Chapter Six
It was quiet as I made my way down the stairs. The second box I opened had been the one for me. I’d found a black bra, black leggings and a red tank top with a garden gnome on the front. My feet were encased in a pair of red fuzzy socks. My hair had been pulled back into a high ponytail on top of my head with some strands of hair having escaped and hanging down my neck. A wide red headband finished out the look. I wore no makeup. I figured with the stitches in my face, makeup would be next to worthless. If you were looking at my face, the stitches and angry red marks were all you would see.
Why bother with makeup when I had that eyesore?
So, I didn’t bother.
There was no point.
I stopped at the bottom of the stairs and listened. No sound. They were being quiet. I hoped that didn’t mean they were up to something.
I checked the living room and it was empty. That left the kitchen. Maybe they were hungry. I couldn’t imagine why or how that was even possible. Quinton had been practically force feeding us every couple of hours. There was a decent possibility I had gained a good ten pounds just from being there for a few days. Of course, it hadn’t been food Quinton had cooked himself. Julian had cooked everything. I wondered what the rest of them ate when Julian wasn’t around. Take out, probably.
I didn’t make it to the kitchen because I found them in the dining room.
Tyson sat sprawled out in a chair with his feet kicked out in front of him and crossed at the ankles. He looked entirely at ease and relaxed. I envied him this. His dark, dark eyes were closed at the moment and I missed seeing them. Tyson Alexander was Quinton’s nephew even though they were only a few years apart in age, Quinton being the older of the two. Something he lorded over Tyson on the daily. They were more like brothers than nephew and uncle. Quinton’s dad, Ty’s grandfather, had liked women and they were lucky there weren’t a dozen more Alexander boys running around out there in the world. The female population would be overjoyed because both Alexander boys were easy on the eyes. Tyson had the same body type as Quinton. Their biggest difference was that Quinton’s hair was buzzed close to his scalp and Tyson’s dark brown hair was long, down to his shoulders. He had the kind of hair you wanted to run your fingers through over and over again. His smile, when he brought it out, was damn near blinding and looked like it could be straight out of a commercial advertising toothpaste. His eyes, like Quinton’s eyes, were so dark brown they were almost black, and they were bottomless pits. Eyes you could get lost in and not mind if you were never found again.
I liked it when he was at ease. Tyson was quick to temper, and he said a lot of mean and hurtful things when he got angry. I had only found myself on the wrong side of his temper once and I hadn’t enjoyed it all that much.
Quinton had a bit of a temper as well. Perhaps it ran in their family.
I pulled out the chair beside him and plopped down in the seat. I didn’t relax how he did and allow myself to loosen up. I wasn’t the relaxed type and I probably never would be. I was always waiting for some boogeyman to pop out and the next bad thing to happen. It’s what my life had trained me for. Relaxing wasn’t my gig.
Tyson’s eyelids cracked open a sliver. He took in my stiff posture and his lips quirked up in a small smile.
I shook my head as my eyes slid to the dining room table where Julian was opening up what looked like a black physician’s bag. I half expected him to pull out torture devices and weird clamps. He did no such thing.
He pulled out two medium sized glass mason jars with lids screwed on. One was half full of some thick looking white cream. The other jar had been painted black and flecks of the paint had chipped off, showing the clear glass. I couldn’t see the color of its contents. He pulled out a few more objects and placed them on the table beside the jars. A silver bowl. A sharp looking knife. A small jar with white powder in it. A book of matches.
My eyes grew wider with each item. We needed these things for my face? Last time he’d simply rubbed some weird cream on me and called it good.
“Be right back,” he muttered as he placed the last object on the table.
Julian headed off towards the kitchen and Tyson sat up straight in his chair.
“Are you nervous?” Tyson asked me.
I shrugged in answer. Truthfully, I wasn’t nervous at all. I was curious. I loved it when they used any kind of magic in front of me and, to my ever-growing disappointment, they rarely did.
“What ever he does will most likely be painless.”
Most likely.
Way to sell it, Tyson.
“I don’t mind pain,” I muttered. “I’m used to it.”
And wasn’t that the honest truth. Pain and I were old friends. Sometimes I even relied on her to get me through the day. Feel like crying? Dig your fingernails into your palms until they are almost bleeding. Problem solved. She never failed me, my old friend pain.
