by Mary Martel
"Really, Rain?" I muttered. "You're going to do this now?"
Rain glared at me and I felt my lips tip up again. That look would have normal people squirming and hoping and praying not to piss themselves. I wasn't normal and I knew I was the only weakness Rain had. He'd never do anything to harm me and that look was all bullshit when directed my way.
"Really, Ariel," he mocked. "You're going to do this now? Here I thought you'd want to spend time with your real father and not some pretender who'd chosen your kidnapper over you."
I gaped at him.
"Rain," I hissed angrily.
That was taking things too far, even for him. Marcus had cared about Vivian and she was dead. I didn't think it was right to hold that against him, no matter what she'd done or what kind of person she'd been when she was alive. There was no reason Marcus needed to be blamed for her mistakes or the fact he'd given a shit about her.
"What?" Rain asked innocently.
I sighed. There was no point arguing with him sometimes. Rain was the single most stubborn person I had ever met in my entire life and once he made up his mind, that was it.
"Are you going to hang out up here while I'm gone or do I need to lock the place up?" I inquired in exasperation.
He glared at me before turning that angry look on Marcus and snarling, "If anything happens to her while she's with you, I'll rip your goddamned heart out of your chest and stomp on it."
With that, he plucked Binx up off the counter and turned away, heading in the direction of the table that the boys used to read cards and tell fortunes.
My mouth hung open as I watched Binx's tail twitch and I heard the little traitor start to purr.
"Well," Marcus drawled, "shall we be on our way now?"
I sighed as I grabbed my phone and hurried after him. I hoped Rain didn't scare off too many customers in my absence. He and Quinton often scared people away.
Chapter Two
I picked at the corner of the menu nervously. This place wasn't some fancy-shmancy place that I was expecting Marcus to take us to when he said he had a restaurant in mind. This place wasn't a dive either. It was quaint, clean, and judging by the family filled booths, family friendly.
For the first time since sitting down after the hostess had led us to the booth, I finally looked across the table at Marcus. I had never been uncomfortable around the man before and couldn't exactly pinpoint why I seemed to be nothing but uncomfortable now.
Marcus didn't seem to be having the same problem as me. In fact, he looked right at home in his side of the booth. He'd removed his suit jacket and placed it over the back of his seat before sliding into the booth, where he'd immediately unbuttoned his sleeves and rolled his shirt up to his elbows. He'd then sat back and flipped open his menu. He'd been immersed in it ever since.
I'd opened my menu but I hadn't actually read a single item on the stupid thing. This was unbearably awkward for me and I hated that this was now how I felt around him when I cared so much for him.
"What can I get ya to drink?" a bubbly young woman asked in a chirpy voice.
"I'll have a Diet Coke," Marcus answered without looking up from his menu.
The waitress looked at me expectantly and I muttered that I'd have a Coke. She wrote it down on her little notepad before bouncing off the way she'd come.
"Uh, Marcus," I mumbled.
He peeked at me over the top of his menu. "We can talk after we order," he told me in a gentle voice.
We read over the menus in silence, and it wasn't long before the waitress came back with our drinks and sat them on the table. Marcus carefully placed his menu down and eyed me shrewdly. I got the hint, placed my menu on top of his, and turned to the waitress. After rattling off what I wanted to eat, Marcus ordered for himself. Always the gentleman was Marcus Cole.
I sighed. I hadn't had him in my life for very long, but I sure had missed him when he was gone from it.
The waitress wandered off with our menus in hand after having written down our orders. I stared at Marcus expectantly. I wasn't so sure how much I bought the whole he missed me thing and Rain had been keeping him at bay. I didn't want to think it of Marcus, but most people only came around because they usually wanted something from you. I had taken enough from him already and would give him almost anything he wanted. All he had to do was ask it of me.
He opened his mouth to speak but closed it quickly at the sound of my cell phone ringing.
