Chapter Four
“Thank you,” Quinton said on a sigh. I heard the relief clear as day in his voice.
I was glad he was relieved. Good for him. As for myself? Well, I was freaking out on the inside. No way could I love Quinton. Not even a little bit. He was bossy, domineering, scary and… kind of awesome?
Holy crap, I was in trouble here. I think I loved Scary Uncle Quint just a little bit.
He looked at me funny in the mirror, so I mumbled, “Mm hmm.” He had said something, right? In my panic and freak out, I couldn’t remember. I knew enough to keep my mouth shut though. If I opened my mouth, scary words would come pouring out and with Quint, there would never be the chance to shove them back in. And Quint would never let me forget it. Or anyone else for that matter.
“What are you doing in here?” I blurted out of self-preservation.
Close your mouth and stop talking, Ariel Kimber. Just shut your pie hole. Right now.
I probably should have asked him that question as soon as he’d inappropriately appeared in here with me, but I had been too preoccupied with my insecurities to care. Now I cared. And I was still standing here in his arms in nothing but a towel. I didn’t have on my underwear yet. He was right, I most certainly was a prude. He’d seen me naked before, I couldn’t really complain about being in a towel.
“Dash is in your room waiting on us,” he said, making my eyes bulge. That was the very last thing I had expected him to say.
“What’s Dash doing out there?” I sputtered. “Should he even be out of bed right now?”
“He’s not out of bed actually, he’s in yours. And it’s good for him to get up and move around.”
My mouth fell open to go with my bulging eyes and a look in the mirror told me just how ridiculous I looked.
“What do you mean Dash is in my bed?” I sputtered. I couldn’t have heard that right.
He moved away from my back and grabbed ahold of my hand.
“Come on,” he said as he tugged on my hand. “He’s out there waiting for us.”
I dug my feet in and pulled against his hold on me. “Quinton,” I sputtered. “I need to put my clothes on.” I needed my clothes on like a warrior needed armor before going into battle.
“You really don’t need clothes,” he said as he gave my arm another tug.
“Yeah, I do,” I gritted out through clenched teeth.
He sighed and let me go. “Fine,” he muttered unhappily. “Have it your way but hurry up.”
He stormed out of the bathroom, and I half expected him to slam the door, but he didn’t. Instead he closed it with a soft click behind him.
I rolled my eyes. Bossy, he was always so damn bossy. And annoying. And I couldn’t possibly feel what I thought I felt for him. Nope. Absolutely not. I was going to stick with that for my own peace of mind.
I dropped the towel to the floor and quickly put on underwear, tank top and sleep shorts. I picked the damp towel up off the floor, folded it in half and hung it up on a towel rack attached to the wall to dry. I picked a comb up off of the counter that was sitting beside the sink and headed for the bedroom.
I was in the process of running the comb through my hair as I entered the room and came up short. The sight that greeted me was… unbelievable.
“Wha… what…” I stammered. “What’s going on?”
Dash laid back in the giant’s bed with a whole mound of pillows propped behind his back. A black muscle shirt covered his chest, the dark color making his white, pale skin almost transparent. He had dark circles under his eyes and his bright red hair stood up every which way and was a duller color than usual. It looked as if it hadn’t been washed since he’d been released from the hospital. He looked comfortable, settled in and like he was planning on going absolutely nowhere any time soon.
Just what in the heck was he doing in my temporary bed? And with Quinton sprawled out beside him? The comforter had been pulled up to their stomachs, their eyes on the flat screen across the room and whatever was playing on it.
When Dash spotted me in the doorway with the comb in hand he waved the remote control in the direction of the television. “Hey, sugar,” he said in a tired voice, sounding for all the world that it wasn’t bizarre for him to be here, in my bed. “Damien went out and bought you a bunch of DVD’s. All of it first seasons of shows he thought you might enjoy.”
I’m sorry? Did he just say Damien went out of his way to do something nice for me? I couldn’t wrap my mind around it. Yeah, when I had spent the night at Dash’s house Damien had gone out of his way to include me and he had been very nice to me and had hinted at the possibility of spending more time with me and wanting that time to be one-on-one. So, in all honesty, I probably shouldn’t have been surprised by the fact he’d gone and done something kind for me. But I had trouble reconciling the dick that Damien had been when I’d first met him to this kind and generous person he was turning out to be.