I think there was something seriously wrong with me.
“I always let him fix me up,” Ty said. “I know Dash is stubborn and usually won’t let Julian anywhere near him, but I’m the exact opposite. I don’t ever want to be in pain. Do you know why Dash won’t let Julian anywhere near him?”
I shook my head in the negative. If someone had told me, I didn’t remember it. Too much information had come my way recently and I feared I’d already forgotten half of it.
Tyson took one of my hands resting in my lap and laced our fingers together in a sweet gesture.
I looked up and was immediately lost in the depth of his dark brown eyes. If he smiled at me right this second, I would likely quit breathing. That thing could be used against women of all ages as a lethal weapon. I could only imagine the things the ladies would hand over if he flashed that smile in their direction. Here, take the keys to my car. And the pin number to my debit card. How about my virginity, you want that as well? Take it, it’s yours. And my cash. And the jewelry. Vivian’s jewelry, of course, I didn’t have any.
Tyson squeezed my hand gently and I blinked, coming out of my thoughts.
Ty smirked at me, as if he knew some of what I had been thinking. At least the gist of it with him being exceptionally lovely to look at and everyone taking notice.
Thankfully, he left it alone.
“You know Dash grew up in this house, right? With his grandmother and his mother. He’ll never leave this place because it’s the only place where he remembers his father. Anyway, that’s not important. Forget about that. What’s important is that he was raised with two women who called him evil for being what he was. Having magic made them hate him and they tried to make him feel like it was wrong to ever use it and that he’d be going to hell if he did. He tried to hide what went on in this house from the rest of us. It’s kind of hard to hide that kind of violence for a long period of time and that much damage to your body. He tried, put a decent effort into it, but he failed. We found out. I think he was around thirteen before we found out about his back. It had already had some pretty serious scarring by that time and I honestly have no idea how he hid it for as long as he did. But by the time we found out, Julian had already learned a great deal about healing from his father. It’s a calling for some people, healing is. I could never do what Julian does. If I tried to grow a plant, it would certainly die. I’m good with my magic but I could never make what he does. Never. The rest of the guys couldn’t do it either. All those jars in the basement at my house, in the greenhouse room? Those are all his creations. He put all those together.”
I squeezed his hand to let him know I was still listening to what he was saying. I liked that he was talking so freely with me about Dash and Julian and their lives before me. And I had rightly assumed Julian had created all those concoctions in the jars in that strange room in the basement in the Alexander house. A room I never ever wanted to return to.
“Well it can sometimes be like a compulsion for Julian. Like, it’s almost painful for him not to heal someone when it’s a person he cares about. Dash was so afraid of those two horrible women and what he thought they might do to him if he allowed Julian to heal him or help ease his pain that he wouldn’t let Julian anywhere near him. Dash continued to suffer in silence and, because of his nature and his need to heal, Julian suffered in silence as well. It could have easily driven a wedge between the two of them, but it had the opposite effect. They are incredibly close, those two. They would probably live together if Dash would ever be willing to leave this place, which will never happen. Instead, Julian lives with Damien because neither of them wants to be alone but they also don’t want to live with a bunch of other people either. It’s funny because Damien’s loaded but they live in this ridiculously small house. You’ll have to see it for yourself soon. Seriously, girl, it’s so small that Damien has to keep most of his clothes in his bedroom at our house. And he has a lot of clothes. Uncle Quint is always harping on him to just move in because most of his shit is already at our house, we’re just missing the person the clothes belong to.”
I wasn’t surprised to hear that Dash and Julian were close. The reason why was incredibly sad to me. I could imagine a young, thin, pale red-headed young man beaten down by the people who were supposed to love him the most and hiding it all from the people who actually did love him, his real family. Pain was Dash’s old friend as well. Sadly, we had quite a bit in common. And Julian… Goodness. I didn’t know what it would do to me to know that I had the tools to help take away the pain of someone I cared about, but I wasn’t allowed to. Instead being forced to watch them suffer. I think something like that would make me into an extremely bitter and resentful person.
“What happened to them?” I asked out of a curiosity I could not keep to myself. “Dash’s mother and grandmother, what happened to them?”
