“You?” I asked, wondering if I maybe should just let the conversation drop.
“Yeah.” She tossed back her drink. “He stuck it in my mum too.”
Eesh.
She tipped my cup up, forcing me to finish the drink, and then started to mix us more.
“So you’re not interested in anybody?” She handed my fresh drink to me. “If I knew I had a pair out there I’d be hunting those bastards down.”
“Why?”
“They make you better. They help you.” She shook her head and sighed. “I’ve seen it before. My brother has a pair. He used to be all quiet and shy and moody, and then suddenly…” she snapped her fingers before my face. “He transforms. Too bad they hate each other.”
“Are his pair male or female?”
She dropped her cup and swore, looking at me like I’d grown a second head. “What are you trying to say? They’re female!”
A moment later her cup was swiped from the ground and there was a boy standing before us, handing it back to her. He looked familiar.
“Sister,” he said to Poison. He turned to me and flashed a smile. “Stephanie.”
“Hello Aiden,” I said, remembering his name from earlier in the day. His blond hair fell over his forehead, his brown eyes hard despite the smile he wore.
“You’ve met?” Poison asked, filling her cup up again.
“Briefly,” Aiden said. “Noah was guarding her.”
Poison snorted a laugh. “Well she’s all ours now.” She cast an eye over me, her silky blond hair falling to the side. “What should we do with her?”
Aiden laughed and clapped his sister on the back. Two more girls approached, turning our small gathering into a circle.
“Fresh meat?” one of them asked. She was pretty, but sounded unhappy or bored, like she’d rather be anywhere but where she was.
“Stephanie—” Aiden ruffled the hair of the girl beside him—“meet Sylvia and Brown, my pair.”
The other girl gave me a short nod, but her eyes were assessing as they travelled over me. It was different to the way Poison had just looked at me, and it wasn’t at all friendly.
“You’re not the only one with a pair, Aiden,” she decided, looking me dead in the eyes.
I inched away from her, until I felt Poison beside me, and then I dropped my eyes to the ground, unsure what to say.
“Aw, you scared her.” Poison reached over and shoved the girl’s shoulder, causing her to fall back a step.
I glanced up, surprised, and caught the anger in the other girl’s expression.
“Good luck,” she said, coming right up to me until she was looking down on me. “You’re going to need it.”
“Brown…” Aiden pulled her back, rolling his eyes in an exasperated way. “Can you cut it out for one night, please?”
“Sure.” Brown flicked her hair over her shoulder. “Anything for you, babe.”
His mouth tightened in displeasure, and she scowled back. I stared back and forth between them, the hair on my arms breaking out in goosebumps. There was something unnatural about the three of them. There was so much friction in their bond that it made me uneasy just standing near them.
“Yes,” I finally said, if only to break the thick tension. “I have a pair.”
Brown returned her attention to me, and I let out a relieved breath, even though I was the one who now had to meet her scowl.
“You haven’t found them yet?” she asked, tilting her head and narrowing her eyes. “I’ve heard that the Adairs stole you away from Washington. Were they trying to get you away from your pair so they could get all the good miles out of you?”
I didn’t swallow the alcohol quickly enough this time, and I accidently spat it right into her face. She recoiled, wiping her arm over the mess as a growl slipped from her throat. Aiden jumped forward and wound an arm around her waist, hooking her back against him and holding onto her firmly.
“Shock your delicate sensibilities, did I?” she snarled at me. “Well you’d better get used to it. Soon as that pair finds you, you’re gonna be tainted quicker than I can click my god-damned fingers and wish for a better life.”
Aiden captured her wrists and flung her right over his shoulder. “That’s enough.” He sounded angry. “I’ll be back.”
“Pleasure,” Poison said, holding her cup up in a salute, “as always.”
Brown lifted her head to glower at us as Aiden carried her out of the room.
“Sorry,” Sylvia spoke for the first time, her voice strained. “She isn’t having a great day.”
“It’s fine.” Poison’s tone softened considerably. “Understandable. How have you been anyway, Syl?”
