Black as Midnight

by Mary Martel

  And why the fuck had he called her pretty? I know, I know, I'd thought the same thing about her, but had he really needed to say it out loud? Jealousy reared her ugly head and filled me up with her poison. It was a horrible feeling to have and something I wasn't used to feeling.

  "Ariel?" Tyson murmured quietly, and I felt his eyes on me but refused to look at him. "Why did he give this to you?"

  I hit the button to lower the driver's side window and sucked in a lung full of clean air, hoping it would clear out the bad shit running through my head.

  "Rain," I choked out past the jealousy clogging up my insides. "He knows what Rain's family did and wanted me to give it to him to see if there's any chance Rain can find her before the Council does and get her nice and hidden away from them in time."

  "Makes sense," he said quietly. "But what I want to know is why you're acting so weird now and why do you look like someone kicked your puppy?"

  I shot him a dirty look, not appreciating that last statement at all. I needed to work better at hiding my emotions when it came to my face.

  "Can we just not talk?" I asked him, and I think I even meant it too.

  "You know you're pretty too, right? You're the only person I want."

  I groaned as I hit the button, closing the window, and then I latched on to the steering wheel in a death grip, trying to strangle the life out of it.

  "It's okay if you think she's pretty," I said in a quiet, strangled voice. "It's okay for you to be attracted to other people, to want them. I have no room to talk, not when I've got all these boyfriends. I have no right to expect you to only want me."

  Tyson's big, warm palm landed on my thigh and he squeezed gently. I was glad for having put on leggings today instead of a skirt because I didn't think I could handle having his hand on my bare skin at the moment.

  "I would never cheat on you and I fucking hate that you think I would do that."

  Shit.

  The hurt in his voice killed me. I'd really messed this whole thing up with him and that hadn't been my intention.

  "I don't think you'd cheat on me, Tyson," I told him in a small voice. "That's not the problem. I'm the problem here. You say some chick is pretty and I get jealous like an asshole."

  He squeezed my thigh. "You don't have anything to be jealous about."

  "I know that," I snapped at him. "I'm being irrational and I know that too."

  "Okay," he said quietly, sounding confused.

  "What happens," I began, "if we find a bunch of women who are all witches and all of sudden you've all got options other than me?"

  I said that, me, yeah, that was my voice, my mouth those words had come out of. I'd put it right out there, no bullshit. And I absolutely could not put it back, take it back, and I very much wanted to.

  "What the hell are you talking about?" Tyson growled at me. "Why would you ever think we'd want options other than you? That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard come out of your mouth. I'm in love with you. Uncle Quint is in love with you. The twins would rather die than be without you. Goddamn Damien would give up his relationship with Julian if that's what you wanted and Julian would do the same even though it'd kill him to do it. Dash loves you more than life itself, hell, you just had sex with him. For fuck's sake, Ariel. What's the matter with you? What's it going to take for you to believe in us, to believe in our relationship? Our love isn't enough for you? I bought you a goddamn building!"

  He ended on a shout that had me wincing in my seat, flinching away from him as if he'd struck me.

  "Why are you yelling at me?" I snapped back at him. "I tell you how I really feel, give you the truth you're always asking for, and you yell at me in return? What kind of garbage is that?"

  Maybe that last bit was unfair, but I didn't give a crap. I'd stopped caring the moment he raised his voice. I'd put myself out there, not for me and certainly not because I'd wanted to. I didn't appreciate having it thrown in my face and being yelled at because of it.

  "Why..." He sputtered. "Why am I yelling at you? Are you kidding me right now?"

  "You asked and I gave you the truth."

  "Well, the truth sucked," he spat.

  No kidding, the truth sucked for me too.

  "Maybe it's not exactly jealousy taking over me," I mused. "It's probably more like my own self-consciousness coming out. My insecurities taking over. I'm not perfect, far from it, and I'm the first one to admit it. But, most people, if they were to take a look at a photograph of me inside a manila folder just like the one in your hands, they would take one look at me and I can assure you, the word that would come out of their mouths wouldn't be pretty."