Nobody had mentioned what happened to them, where they’d gone off to. I wanted to know. I wanted to know everything about all of them. I feared I would never even learn the half of it.
A heavy glass clonked down on the table directly in front of me and I jumped, startled at the noise and its sudden appearance.
“Dash’s mother and grandmother are gone,” Julian said in a harsh voice. “His grandmother is dead, thank the Gods. That old bitch dropped dead of a heart attack one day while she was whipping him.”
Tyson cleared his throat. “Don’t lie to her, Julian. If we want her to stay with us, to trust us, then we need to be honest with her and she deserves the truth from us. It’s the least we can give her, honesty. I’m not going to sit here and allow you to feed her a line of bullshit. You might get away with that in front of my Uncle, and he might even approve of it, but you should remember something about me, Julian. I may be an Alexander by blood, but that does not make me anything like my Uncle or my grandfather. I’m not going to be content with the woman I plan to spend my life with being mistreated in any capacity.”
Tyson raised his hand, silencing Julian before he could argue with him. “Stop. I know what you’re going to say, and you’re right. Uncle Quint isn’t like his father when it comes to women. I know that, and I don’t need you to tell me it. Quint would never lay a hand on her in the wrong way. But he would lie to her if he thought it was for her own good. My grandfather was a liar. He did it just because he could. I know Quint is different, I can see it in your eyes that you want to spit on me and defend him. There’s no need. I’m not trying to shit on my Uncle and try to make him look bad in front of Ariel. There’s no point, she knows what she’s buying into with him. But you and I both know he’d be cool with lying to her if it suited him best. That’s the honest truth and you damn well know it. What you’re trying to pull now is exactly the same thing, and you damn well know it.”
I looked from Tyson to Julian, then back again. Julian looked furious with both his hands balled into tight fists at his sides. Ty’s lips were pursed in an angry line and his eyes appeared to have turned as black as a moonless night. Normally, they were so dark a brown in color that they could be mistaken for black unless you got up close and personal with them. Right now, they were hostile and entirely black.
I had never actually met a person with black eyes before. With the dark venom they were spewing out in Julian’s direction, I wasn’t certain sure I ever wanted to see them again.
Tyson was standing up for me and, in a way, my place amongst them. I appreciated it, but I didn’t want him to do it in such a hostile, aggressive way. I felt it could be handled so much better.
“Tyson-” I said but got no further due to the fact I was cut off.
Ignoring me, Julian snapped, “I’m not lying to her.”
“You’re not being entirely honest with her either.”
“Guys-”
“You don’t need to be here for this, so I suggest you get out,” Julian growled at Tyson in a low, dangerous voice. “I give you my word that I will be entirely honest with her from here on out and I won’t skirt around the truth. But you need to get out of my sight and allow me to do my fucking job without forcing me to have to look at you or I won’t be held responsible for what happens to you.”
I sighed. That didn’t sound good. They looked like they were ready to punch each other. Not a pretty picture. Julian was supposed to be healing people here, not causing further injuries.
“Guys-” I tried again, hoping I could talk some sense into the two of them. No such luck, they both talked over me.
“Do not tell me what to do,” Tyson gritted out between clenched teeth. “You do not get to order me about and expect me to follow your orders. Not even Uncle Quint gets away with that when it comes to me.”
“If you want me to do what I’m here to do then you will damn well get the hell out of this room so that I can get on with it. I don’t require an audience and you will gain nothing by sitting in here and glaring at me while I work. Get out.”
I held my breath, waiting for Tyson’s famous temper to explode all over us.
He said nothing to Julian. He looked to me, and said, “Don’t let him fool you, girl. He may come across as nice, but he’s got more in common with Uncle Quint than you could ever imagine.”
His chair scraped across the floor as he stood up. He glared at Julian and left the room with a vicious curse under his breath.
I let out a relieved sigh and sat back in my chair. That could have gone far worse. At least there had been no bloodshed. I had yet to see one of them physically harm another of them but that’s how I knew arguments to be ended, with violence.
“He’s right, you know.” Julian murmured.
“About which part?” I asked. I didn’t really know anything about Julian outside of the fact he was a healer and always nice to me. And he didn’t like horror movies.
“All of it,” he said. “Quint and I are a lot more alike than you probably think.”