“Fine. Good, I guess. My parents got invited to another of Lord Weston’s concerts in Seattle, so they’re super happy about that. They wanted me to come, but… Aiden’s pretty busy right now.”
Poison snorted. “They only got invited because of you. Weston has his council hunting down any pairs out there just in case one of his precious princes happen to share a mark with them. The boys are still ignoring him though, so I don’t know how he expects to be able to forge the bond once he has the Atmá. Maybe he’s hoping he’ll find the Atmá and they’ll come running back to him.”
“So it’s true?” Sylvia looked at me. “They’re still hiding from Lord Weston?”
“News to me,” I said truthfully.
“I thought you were their sister.”
“Erh…” For some reason, I had assumed that Aiden and his pair would all know that I wasn’t really Noah or Cabe’s sister, since Poison had been so sure about it, but Sylvia was looking really confused.
Poison saved me. “Seph is way out of the loop. You know how secretive Weston is. It’s not like he catches up with all of his bastards to see how they’re doing. And Noah and Cabe don’t talk about him, ever.”
“Right.” Sylvia didn’t seem convinced.
“Why is Lord Weston looking for them?” I asked.
“He probably wants them to bond before the Quillans come of age,” Sylvia answered. “Once they reach twenty-six they won’t be able to form a bond at all. They’re twenty-five now so there isn’t much time left.”
It took a moment for the information to sink in, and when it did, I almost collapsed. Suddenly everything made sense. The boys made up their rules to keep their distance from me, and Quillan had said more than once that things would be different in a year. This was why. They were determined to wait out the bond until it couldn’t form. I set the cup I was holding calmly down on the table and told Poison I was going to use the restroom. She gave me a funny look, and I supposed that my devastation would have been written all over my face, but I pushed past her anyway. I stormed out of the room and ran down the stairs, pushing people out of the way until I made it to the back patio. I couldn’t see them anywhere, so I stepped off further, my feet hitting sand. Poison’s mansion must have backed onto a beach or a bay of some kind, but it was too dark to make out details.
I saw a grouping of beach chairs only a short distance away, and Noah’s golden hair shone like a beacon, leading my eyes directly toward where Cabe stood next to him amidst the collection of people. I set off for them and just as their eyes locked onto me, someone stepped into my path. I caught sight of the tattoos, and glanced up at a face that was somewhat familiar, but strange all at once. He had inky hair of a similar shade to mine, with a piercing through his eyebrow and nice grey eyes.
“Hey Seph,” he said, causing me to rack my brain, trying to come up with where I had seen him before. “How’s the ear feeling?”
I touched my new piercing, and quickly scrambled for his name. “Oh, Danny—hi. Um, it’s fine. Thanks.”
“You gave me a fake number, didn’t you?” He grinned like he wasn’t at all insulted, and I found my mouth tugging up in response.
“Sorry, you kind of put me on the spot.”
“No problem.” He shrugged. “I won’t ask again. The direct approach clearly d
oesn’t work with you.”
I looked around him, and caught Noah and Cabe watching, sitting back in their chairs now. Noah had his arms folded and his expression was unreadable, but Cabe wasn’t smiling, and that said a lot.
“Guess not,” I said, not really listening to what he was saying.
“So,” he tilted his head and stepped to the right, blocking off my view, “I’ll trade you something for it instead.”
“Huh?” I pulled back to survey him now that he had blocked off the boys from my vision. “Like what?”
“Whatever you like.”
I pulled at my bottom lip, my eyes fixed on his. He definitely had my attention now. “Are you Zevghéri?”
He laughed, though I hadn’t realised I’d said something funny. “Yes, Stephanie, I’m a Zev.”
“Oh, okay. Then I want to know what an Atmá is.”
“How the hell do you not know what an Atmá is?”
“Does it matter?”
He frowned. “Maybe. But I guess I’ll have to figure that out later. An Atmá is a Zev born with a pair. They’re the heart of a triad of power; the strongest of them can inherit an ability, but they all form a bond with their pair. For the ones with an ability, that bond determines the strength of their ability.”