“What tv shows did he get?” I asked in a quiet voice out of curiosity, dying to know what kind of tv shows Damien thought I might like. Maybe it would tell me a little bit about what he thought of me as a person.
Quinton tossed the blanket aside and climbed out of bed. He walked over to where the television was mounted to the wall and knelt down on the floor.
I frowned, unhappy as he pawed through a pile of DVD’s. I could have easily gone over there and looked through the pile myself, he hadn’t needed to get up off of the bed. Not that I really wanted him laying in my bed, of course. Dash could stay there, he was injured and kicking him out would be mean. I couldn’t be mean with Dash. Quinton was a different story. I could be mean to Quinton all the time and not have a problem with it. Payback for his bossy, domineering behavior he was constantly throwing at me.
“We’ve got Dexter, Grimm, SOA… Which I’m thinking he got more for himself than you because he loves that damn show.”
“The same could be said for Dexter,” Dash chimed in from the bed. “Julian hates Dexter and bitches every time Damien binges on that show because he can’t simply watch one or two episodes, he’s got to watch all of it until there aren’t any more episodes left.”
My lips tipped up in a small smile. Damien and I had that in common, it seemed because that’s how I watched Game of Thrones. I had heard about it while listening to kids talking at school, but we had never had HBO, never even had cable for goodness sakes, so I had never had an opportunity to watch it. Since I had access to the school library and had checked out the books because it was free and I read them and fell deeply, madly in love. Much to my delight, Mr. Cole had had HBO and this summer I had devoured every single episode, one right after the other.
“Shameless,” Quinton said, continuing on with his list.
Dash immediately cut in with, “She doesn’t need to watch that, it’s too raunchy for her.”
I decided right then and there I was definitely watching that one when they weren’t around to nay say.
Quinton grunted in agreement. “Hemlock Grove. I have no desire to watch that one with you, Ariel, it’s too weird for my taste. You might like it, though. Orange Is The New Black. I’m not watching that one either. The L Word. What the fuck was Damien thinking? We are not watching Damien’s lesbian shows with you. Christ. What an asshole.”
I decided right there that I was definitely watching Damien’s lesbian television shows when Quinton wasn’t around to nay say those as well.
“The Walking Dead. Breaking Bad. Bates Motel. Supernatural. The Vampire Diaries. I’m sure as hell not watching some teenage vampire crap. One Tree Hill…” His voice trailed off as he rummaged through more and more DVD’s that must have cost a small fortune. “Fuck it, we’re watching SOA. The rest of this is teenage chick shit, like Veronica Mars and I would rather someone scoop out my eyeballs with a wooden spoon than watch that crap. Not for me.”
“Have you ever watched Veronica Mars?” I asked him.
“No.”
“Then how do you know you don’t like it?”
“Shut up, babe, and get into bed.” He ordered.
I shook my head in disbelief as I crossed my arms over my chest. When was he going to learn he couldn’t give me commands to do what he wanted me to and actually expect me to do it?
From the bed, Dash laughed. I wanted to join him. Quinton was outrageous.
Something soft brushed against the inside of my ankle. I looked down and grinned.
“Binx!” I exclaimed. I bent down and scooped the little black cat up in my arms and he immediately started to purr. “Oh, my pretty boy. I’ve wondered where you’ve been and hoping you weren’t at the cottage all by your little lonesome, but I kept forgetting to ask someone about you. Too much other stuff going on and you got lost in the mix. I’m so sorry, pretty boy.”
I cuddled the fuzzy purr box against my chest and pressed my cheek into the top of his head.
Binx was Dash’s cat and I loved him. The cat, not the man. I wasn’t throwing that stupid L word out there in regard to anyone else any time soon. No thank you.