“Okay,” I said even though I somehow doubted the sincerity of his words. No one could be that much like Quinton. Certainly not the sweet Julian.
“You don’t believe me?” He cocked his head to the side and studied me carefully. “No. I can see it on your face, you don’t believe a word I’ve said.”
Uncomfortable with his scrutiny, I shrugged. He was correct, but I wished he would stop looking at me in such a way. Like he wished to see inside my head. I didn’t want anyone in there, it was a dark, unfriendly place to be. I didn’t need visitors.
Julian swallowed thickly. “I poisoned her, Dash’s grandmother. She would have survived that heart attack otherwise. And Dash’s mother, well… we had her committed to a facility.”
“Wait a minute.” I gasped as I tried to remember something Quinton had said to me. Something about the women in Dash’s life… what was it? “I thought… Quinton had said… I thought he said they were both dead and that Dash didn’t grow up here. But he moved here with his mother after his father died. But everyone else acts like he grew up here. Like he’s lived here since forever. And how come he has memories of his father sitting around the table in the kitchen if he came here after his father died? None of that makes any sense.”
How could I have forgotten what Quinton had said to me when he first brought me here? Who was lying to me? Quinton? But why?
“I don’t think you want me to answer those Questions, Ariel.” Julian told me cryptically.
He was probably right. I wasn’t even beginning to process what he’d told me about him poisoning Dash’s grandmother and them having his mother committed in what I assumed to be some type of mental facility. If I couldn’t process that then how could I honestly be expected to handle any more? I never seemed to be able to process hideous information in a healthy way. It’s a good thing I was too young to legally purchase alcohol, or I could see myself processing these things in a whole new and horribly unhealthy way.
But…
Wasn’t I just telling myself that I wanted to know everything I possibly could about them? I believe I had and I was no longer interested in taking the cowards way out when it came to things.
“You’re right,” I told him honestly. “I don’t want you to answer those questions. I’m nervous and afraid of what your answers might be. I know, with what you’ve already said and how you’ve said it, that I am not going to enjoy what else it is that you have to say. But, I wish to hear it all the same. In fact, I think I need to hear it. Tyson was right, you guys shouldn’t lie to me or keep things from me. That’s no way to build any kind of relationship, be it a friendship or more than that. If you want to build trust between us, then you cannot lie to me. I’m not asking you to tell me all of your secrets, I’m not stupid enough to ask for that, and I have no desire to be that invasive when it comes to your past or that of the others. And, if you feel it’s something you can’t share with me or shouldn’t, then I would rather you tell me that and not lie to me. I feel like my whole life so far has been a lie. I don’t want my life in this coven to be one big, fat lie as well. Can you understand that?”
Julian turned his back on me and focused on the things he’d laid out on the table. He picked up the bowl and moved it. The knife was moved next and placed beside the bowl.
He fiddled with the rest of the things, moving them just so and I feared he was going to shut me out and not tell me a thing. Would I allow my disappointment to show or would I swallow it down whole and hope I didn’t choke on it? One would make me incredibly sad and the other would embarrass me.
“You know we’ve all had rough lives to some extent?” He asked with his back still turned to me.
I didn’t like the way this was starting out and knew it would only get worse the more he talked.
I pushed my hands between my thighs and the seat of my chair. I didn’t want to rip open my palms on accident with so many people paying attention to my every move at the moment. Lord only knew how they would react.
“I only know parts about some of you,” I told him honestly. “Some of you I don’t know anything at all about.”
His back stiffened. “And you know how the covens feel about females with magic? I’m going to assume Quint or one of the others has told you?”
“They think females born with magic are precious because there are so few of them. It’s rare for a female to be born with magic and some people believe girls with magic aren’t born often because the males are said to be cursed. When witches were persecuted and burned at the stake, their men either ran or hid away. So now it is believed you all are cursed because of your ancestor’s cowardice.”
There was more to be said but I was sure he got the gist.
“You know how we’re taught to feel about them, obviously. Most covens are brainwashed enough when it comes to females that they don’t care if she’s unattractive or not. She could have a massive bald spot on her head and a face covered in hairy warts and most fools would be so blinded by the fact that she was female and had magic that they would not care about these other unattractive traits at all. So you see, Ariel, these females, females just like yourself, could be worth a great fortune.”