I pulled it out of my hoodie pocket, looked down at the lit up screen, and sighed heavily. I couldn't do anything these days without Quinton calling me to make sure everything was copacetic with me. Ever since I'd given him his Christmas present he'd been weird with me. Well, weirder than normal, which was off the freaking charts to begin with. He was turning into a stage five clinger and he was driving me absolutely insane.
Unfortunately for me I had to take his phone calls even if I didn't want to, because I didn't like what happened when I didn't pick up the phone. Embarrassingly enough, he would take it upon himself to show up where I was at to check up on me like I was a misbehaving child or something.
I put the phone to my ear and grumbled, "What now?"
He chuckled quietly and I wanted to punch him. Why was he laughing at me? I'd done nothing amusing.
"Always so sweet, baby," he joked.
"Quinton," I groaned. "What do you want? Why are you calling me?"
"Did it not occur to you that I could be calling simply because I missed the sound of your beautiful voice?"
Blushing, I rolled my eyes skyward. He was out of control and I was already done with this phone conversation.
"No," I told him honestly, "that thought had not actually occurred to me because I'm not stupid, and I know you way better than that. I'd be willing to stake my life on the fact Rain called you and tattled about me leaving the shop with Marcus. Rain's a psycho. You're a psycho. And now I'm having to deal with crazy bullshit from the both of you. So, please, do not waste any more of my time and just spit out why you called me. I would like to enjoy my time with Marcus while I have it, and you’re messing that up for me."
He was quiet for a minute and I couldn't tell if I'd surprised him, or if he was backpedaling and trying to figure out how to placate me. That was one of his new tactics, trying to placate me. Somewhere along the line he'd stopped trying to rile me up and piss me off, and instead had started working really hard to get on my good side. I didn't know what he was playing at, but I had stopped trying to figure him out a while ago so I just rolled with it. It usually saved me a headache.
"Alright," he sighed into the phone. "I'll give you that one, though, to be fair, you do have a beautiful voice and I miss hearing it when I'm forced to go without it for any given amount of time."
"Quinton," I snapped when he seemed to be done with his explanation that wasn't really one in the slightest bit. He was being ridiculous.
From across the table, Marcus started laughing. I grinned at him, knowing full well why he was laughing. Everyone liked it when I gave Quinton a hard time because he usually deserved it, and nobody else would ever dare poke at him. I got away with it because he liked me.
"Is everything going okay with you and Marcus?" he asked in a tone I had never heard out of him before.
He sounded nervous, which was extremely out of character for him.
The smile slid right off my face. What would make Quinton nervous? I feared I didn't want to know, but I had to ask.
With nothing for it, I blurted out, "What's wrong with you now?"
The boys all were used to me blurting my thoughts out at random and they never seemed to mind. This time was no different because he didn't even comment on it.
"It's just that, ahh..." He muttered and my eyes got bigger and bigger with each word out of his mouth. This wasn't the Uncle Quint I knew and loved speaking. "Rain might have threatened Marcus if anything happens to you while you're with him. And he's, well... I believe he'll do as he says and that worries me. No
t that I'm worried about Marcus," he rushed out, "but it's you that I worry about. If Rain did something to harm Marcus, you would never forgive him because you're so attached to the man. I wouldn't put anything past Rain when it comes to you."
His words sent chills down my spine and had me frantically looking around the restaurant for Rain who I feared might now pop out of thin air like the boogeyman.
"What did he threaten?" I whispered, deciding it was best to keep my voice down just in case the boogeyman was invisible and able to hear me. I wasn't willing to chance it.
"That's not important," Quinton stated. "What's important is that you stay safe so I don't have to fight your dad because he unintentionally hurt you."
Fight my...
Fight my dad?
I pulled my phone away and stared at it, stupefied. Had he really just said that to me? Now I wanted to punch him more than ever!
"You can't fight Rain," I hissed hysterically after putting the phone back to my ear.