The little feline, however? I loved him. He was a brand-new addition to my life, one I met the first time I went to Dash’s cottage. Then when I spent the night there, the cat had abandoned Dash and his bed in order to sleep curled up into a tight little fuzzy ball at my feet. I had had high hopes of stealing him away from Dash on a permanent level but had been denied the time and opportunity to do so. Until now.
Binx was a dainty, mostly all black little boy with the most pathetic sounding meow I had ever heard. The mostly black part came from a tiny splash of white he had on both of his front paws. He was utterly adorable and weighed next to nothing as I held him close.
I had never had a pet before, not even some stray I had found and brought home with me. Not an injured baby bird with a broken wing and no chance at survival. Not a hungry, scrawny cat who probably had fleas and a litter of baby kittens hidden away somewhere. Not a fuzzy little crawler I had found and decided to keep in a jar I filled with leaves and planned on keeping until it eventually turned into a cocoon and then a butterfly. I never had an ant farm and spiders freaked me out. I imagined my mother would have gotten all kinds of unpleasant with me if she had found wild animals in my bedroom or anywhere in whatever dumpy apartment we were living in at the time.
I had never dreamed of the possibility of one day having a cat. Not that he was mine or anything, I had to keep reminding myself. But, in all fairness, if I lived with Dash, and Binx lived with Dash, then he would kind of be mine by default. Right? I was going with that.
“Bring me my cat, would you please, Ariel?” Dash said, and I immediately headed towards the bed with the furry beast in my arms.
If Quinton talked to me like that, instead of rudely bossing me around and demanding I do the things he wanted me to, the two of us would probably get along a whole lot better. Sadly, I didn’t see a future where that would be happening.
Gently, I placed Binx on the bed about a foot away from his original owner. No matter how far I leaned into the massive bed, I came up short of reaching Dash.
“Where did this bed come from?” I asked as I slid in between soft sheets the color of the sun and scooted over towards the center of the bed. “It’s huge, like it was made for a giant or something. Is there a giant hiding somewhere here in this weird house of yours, Quinton, that I don’t know about?”
I had meant that last part as a joke, but with these people and this house and what I already knew it held, anything was possible. That basement sure did freak me out. My mother was down there.
I needed to not think about that, or her. It seemed no matter what I did or where I went, she was never far from my mind. I wished I could have found some way to erase her entirely from my life. Briefly, I wondered if Julian had some magic potion for that. Some magic elixir that gave me nothing but happy thoughts and made me forget that I ever had that woman in my life. Somehow, I highly doubted Julian would have anything like that available for my use, and if I asked he’d probably look at me with pity in his eyes, and I certainly didn’t need that.
“Move over,” Quinton growled from behind me, and I scooted over, closer to Dash.
“What are we doing here?” I asked. “I mean, it’s not that I mind the two of you being here in my temporary bedroom and all, buuttt… I’m a little confused as to the why part of it. I thought it was time for breakfast down in the kitchen with the rest of the guys. Instead, I come out of the bathroom and find you both in my bed talking about tv shows Damien picked out for me and acting like this is all perfectly normal behavior for us, when it most certainly is not. Explain yourselves.”
Quinton adjusted the pillows behind himself, getting comfortable.
“First,” he said, “I’ll explain the bed. This bed was something my father had made for my mother, a wedding gift, if you will. They never shared it because she hated him. It’s one of the few things I’ve held on to that belonged to my parents. I had it in storage but dug it out for you to use. Marcus had the movers bring over your furniture with the rest of your belongings, but as there wasn’t much, and I already had the bed in here for you, I had the guys put yours in my storage unit. I also had them bring the boxes with your personal belongings and clothing to Dash’s house. I didn’t see the point in unpacking here when you’ll just be going back over there in no time. You know I want you here with me, and I’m hoping that you’ll eventually want to move in all on your own. This room will always be yours, same with the bed. There’s more furniture that Julian picked out for you. I think a sofa and a few other pieces, but they obviously haven’t arrived yet. If you don’t like them we can always put them in the storage unit and you can pick out things you do like. I doubt that will be the case however. Julian has excellent taste and isn’t going to buy you something that you’re going to find ugly. At least, I hope not. I don’t want him to get his feelings hurt. You might not see it, but he’s really sensitive. And I don’t think he’s been with anyone since-”
“Quint,” Dash growled menacingly. “That is not yours to give her. The other guys will tell her when they are ready to. It doesn’t involve you or me.”
