to help.
"Damien," Julian said harshly, "don't."
His friend shot him a dark, angry look, but otherwise paid him no mind. This one didn't take orders very well, and did whatever the hell he wanted. Good to know.
"He has a right to know," Damien huffed.
"Not like this," Julian shot back. "Don't do this to her, don't fuck this up for her."
"What is it you think I'm doing to her, Jules? I wouldn't hurt her any more than you would." Damien said quietly and pointed aggressively in my direction. I assumed he didn't want to be overheard by either the girl in the bathroom or his coven members, who were supposedly waiting downstairs like good little boys. Then again, that's where these two were supposed to be, and look how that had gone.
“You could say or do something that would mess this up for her, and it might not even be your intention." Julian raised his hands high in front of him as if to ward off some blow I had yet to see coming, and continued trying to reason with his friend. "This means everything to her, him being here means everything to her. All it would take is one tiny little thing being said the wrong way, and the whole thing could blow up in our faces. Rain could disappear from us for forever. We don't know him, we don't know how he might take the horrors that she's been through. What we do know is that, as human beings ourselves, who aren't complete monsters, we wouldn't want that kind of news shared with us in the way you were just going to lay it on him. If he gets pissed and takes off, what's Ariel going to do, Damien? Have you thought about that? It would crush her, absolutely, one hundred percent destroy her. Don't allow yourself to become arrogant and fall back on your old ways, or do something that will hurt our girl."
Vivian had been a spoiled brat before she had been old enough to tell whether or not she'd had magic. It hadn't changed after finding out she wasn't a carrier; father had loved her all the same, and she would have always been his beautiful little daddy's girl had she not stolen my child away from us. I want to say that having been spoiled had ruined her, but it would have been a lie. Some people are just born bad, and that's all there is to it. My sister had been born bad, and no one had noticed until it was too late. She'd been selfish, mean, vindictive, ruthless, and an absolute terror. She didn't like people who were prettier than her, smarter than her, or sweeter than her, and she had resented the fuck out of any female who had magic when she had none to call her own, but had wanted it so desperately that the need had bordered on obsession and madness.
That being said, I’d had absolutely no idea the depth of what she truly had been capable of, and, as much as it made me sound like a coward to admit, I wasn't sure I wanted to know. I wanted to get to know my daughter, and in order to do that, I needed to not go off on a murderous rampage. I didn't want to frighten the girl. Though, part of me worried if there was anything I could do that would scare her off, she seemed just as happy for me to be here with her as I was.
I cleared my throat, chasing back the emotions I was feeling, and suddenly felt ashamed of myself. I had better control over my own body than that, damn it. I didn't want or need these males to view me as weak in any way. What kind of father would that make me? One that was worse than the one I already was.
"Speaking of the spectacular horrors she's gone through," I said in a mild voice. "someone care to inform me of what happened to her face? Marcus sent me a picture he'd taken of her not long after she had moved in with him, and her face had been clear of any kind of markings. What has happened to her in this small amount of time that has caused her such a mark?"
I asked not because I wanted to know, but because I felt compelled to. Every time I heard about something awful she went through, a little piece of what I had left inside of me died. I wasn't so sure I had all that much left inside of me to lose, but I knew that just being in her presence for mere minutes had done a great deal to restore a small part of it.
Both of them looked extremely uncomfortable as a resu
lt of my questions. They had forgotten one of them had just been lecturing the other, and the other one had been gearing up to be a grade A prick. Instead they were looking at each other with eyes too wide, and were shooting silent questions back and forth between them that only people who had been best friends for a long time could understand. I wanted to ask them how long they'd known one another, but I wanted my first question answered more than I wanted my curiosity over the longevity of their friendship sated.
Julian licked his lips nervously before nodding his head and turning back to me. "There was an incident," he said.
"It happened right outside this house," Damien told me. He sounded almost like he didn't think he was better than the rest of us now. Almost.
"A kid from the high school who was obsessed with Ariel followed her out here," Julian told me. "He figured out she'd been staying overnight here. What he didn't know was that she'd moved in because she needed a place to stay, and for certain reasons that I'm unwilling to get into at the moment, she does not want to live at Quinton's house. It's nothing on Quinton, mind you. It's just the house."
I did not understand that last bit, and would make sure I questioned them more on it at a later date. Right now, I was getting answers from them, and that worked just fine for me. They were being cooperative. I would wait until they were finished explaining this, then see if they were still feeling up to being cooperative and willing to answer more of my questions before I added more to the list.
"Never mind the house," Damien said as he shot his friend a dirty look. "Seriously, fuck the house." He looked back at me, and his face evened out, going back to the excessively pretty and haughty man he seemed to naturally be. "Anyway, this kid showed up bright and early, and had the balls to knock right on the front door. This being after he had treated Ariel like shit at school, calling her a freak show and tripping her on the first day. Ty told us that he asked her out after that too, that he’d even told her he'd beat up the person who'd bruised her face, which was her fake mother, by the way."