Marcus's eyebrows shot up high on his forehead as his eyes rounded in surprise.
"I'll do whatever the fuck I need to do," Quinton countered with a confidence that had me slumping in my booth. There was the Uncle Quint I knew and loved. Lucky me. "You just make sure nothing happens to you and that you stay safe. I can trust you to take care of yourself for the afternoon, can't I?"
How dare he? Like I couldn't look after myself? Like I got into trouble all the time and needed him to watch out for me?
As if!
I pulled the phone away from my ear and clicked the red button on the screen that ended the call. I wasn't going to argue with him anymore, it was a waste of my time and would only drive me insane. Quinton always drove me insane.
I tossed my phone down onto the tabletop and slumped back in the seat. I raised my hands to my face and rubbed my eyes tiredly.
"Did I hear you correctly?" Marcus asked in a voice that shook with laughter. "Did you say that Quinton Alexander wanted to fight your father?"
I squeezed my eyes shut tightly and prayed for either a miracle or a lobotomy. Either would work for me at the moment.
"I don't think we should talk about Quinton anymore," I grumbled, then groaned when I heard Marcus's quiet laughter.
"Would you like to talk about Rain instead?" he inquired and I whimpered.
"Nooooo."
"Everyone in your life seems to be quite the handful," he remarked, and I had the distinct impression he was laughing at me.
He wasn't wrong. Even though my life wasn't hard anymore and I wasn't getting kicked down at every turn, my life was still kind of crazy all the time. It was crazy before Rain came into it and the chaos had doubled since his arrival. As it was turning out, I actually enjoyed chaos in the extreme.
"Are you laughing at me, Marcus?" I asked, as I lowered my hands and peeked at him across the table. He smiled at me and shook his head, but I didn't believe him.
"I happen to like my life as it is at the moment," I informed him snottily. "Thank you very much."
Okay, so that wasn't exactly the entire truth because I could have actually done without the phone call from the psycho boyfriend and the looming threat from my psychotic father. I figured Marcus was aware of that, which is why his smile grew even larger.
As much as I enjoyed seeing him smile and acting like he was happy, I couldn't pretend that things were normal between us when they weren't. I was working really hard to not hide from things anymore and confront them head on. It made my life a whole lot easier if I stopped avoiding things and dealt with them right away. It made me worry less and it actually made it a little easier to just breathe.
"Why are we here, Marcus?" I questioned him plainly. "You avoided me because of Rain, you said, and I can completely understand that. Really, I do. Then you pop up out of the blue to take me to lunch and I would really like to know why. I love that we get to spend time together again, honestly, I do. I missed you so much and I'm glad you told me why you haven't been around. But now I want to know, really know, why you're here now. And don't try to lie to me because I've gotten really good at telling when people are lying to me."
I was also working really hard with Julian to try and come up with some type of spell to ink onto my body that will let me know when someone is lying to me. It had been something I'd been thinking about ever since I found out about Ty's, which let him know when people were trying to use magic on him. I figured I'd start little with the lies and work up to something big like the magic. It wasn't working out very well because Julian excelled at healing people, and I feared he had no idea what he was doing when it came to anything else. I'd never tell him that though.
Marcus sighed heavily and then I watched as he slumped back into the seat.
The waitress showed up with plates of our food and placed them on the table before heading back the way she came.
I watched him while I started eating. Marcus unwrapped his silverware and placed his napkin in his lap.
I tried for patience while I ate, but it was hard. Thankfully, he set his fork down and started talking.
"You're right," he admitted quietly. "I did have something I needed to share with you, which is why I took you out for lunch. I didn't want to discuss it with any of the others around because I’m not ready for this information to get out amongst our community yet."