“Actually,” I said quietly, “I already know all about Annabell The No Longer Beautiful. My Salt and Pepper twins told me all about her after I caught you guys talking about me the first time I spent the night here. You were talking about how I was too young for you and you didn’t want to give up your social life for some girl you didn’t want to share. That girl being me.”
Wow! Bitter much?
I thought I had all of my issues with Dash squared away in a neat box that had been wrapped up in duct tape. Why would I bring that up? And right now, of all times when there were so many more important things to focus on than what Dash had said about me before he’d ever even spoken a single word to me, and he’d been nothing but cool with me ever since.
“I’m sorry, could you repeat that?” Dash asked in a rough voice.
“Well, shit.” Quinton muttered. “Just how much of that conversation did you actually hear?”
That made me curious to know what had been said after Addison had dragged me off, but I answered honestly. “Only the beginning. Or, perhaps it was the middle? I’m not sure. Addison showed up as soon as Annabell’s name was mentioned and he dragged me off to their bedroom where they told me a bunch of messed up things about her.”
“Wait, wait,” Quinton said. “Did you refer to Abel and Addison as the Salt and Pepper twins?”
“I believe she called them her Salt and Pepper twins, if I’m not wrong.” Dash’s voice was strained, and I couldn’t tell if it was from repressed laughter or because he was in pain.
On the pillow, my head swiveled to the side, seeking out his eyes. He met mine with ease. There was no pain in there, thankfully. There was quite a bit of amusement, however.
“Do I have a nickname?” He asked me, and I immediately shook my head in the negative. I hadn’t come up with one for him yet. I’m sure I would eventually.
The amusement fled his gray eyes and they flooded with a serious determination that intimidated me.
“You need to let that other stuff go, Ariel.” He said in a low voice. “I didn’t know you then, and I have always been very careful not to tie myself down with any one female. And, I have never, ever gotten close to a female with magic before. There are so few of you to go around that I never assumed we would have one for ourselves and I never even entertained the idea of our coven gaining a female. We aren’t exactly the greatest catch as a group. All of us are a little messed up as individuals. All together? It’s a hot mess. Why would some female choose our group to join and be with? Not a chance. When Annabell came along she did it at exactly the right moment. We were vulnerable and hurting. Tyson’s parents were the real deal, and we all bled from that wound when they died. Annabell got in there and dug her claws in deep and when they were ripped out, she left even bigger, gapping wounds. Too much damage in too short of a time span and on top of everything else we already had going for us. It left us raw and I, for one, balked at the idea of opening our arms to another female. I’m sorry if I said anything that hurt your feelings. I didn’t even know you at the time, and I would have been a dick about anybody. It wasn’t personal.”
I pulled the blanket up to my chin and got comfortable as I ran his words through my head.
They both had given me a lot to think about. I learned I needed to be careful with Julian because he was sensitive and hadn’t had a girlfriend since the dreaded Annabell. He seemed like a sensitive soul to me and I could easily see him being severely wounded after that girl did her thing. He was just so very sweet. I learned that Dash guarded himself fiercely against all people who weren’t the guys in his coven. And, somehow, some way, he’d let me in past his guard. He had even before Chucky stabbed him. Him getting stabbed and ending up in the hospital had put the brakes on our budding friendship. I was more than ready to get back to it.
“Do I have a nickname?” Quinton asked as he reached across my lap and stole the remote out of Dash’s hands.
I shook my head. He didn’t like it when I called him Uncle Quinton and said he wasn’t a pervert. I wasn’t so sure about that last part and I only called him Uncle because I knew how much it bothered him. I loved giving Quint a hard time. Everyone but Tyson simply fell in line behind Quinton’s orders, sometimes only because it was less of a hassle to deal with. He needed me to give him a hard time.
“Come here.”
“I am here.” I grumbled.