  I lifted my right hand from the steering wheel, releasing my death grip on the thing to do it, and gestured toward my face.

  "I can talk a big game," I continued. "I can even believe it myself, and do. But there's no erasing this shit on my face." I lowered my hand and gestured toward my chest. "There's no erasing the shit on my collarbones. But, the thing is, it's not those scars that are the worst on me, it's the ones I carry on the inside that own that. And I'm okay with that shit too."

  "Ariel," he whispered in a pained voice.

  I shook my head. "My scars don't bother me and I doubt they ever will. They're a part of me and they aren't a part I'm ashamed of. But, that's me and that's how I look at them. That is not, nor will it ever be, the way the rest of the world looks at them or me because I wear them on my skin. It's not me, though, who has to look at me and think pretty."

  It was my words this time that made me flinch and had absolutely nothing to do with him.

  "Shut up," Tyson hissed at me. "Just shut the fuck up. There is nothing, absolutely nothing wrong with your face or the rest of your body. You are pretty, so fucking pretty, and there's not a person in our entire coven who would say differently, and they would mean that shit from the very bottom of their souls. God, I can't even believe I'm having this conversation with you right now."

  I had started this conversation, but I certainly didn't want to finish it.

  I pulled up across the street from Fortune's for the Unfortunate and parked alongside the curb. There were two big, black boxy vans parked in front of the store that were out of place and had me not turning the SUV off just yet. Something about those vans was rubbing me the wrong way and putting me on edge.

  "There is no other woman for us," Tyson said angrily. "There—"

  I cut him off to stupidly say, "There was Annabell once."

  He sucked in a sharp breath. I knew that was like a punch to the gut and I'd probably regret saying it later, but my focus had been diverted and I was now no longer paying as much attention as I should to what was going on inside of the vehicle. My eyes were aimed across the street.

  "That's not fair," he whispered in a voice full of hurt, and I agreed entirely with him. "You are not Annabell, you're nothing like her. This is different from that and you have to know it. Annabell was never going to be in the place you are right now, and not just because only a handful of us were into her."

  Loved her, he meant. Into her is what he'd said.

  "Ty," I whispered urgently as I watched a dark figure move behind the glass, inside the store.

  He ignored me. "I want to strangle you right now. You are so infuriating that it's hard to handle sometimes. I cannot wait to tell Uncle Quint about this latest shit you've come up with in an effort to distance yourself from us."

  "I'm not distancing myself," I argued, as I unfastened my seat belt. I left the SUV running, just in case we needed to make a quick getaway. "I'm just telling you my version of the truth and I'm honestly sorry you're having a hard time dealing with it. Now, love you, babe, and I'm not trying to be mean when I say this, but I'm going to need you to shut up now and pay attention to what's going down across the street."

  He sputtered indignantly as I slipped my cell phone out of my hoodie pocket and engaged it. I scrolled down to Quinton's contact and hit go. I put it on speaker and waited while it rang.r />
  "Baby," he answered on the third ring. "Everything okay?"

  The sound of his voice washed through me, settling something deep inside me that had been unnerved by my stupid jealousy and insecurities. Quinton was mine, all mine, and he wasn't going anywhere no matter how many female witches were unearthed.

  "No," I said honestly. "I am not okay. We have a problem and I think I need you."

  I heard things rustling and knew he was on the move. "I'm on my way over now."

  I closed my eyes for a second, not allowing myself to take longer than that, not when there were things I needed to be on the lookout for.

  "I'm not next door anymore," I told him.

  Quinton swore harshly under his breath, impressing me with the creative curse words he'd come up with.

  "Of course you're not next door," he growled. "Marcus is smart enough to keep you out of trouble. Where are you?"

  "Sitting in a Suburban I had no idea Marcus owned, across the street from the shop. And I'm not alone because Ty came with me. Though," I mused thoughtfully, "I'm betting he's wishing very much right now that he'd stayed home and far, far away from me and I can't even say I blame him."