“Okay. Explain the bond. It’s just a connection? Like you need to be near them and stuff?”
He didn’t just laugh this time… he lost it. He held onto my shoulder for balance, wiping tears from his eyes. “Oh my god… you really are clueless.” He shook his head, still chuckling, but his hand fell away. “The bond is much more than that. It’s a match, a soul match. It’s some kind of love-at-first-sight bullshit, though more often it resembles nuclear-war-at-first-sight, since people don’t particularly like sharing.”
“Oh.”
His eyes travelled over my face, touching upon the tears that were starting to gather, unbidden, in the corners of my eyes. “Was I not supposed to tell you that?” He seemed hesitant.
“I’m an Atmá.”
He nodded, like he had already known this. “And? You don’t like the idea of being with two guys for the rest of your life?”
This time it was my turn to laugh. Two guys certainly would have been easier.
“I… I will form the bond,” I finally said. It was a lie. I had found my pairs, but they were trying to wait out the bond. Somehow, I knew that doing so would mean very bad things for me. Maybe I just wanted to say the words one last time, to taste the plea on my tongue and release the words into the night.
“I see.” His mouth twisted down in a frown.
“Hey… Danny, can you do me one more favour?”
“Sure?” He was still frowning.
“When my brothers come up and demand to know what we were talking about… can you tell them that I just…” I waved a hand in the air.
“I’ll tell them you were asking about school,” he offered. “If that’s what you want.”
“Sure. Thanks. Wait, we go to the same school?”
“Yeah, you’re in my music class.”
I blinked at him, wondering how I hadn’t noticed him in class. He was pretty hard to miss. “Right. Sorry. Thanks again.”
I turned quickly and hurried back into the house. I couldn’t find Poison, so I went back to the alcohol table and grabbed a random bottle, pouring a decent amount into one of the plastic cups. When I sipped it, it burned. I walked to the overflowing couch and perched myself on the arm, watching the video game that some of them were immersed in. They were playing soldiers stuck in a boarded-up house, and they were shooting at zombies trying to break through the windows. People kept glancing at me, and it made me wish for the invisibility that I had worked hard for at my old school. The boy sitting next to me glanced up at some point, and then seemed to forget he was playing his game.
“Are you drinking straight vodka?” he asked.
I glanced down, realising that it was Aiden.
“I don’t know.” Yes. I set my jaw, not willing to get into a conversation. Especially not with him: he had his pair, I didn’t want to even look at him.
“Smells like it,” he quipped easily. “Oi, Gerry, move the hell down would you?”
Someone got up and sat on the ground in front of the couch. Aiden moved along, patting the cushion beside him. I slipped in next to him and continued drinking, tilting my head as things started to spin a little.
“What’s wrong?” Aiden turned to me again after his soldier was overpowered by zombies.
“Nothing,” I snarled at him and he blinked.
“Whoa, no need to get all feisty. It’s a little unnerving with those eyes of yours.”
“I get it,” I snapped. “I’m a freak. Get over it.”
He shook his head mutely, and then grabbed my cup. He got up and moved to the drinks table. When he came back my cup was full again, but it tasted a lot better. I drank down half of it and he watched me warily.
“Take a look,” he said easily, pointing at his own eyes.
I peered at him, getting so close that I accidently bumped his nose. The brown of his eyes varied slightly; the left iris was darker than the right, which held flecks of gold.
“Cool,” I said, falling back again. “You too, huh?”
“Are the Adairs going to come up here and skin me for getting their sister drunk?” he asked.
“I don’t care. I don’t own them. I mean they don’t own me.” I punctuated the statement by downing the rest of the cup and handing it back to him.
When he didn’t budge, I took it back and went to fill it up myself. He was still watching me when I returned to the couch, but Brown was in my seat, so I perched on the edge of the couch again.
“What’s it like?” I asked after Aiden turned his attention back to the screen and zombies overpowered him again.