Apparently, I wasn’t close enough because Quinton slid his arms around me, one behind my back and the other around my chest. He dragged me over until there wasn’t any more space between us. Goodness, but he had some serious boundary issues.
“What are you doing?” I growled at him in false outrage. I don’t know why I bothered. Quinton did what Quinton wanted to do no matter the circumstances.
He didn’t bother to answer me, so I let it go and moved on to something else.
“What are the marks on your fingers?” I asked Quinton in a shy, quiet voice. “The thin scars. What are they, and where did they come from?”
That question had been bothering me from the very beginning, and I had always been too afraid to ask him personal questions. Although, I wasn’t sure why. He always doled out information freely with me and didn’t often take offense with the things I said. Most of the time.
“You’ve got a lot of them,” I murmured.
I picked his hand up from where it lay on top of the blanket. I pulled it close to my face where I could examine it better and traced my finger over a thin, white scar. His fingers were covered in them. His thumb, even his pinky had a bunch of them.
“Do you have them on your fingers as well?” I asked Dash without bothering to turn and look at him as I spoke to him. It was only the three of us here, in this bed, they’d know who I was talking to without explanation.
“Nope,” Dash said. “Just Quinton. I don’t mess around in that.”
I shook Quinton’s hand in front of my face. “How did you get them?” I asked again.
I stilled when I realized Quinton hadn’t responded. He remained quiet and he wasn’t moving. I put his hand back where I had picked it up from and looked up at Quinton. His dark, almost black eyes were on me, focused solely on my face. He looked anxious, worried.
“Quinton?”
“I did it to myself,” he muttered and cleared his throat. “I do it to myself.”
My mouth dropped open in shock.
“What?” I sputtered. “Why would you be cutting yourself, and on your fingers of all places? What the hell, Quinton? That’s bizarre and not cool.”
“She’s adorable when she gets like this,” Quinton said as his eyes finally left mine to go over my head to Dash behind me. “Half the time I can’t tell whether she cares or not but I’d lean towards not. Then she gets all cute and caring and it’s obvious.”
I didn’t like it when he talked about me in front of me like this. It was annoying as all get out.
“Quinton,” I snapped. “Are you going to tell me or not?”
“Now her temper is showing. Better watch out, Quint, next she’ll be swearing at you. Something the twins claim she never does but I’ve heard her do it a few times.”
Quinton moved the remote, hiding it underneath the blanket and out of my reach.
“I’m gonna hide this,” Quinton said. “Just to be safe. I don’t want you to get upset and throw it at my head.”
That was it. I was done with them.
Growling in frustration, I shoved the blanket down my body. I wasn’t sticking around just so they could pick at me. And would I never hear the end of the stupid thing with the rock?
Geez. Give a girl a break already.
“Wait, wait.” Quinton said as he grabbed for the blanket, dragging it back up my body. “You’re not going anywhere. Lay back down and I will tell you what you want to know.”
Reluctantly, I laid back down and let him cover me with the heavy blanket.
“Why would you harm yourself in any way?” I asked as I sighed. “I don’t understand.”
“I know you don’t,” Quinton said. “It’s one of the things I love about you. You don’t have a clue about magic. You know absolutely nothing, and it’s our job to teach you. I love it.”
He was so frustrating. Being blind when it came to magic was not something I enjoyed in the slightest, and they had barely taught me anything. I wanted to know how to do absolutely everything, and I wanted to know these things six weeks ago. I didn’t think my lack of knowledge, my blindness, if you will, when it came to all things magical was very endearing and I certainly wouldn’t have found it attractive on another person.
“It’s for the blood magic, Ariel,” he said and my head whipped around so I could see him.
Blood Magic?
I swear, I’d heard someone say something about blood magic before, I just couldn’t remember when or what was said.
“What’s blood magic?” I asked in a quiet voice. I felt like what ever I was about to hear was an important lesson I wouldn’t want to forget about any time soon.