  "Ariel," he groaned. "What have you done now?"

  Please, like everything was always my fault? Good grief. This kind of shit never happened to me before I'd met these guys. They were more to blame than I was and that's what I was sticking with.

  "I've done nothing," I replied in a snotty voice. "We are parked in front of the shop and I thought things were weird because there's these black vans parked out front. And then I saw someone moving around inside. Normally, I wouldn't freak about that because I would assume it was Rain in there, but Rain is still at the big house with you, right?"

  Quinton grunted and I assumed that meant yes.

  "Emergency," I heard him bark from a distance and knew he'd moved the phone away from his face and was talking to someone else. "Intruders at the shop. Ariel and Ty are already there and we gotta go."

  I heard the murmur of male voices on the other end of the phone.

  "I want you to stay on the line with me, baby, alright?" he requested in a soft, sweet voice.

  I knew he had to be freaking out on the inside but he was keeping it together. For me, he was keeping it together and it just made me love him all the more because if he freaked out then I would freak out and this situation would be made a whole lot worse.

  "I'll stay on the line," I murmured quietly as I watched out the window. "Just so you know, you're on speakerphone and Ty can hear you too."

  "Good girl," he said in that same voice.

  "I didn't see it," Tyson admitted in a small voice. "I didn't even notice there was anything wrong."

  I winced at that, knowing it was my fault he felt like crap and was being down on himself. I wanted to look at him but couldn't afford to take my eyes off of the shop for even a second. Instead, I placed the phone on my lap and reached for the hand he still had wrapped around my thigh. I squeezed his hand. He didn't give my thigh a squeeze back.

  "Not your fault, Tyson," I said. "I'm an asshole and that conversation didn't go very well because of it."

  "Why is she swearing?" Quinton asked, and I knew he was speaking to his nephew and not me. I answered him anyway, before Tyson had the chance to.

  "Marcus gave me this picture," I explained, even though I knew I shouldn't be sharing with them when Marcus was even afraid to send a text message to Rain about it, "and a phone number today. It's for a lady he thinks is a witch in hiding. He found it in Adrian's office and made copies. Dangerous, I know, but so damn ballsy. I'm really impressed with the effort he's putting into this farce with the Council. Anyway, he's being extra cautious and careful with everything, so he didn't want to text it to Rain and asked me to give it to him instead."

  "Why would he give it to Rain?" Quinton inquired carefully.

  "Are you on the road yet?" Ty asked his uncle.

  "Yeah," Quinton said, answering his nephew. "We are all on our way. We'll be there in less than ten minutes. You just need to keep her safe until then. You've got this."

  I ignored that and shared, "He knows what Rain's family has always done. I don't know how he knows, just that he does. I didn't question it, although I probably should have. I trust him, even with Rain's secrets, and because he's my father, mine. I think he made the right call with asking me to give it to Rain so I headed toward the shop and was going to leave the folders in his apartment."

  "Hmmm..." He muttered noncommittally. "And what did you do to Ty?"

  I sighed, not wanting to answer him, but knew I had to because he would never drop it if I didn't. Quinton never knew when to leave well enough alone. It used to bother me, but was something I was now accustomed to and didn't fight it often anymore.

  "He called the woman in the picture pretty." I gave him the honesty Tyson hadn't seemed to appreciate much. "And I let my insecurities out to play."

  "She thinks that because of her scars and shitty past that if more females who have magic are discovered that we won't want her anymore, and will pick another female to either replace her with or add to the mix."

  Another figure moved in the shop, another one right behind them. "I just saw two people move inside so we know there's more than one. Not sure how many altogether though. There are three different vans so there's gotta be three different drivers, right? Unless these vans were parked here before now. We have been so busy with the attack at Dash's then resting and healing for days... When was the last time anyone's even been to the shop or checked in?"