He paused to take a sip of his Diet Coke and I shoveled another forkful of food into my mouth. I didn't like the way this conversation was starting out. My boys wouldn't run their mouths off to anyone and share his business within the community. They kept to themselves. And Rain... well, he lived on the very, very outskirts of the community and had no intentions of changing that any time soon. In fact, he hid from the Council and they had no idea he'd returned to my life. He didn't want them to know anything about him and I couldn't say that I blamed him in the least, because I, too, wanted absolutely nothing to do with those creepy assholes.
"The Council has asked me if I'd ever take any interest in joining them."
I choked on the food I'd just put into my mouth. I swallowed and quickly chugged some of my pop. I slammed the cup down on the table with more force than necessary and some of the Coke sloshed out.
"You said no?" I croaked out. At least I hoped like hell he'd said no. Anything else would be unacceptable to me.
"I told them I'd think about it."
"No," I whispered. How could he say such a thing to me? Was this some kind of a sick joke? This was Marcus, and after what had happened with his sister I would never have thought I'd hear these words come out of his mouth.
He leaned over the table and I reciprocated the gesture.
"Tell me you said no," I begged. "Those are not good people, Marcus, and you know this. You of all people know this. How could you possibly want that for your life? How could you possibly want them in your life?"
I didn't understand any of this and I know it didn't make much sense, but I honestly felt a little betrayed that he would even consider such a thing. And it also scared me on his behalf. If something happened to Marcus, it would rip a hole in my heart that would be irreparable.
Marcus's face took on an ugly look, an angry one I'd never seen on him before.
"I know what Rain is," he whispered in a dark voice, which I wouldn't have recognized as his if he wasn't sitting directly across from me while speaking. "And I know what his family does. I guess I could say what your family does."
I jerked back in the seat and began to shake uncontrollably. The dishes on the table began to rattle along with my body and the lights overhead flickered.
First, Quinton had threatened Rain. Now, Marcus was sitting across from me, and talking about things that he shouldn’t have been talking about and they involved Rain.
Rain was mine, all mine, and nobody, absolutely nobody, got to mess with him. Not even Marcus Cole.
I placed my palms flat against the table and leaned forward hostilely. "How dare you," I spat out. "If you think you can sell R
ain out to the Council then you've got another thing coming, Marcus. He's my family, the only real blood family I have left, and if you cared about me at all, you would shut your damn mouth and never speak of this or him in this way again. You have to know that you mean the world to me and I love you. But this..." I shook my head. "This is what's going to be the death of that love I have for you."
Marcus reached across the table and picked up my hands in his own. He squeezed them gently. The angry look on his face melted away and the kindness he usually radiated when I was around started to shine through.
My shaking slowed down minimally, until only a slight tremor remained. The heat he gave off engulfed my hands and spread up my arms, seeping into my skin and filling my body with warmth.
"I hate the Council," he whispered hoarsely, the emotion thick in his voice. "With every ounce of my soul, I hate every single member of the Council. Most people would be overjoyed by being asked to join their ranks. I am not like most people."
I squeezed his hands in a show of support. I was right there with him in his hatred, only I didn't have a personal reason to hate them the way he did. I disliked them because of their views on women and shady behavior. Plus, it didn't hurt that they terrified me.
"I'm going to take them up on the offer, I think," he divulged, in the same thick voice.
My body twitched and I tried to jerk my hands away from his. He wouldn't let me go.
"They do despicable things, Ariel. Unimaginable things, and they get away with it because there's no one to stand up to them. My poor sister... I want to do this for her. For all the other females out there whose lives are lost to the Council."
My eyes bulged and I hissed, "They're killing girls?"
What the hell? That went against everything I'd heard about them and seen for myself. It made absolutely no sense to me that they would kill them.
"No, sweetheart, that's not what I meant at all," he rushed out to assure me. "I just meant that to end up in their clutches is to lose your life, because it's no longer your own to live. Once the Council has control over you, it's over for you for the rest of your life because you no longer have free will. That's what they did with my sister and she couldn't handle it. It destroyed my family and ruined her. It happens to too many of our females and there's nothing to stop them from doing it."