“You can do magic and cast spells and you know it costs something. It’s usually your energy and you’ll need to eat a big meal after you cast or use your magic in any way. You need to replenish the energy you’ve used up. But my father taught me a different way. He taught me about blood magic. A lot of the other coven’s frown on the use of it because it makes everything so much more powerful and harder to control. Power can be a frightening thing to behold and abused when in the hands of the wrong person. There have been a few people who’ve misused it over the years. Even the Elders frown on its use, unless, of course, they are the ones using it. And they have no problem with abusing it to gain whatever they have their sights set on at the moment.”
I wasn’t surprised to hear about the Elders abusing something most witches considered dangerous. They seemed like dangerous A-hole’s of epic proportions. And they were disgusting when it came to their treatment of women. They were this scary entity waiting in the dark for their chance to pounce, that perfect moment to strike. They scared the ever loving beejezus out of me, and I hoped like hell that I never had the misfortune to meet them. Eventually, I would be forced to meet them. My life was like that, me having to do everything I would rather avoid doing if I were able to do so. It seemed like the entire universe was against me, and I never really got what I wanted.
“My father was the same way,” Quinton said. “He used his blood for gain and to make his spells more powerful, to make himself more powerful. You see, if you bleed for it, you mix your blood into the spell you’re weaving, you’re giving it a piece of yourself, your essence, if you will. Then it doesn’t drain your energy source, that source being yourself. There’s power in the blood of a witch, you can’t simply use anyone. And, it doesn’t work with everything. You have to be able to mix it in with something or drip it on to something. I used my own blood for both spells I did against Chucky. Which is why things backfired and got more intense than I had dreamed they would be.”
I remembered something he had said after the vomiting in the cafeteria incident. Quinton had admitted to being responsible for everything. I believe he’d shrugged it off, saying he must have added too much blood to the bowl. He had shrugged it off like it was no big deal. It had been a big deal to me, and I think the guys had even been shocked by it.
How often did he mix his blood with his magic? And how often did things get out of control for him when they did? This worried me. Oddly, I wasn’t worried for myself and others, but for Quinton himself. He wasn’t so scary to me anymore. I saw him more as angry, reckless and dangerous. He needed to be more careful so nothing happened to him. Things had a way of backfiring horribly around me and I didn’t want Quinton to go down like Dash had, even if he had been the one who started it.
“I will teach you,” Quinton vowed.
A shiver ran down my spine. I wasn’t so sure I wanted to learn.
Quinton felt my shiver and, like the mind reader he wasn’t but I fancied him to be, he knew exactly what I had been thinking. “You will learn. That doesn’t mean you will ever have to use it, but I want to know that you are capable of doing so if you ever need to. It will make me feel a whole lot better. I want you to learn everything. Even if it is considered too dark or wrong by other covens and the Elders’ standards. You’re going to learn everything. Fuck what any of the other covens would think. We don’t have to tell anybody shit.”
Another shiver raced down my spine. I did not like the sound of this. He made it sound like he wanted to teach me something dark and sinister that the rest of the magical world would frown on. I went back on my earlier thoughts; Quinton was back to being scary.
“We’ll talk more magic later,” Dash said, then he yawned so loud his jaw made a weird popping sound. “I’m exhausted. These last few days have been draining. Quinton told me that the two of you haven’t really been sleeping. The only reason I’ve been sleeping is because I’ve been taking those damn pain pills that have been knocking me out. Otherwise, I doubt I would be sleeping either. Right now, what we all need is to veg out in front of the television and hopefully fall asleep. And, apparently, we need to do it together.”
Quinton grunted in agreement. Surprisingly, I couldn’t find an argument myself. Quinton and I were exhausted. It was arguable who was worse off, him or me. If this is what he needed to sleep, then that’s what I would give him, give them both. It’s not like sleeping in-between the two of them was a hardship or anything. And they wouldn’t try to pull anything funny or weird on me. At least, not on Dash’s part. Quint was a bit of a wild card.
Without saying anything, I snuggled down into the comfortable bed and the heavy blankets. I focused on the action taking place on the screen and it was a doozy. I decided right then and there that motorcycle clubs were scary business and not for the likes of me.
It didn’t take long for my eyelids to droop. It took even less time for me to drift off to sleep. They both moved into me and I slept cocooned in their arms.
If I dreamed, I didn’t remember it. Small blessings.