  "I've got the feeds up now, baby girl," Rain said, and I wasn't surprised to hear his voice. Quinton had put us on speakerphone as well. "From what I've seen so far they've only been there for about a half an hour."

  "What are they doing?" I asked.

  Rain started to answer but Quinton cut him off. "Are you kidding me with this shit, Ariel?" he interjected in a quiet voice. "Is that something you're seriously worried about happening?"

  I watched a black hooded figure step out of the shop carrying a box toward the back of the van while I thought over his question. The hooded figure opened up the back of the last van and tossed the box inside. I didn't even want to know what was inside of that box that he'd stolen from us, but I knew there was no way I could let him actually leave with it.

  "With you and with Dash," I addressed Quinton, "the answer is a hard no. You're both mine and you're not going anywhere. I know it's selfish to say, but if you tried to leave me I wouldn't let you go. But sometimes, with the others, I have moments of doubt. Today I had one of those moments with Tyson and I didn't know that he would have had such a hard time with my honesty, because if I had known I might not have been quite so honest with him. Do I know that he loves me? Yes, absolutely. My fear is irrational, I know, but that doesn't mean I can just stop it. I can't."

  "We'll work on it, all of us together," Quinton promised in that quiet, sweet voice. I knew why I'd gotten that voice this time, it was because I'd called him mine and he'd liked it. Probably loved it even if I had to guess, and I was guessing because I knew Quinton well. I knew that when we had a private moment later on he would bring it up again and make me say it to him face to face and I was okay with that.

  "Can we stop talking about this now?" Tyson grumbled, and if I wasn't focused on the shop I would have turned and laughed in his face. For the first time I was open and willing to discuss my feelings and he was ready to change the subject.

  I would never understand boys.

  "What are they doing in my building?" Tyson asked loudly, and I snickered.

  "How many of them are there, do you know?" I questioned, when I got my amusement on Tyson's behalf under control.

  "Six," Rain answered. "And so far, all they're doing is going through everything. They aren't even trashing the place, just looking at shit. It's weird."

  "Exactly what shit are they looking through?" I asked curiously. It was killing me to sit in here on m
y hands waiting, but it would be plain stupid to go in on my own when there were so many of them. "And do you know who they are?"

  "I think they're from the same crew that attacked at Dash's place," Rain replied, and I found it funny, not in a ha ha sort of way, that he called it Dash's place just like I did. "There's no way there'd be more than one group of hunters in town. They tend to stick to their little groups because too much fighting happens when there are bigger groups."

  Rain sure knew more than anyone else about them, I'd have to take his word for it.

  Someone came out of the shop with another box and placed it in the back of a van.

  "They're taking things," I shared.

  "I can see," Rain said.

  What he didn't do was tell me what was inside those boxes and I really wanted to know. In my opinion, if you didn't practice magic or weren't a witch then there wasn't much in the store that should really interest you.

  "Shit," Tyson hissed, right before knuckles rapped against the front passenger seat window. I let out a small, embarrassingly girly shriek and whirled toward Tyson.

  Blindly, my hand ran over the driver’s side door, searching. My fingers glossed over buttons and pressed down on the first one I'd encountered. A distinctive click sounded throughout the SUV and I let out a shaky breath at hearing it. Locked, the doors were locked now, and I told myself we were safe behind those locks. I knew I was lying to myself though.

  "What the fuck is going on?" Quinton asked in high, terrified voice.

  "Be quiet," Tyson murmured, "or I'll have Ariel hang up on you."

  He could threaten his uncle with that, but I didn't think it was a threat that I would actually be able to come through with. Just knowing Quinton was on the other end of the line made me feel a whole lot safer and that small sense of safety wasn't something I was willing to give up.

  "But—" Quinton started, trying to argue but was cut off.

  "Shut up," Tyson snarled in a quiet, angry voice.

  The other end of the phone line went quiet as Quinton took his nephew seriously, finally.

  I watched in horror as Tyson hit the button that would lower the passenger side window. It went down several inches and stopped.