He looked up at me over Brown’s head, quizzical. I motioned to the girl sitting beside me and he seemed to understand.
“It’s different,” he said. That’s all.
“Are you better off?”
“What the hell is she talking about?” Brown interrupted.
“It’s nothing.” Aiden sighed.
“Can you keep it in your pants for one goddamn night, Aiden?” She surged up from the couch and stormed off, leaving me to gaze after her.
“Wow, she’s not happy at all,” I finally said.
Aiden sighed again—a little louder this time—and got up, taking my arm and leading me out of the room.
“Hey.” I tried to pull away from him. “I was watching the zombies!”
“Yeah, well, you’ve given the team enough to gossip about for one night.” His expression was tense, and he opened a door, shoving me so that I tumbled into the room beyond.
There was a couple making out against the wall right beside where I ended up. The girl wasn’t wearing a shirt and her bra was hanging off one of her arms. The guy had one hand anchored inside her pants, and they both jumped as the door slammed against the wall.
“Holy—Aiden, what the hell, man?” The guy was zipping up his pants and the girl was trying to cover herself.
“I need a moment.” Aiden jerked his head toward the door and the guy grumbled something as he left, the girl close behind him.
Aiden shut the door after them and flicked the lock.
“I wouldn’t try getting my bra off and putting your hands down my pants.” I motioned my cup at the closed door. “I tend to zap people.”
“What do you mean?” Aiden leaned against the closed door, his hands shoved into his pockets.
I raised my hand in answer and watched as the valcrick flickered across the room and hit the fancy chandelier, exploding it and sending the room into darkness, illuminated by the brief rain of sparks that shot out of the chandelier fixture.
“Oops,” I said.
“Christ.” Aiden found me in the darkness, taking the cup from my hands and drinking what was left, probably because he knew that if he set it aside I’d just
find it and start drinking again. “You’ve got the valcrick? That’s… wow… maybe you shouldn’t be drinking.” He laughed and then shook his head, running a hand through his hair. “I don’t know why I’m even in here with you. You’re not going to tell me what’s wrong, are you?”
“Nope.” I shook my head.
“Figured as much.” He sighed, and there was a hesitant knock on the door. “That’s Sylvia, give me a second.”
He moved to the door and unlocked it. Sylvia slipped into the room without hesitation, somehow knowing that Aiden was on the other side, and she closed and locked the door again behind her.
“What’s going on?” she whispered. “Brown’s gone all crazy again and the Adairs are on a rampage looking for…” she seemed to notice me then, and her brows drew together. “Stephanie?”
“In the flesh.” I offered her a smile and then moved to the bed, flopping down backwards. “So do you guys all have sex together?”
Sylvia drew in a gasp, but Aiden laughed. “It has happened,” he said.
“Aid!” Sylvia thumped him on the chest and he laughed again, moving to the dresser that faced the bed, propping himself against it and pulling Sylvia into his arms.
“She’s going to have a pair of her own some day, it’s only natural that she wants to know.” His voice was low, but it carried. He was nibbling on her neck.
“I can see you,” I informed them. “You’re standing too close to the window, and the moonlight is like a peepshow spotlight right now.”
Sylvia giggled, but I was already ignoring them.
“What do you mean they’re on the rampage?” I eventually asked.
“They’re trying to find you, of course,” Sylvia replied.
“Whatever.” I leaned up and then tipped a little to the side. “Ugh, alcohol isn’t fun. I’m going to go find them. Later.”
“That’s probably a good idea!” Aiden called out after me.
I moved to the door and fumbled with the lock for a little while before I managed to pull it open. Instead of hunting down Noah or Cabe, I moved back through the house and out into the front yard. I stumbled down the driveway and headed in the direction that I assumed home was. Realistically, I knew that it would take me most of the night to reach the mountain home, but my brain didn’t seem to care. I walked for almost two hours before I gave up and sat down at a bus stop. I pulled the sketchpad out of my bag and grasped a pencil, holding it unsteadily over the surface of the paper.
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