He paused as he rubbed one shaking hand over his close-cropped hair and I was suddenly positive that I no longer wanted to hear the rest of the story. What could be so bad that it made Julian’s hands shake so badly? And, did I really have to know?
“I think Quinton lied to you because he probably assumed that Dash would never want you to know where he came from or how he was conceived. But I think he’s wrong. Tyson is right, and I see the way Dash looks at you. I see the way they all look at you. We’re in this together from here on out, even if you don’t want more than a friendship with any of us.
“Dash’s mother and father were related, first cousins. His grandmother grew up with magic. Her brother and her father had both had magic and when she was born they had hoped and prayed that she would have it as well. Being born without it had disappointed her family greatly. She wasn’t an outcast, but she was treated no better than a servant until she came of age. Then her father offered her something she couldn’t resist.
“You see, Ariel, the eldest member of Dash’s family has always been a member of the Council of Elders. Always the upper crust. She was a stain on her father’s reputation. And since no one really knows why we don’t have many females outside of that potential curse, some people believe that as long as you had one parent with magic then you should be capable of passing the gene on to your child. So he found her a male who was willing to mate with her if she agreed and try for a baby with magic. She agreed because her father had told her she would be welcomed into her family as a real member after all those years spent being on the outside. Well, long story short, they conceived a child and it was a girl. A girl who eventually they realized did not, in fact, have magic. Both mother and daughter were tossed aside like last weeks garbage.
“That was Dash’s grandmother and his mother. Well, needless to say, his grandmother did not take this very well. She hated her father with everything she was worth. She taught her daughter to hate and she turned her into a vile person. Somehow, the eldest female found out she had a nephew, her brother’s son. She met with him in secret and convinced him to visit her cottage and meet his cousin. See, he did have magic. Dash’s grandmother had come up with the perfect plan to get back at her father, their entire family and all the Elders who had shunned her for not having been born with magic. She drugged her nephew and her daughter took advantage of him. When he came too, he fled and would not have returned if his father and grandfather hadn’t forced him to when they found out about Dash.
“Dash’s father lived here for a few years with them so he could be a part of Dash’s life. But, it’s said that he was a mere shadow of himself. At least, that’s what Ty’s parents said about him. Things got to be so horrible for him that he eventually took his own life to escape those two awful women. Dash was left alone with them. The Council of Elders tried to take him away from them but for some fucked up reason that I will never understand, he always insisted on staying here with them. Like, he owed them something. I don’t think Quinton wants you to see the ugly side to our lives. But I think Tyson just might have the right of it, even if for the wrong reasons. I think showing you our ugly scars might just be what makes you want to tie yourself to us. You have to remember, I was there when your mother died, I saw your face. You had such a look of horror on your face. Later, you looked shocked and heartbroken. You’re just like Dash. Loyal to the people you think you should be loyal to, even if they deserve nothing of the sort from you. You would have stayed with her forever if that’s what she would have wanted from you, all the while allowing her to abuse you in whatever way she saw fit. I do not understand this, and I am not going to pretend to. But, I do know that my brother is the same way and he’s the most loyal of us all. And you’re just like him.”
I made a noise in the back of my throat, and Julian whipped around to face me at last. He frowned down at me before raising his hands to my face. He swiped both his thumbs across my cheeks, wiping away tears I was unaware of having shed. On my messed-up cheek he had to be extra careful not to touch my wound.
“Why do you cry?” He whispered as he dropped to his knees before me.
My hands came out from under my thighs and I grabbed ahold of his forearms, stopping him from moving any closer to me. This left him with his hands hovering in the air over my face.
I swallowed past the lump forming in my throat. “I cry because my heart breaks for all the pain and hideousness that Dash and his father were forced to endure. I don’t like it when the people I care about hurt. Dash didn’t deserve to go through any of that and it makes me a horrible person to say it and even think it, but I’m glad you poisoned his grandmother. I wished you would have poisoned his mother as well.”
Julian shook off my hold on him and sat back on his heels. He grinned at me, big and mischievous. This was a smile that proclaimed he was up to no good. I had never seen this side to him before.
With his grin in place, he stood in one quick movement. “You make me very happy, honey. I think there’s more to you than any of us could have ever dreamed.”
Julian was one seriously messed up individual.