CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CONNOR
“In my own goddamn backyard. All this time, in my fucking backyard.” Warren was obviously still a little upset, even twelve hours after I broke the news that we were on the way home and that the freaking athame was actually sitting in the bloody Fowler Museum at UCLA. We had gone halfway around the world to find an object that was not thirty minutes away.
“Warren, get off it already. I am sick of hearing you sing that same damn song,” Dean growled into his coffee. “We fucked up, end of story. No one thought to look in museum directories. It’s done. Move the fuck on.”
Dean was irritable for a number of reasons. Yes, we missed the exhibit in our search. We had been so focused on finding the descendants, no one thought to actually search for the object like it would be up for bid on eBay or something. He and Warren also had to research the best way to obtain the athame now that we knew where it was. Add the fact that our mates were now at risk because of a Binding Oath I was required to enter into because Falcone had been lying and hiding this damn thing from us, and let’s just say Dean was giving Warren a run for his title of Cantankerous Prick, and I wasn’t far behind him.
“Do you want coffee before we sit down and get started?” Lettie whispered, taking everything in.
She wasn’t scared; she was smart.
We were all on edge, and she was staying quiet and giving us our space to vent. I guess that was something she picked up growing up with brothers and in the restrictive environment of the Order. Whatever the reason, I was grateful for her keen instinct at the moment.
“Yeah, baby. I didn’t sleep much on the flight back, so that would be great,” I muttered back, kissing her forehead as she moved past me to prep our drinks in the small kitchen. We were all gathered in the meeting room on our apartment floor of the Victory building. We had been home a whopping ten minutes before Warren was demanding a meeting to go over everything and plan what our next move would be.
After leaving Shell, the lovely witch from hell—granted, she’s probably a very nice woman when she isn’t cursing your family “just in case” because you have one brother who is a psychopath and another who will lie and let others die to save him. Fuck me, this family is a bloody mess—we drove to London and ate dinner while we waited for our plane to land and refuel. Then we flew the eleven hours directly home. It was a long, silent, tension-filled flight. I was just happy that Lettie managed to sleep through most of the awkwardness.
“Here.” Lettie handed me a mug and took her seat next to me. Turning toward Dean, she asked, “Dean, where’s Julie? I didn’t think she would miss this.” It was the perfect distraction to calm my cranky brother; my woman was a genius.
“Still sleeping. She had a deadline and was up late editing. I wouldn’t have been able to ditch her otherwise.” The stupid grin on Dean’s face said that he wouldn’t have minded bringing her crazy ass either.
“Oh, ditch me, huh? You hear that, Fallon? That son of a nutcracker was going to leave us out of all the fun,” Julie announced, marching in wearing some lavender satin spaghetti-strap tank-top thing, matching short shorts, and duck slippers that quacked with each step.
I started laughing, I couldn’t help it. She made one hell of a sight, and I needed a laugh.
“What the hell are you laughing at?” she asked when she came to a quacking stop.
“Only happy as fuck to see my favorite sister giving my brother shit he deserves. Come here and give me a hug, Quackers.” Seeming appeased with my answer, she waddled noisily over to do just that. I saw Fallon had followed her and couldn’t resist. “Hey, Fallon, did you get Zander off for his flight all right? Haven’t heard from him in a few days.”
She gave me her best stink eye. “Shut it, Connor.” Yep, she totally fucked our boy before he left. Wished she’d just admit she had feelings for the guy and give him a real chance. I let her off the hook with a knowing wink, and both girls took their seats.
“Can we get fucking started now? Or are we waiting for the local Girl Scout Troop?” Warren griped from his normal seat at the head of the table.
“God, I hope so. Their cookies are to die for,” Fallon gushed.
“Fallon, not the time to push his buttons, hon,” I softly remarked.
“Well, they are,” she muttered under her breath, but let it go.
“So, let’s recap the last seventy-two hours so we are all on the same page. Connor?” Warren directed.
Great, just what I wanted to do, rehash all that bullshit one more time. Knowing there was no way around it, I tried to rub the kink out of my neck as I gathered my thoughts. With an exhausted sigh, I began to explain. “After twenty-something hours travel, we arrived at the museum with a little over and hour before close to scope the place out and plan for the next day.”
“I had planned to check the local library and town hall for public records if this was a bust,” Lettie interjected.
“We ended up not having to do anything because the museum director was also the current keeper of the athame, descendent of both the Wayland Clan and the Newcomb Coven. She recognized us immediately.”
“Yeah, felt the witchy-poo hexing us all from here. Wouldn’t be surprised if Kayne’s crazy ass sensed the Oath bond being sealed,” Dean grumbled with a mock shiver of disgust.
“Yeah, well, she had her reasons for requiring such extremes,” I explained, glancing in Falcone’s direction.
“You have been uncommonly quiet, Fal. Anything you wish to add before Connor continues?” Warren asked, crossing his arms over his broad chest. We all knew what he had done at this point. What we didn’t have was an apology. Probably because he would still have done it given a second chance, so asking for forgiveness was pointless. Slumped forward, shoulders hunched, Falcone bit his lip and turned away from us, shaking his head no. Warren sighed with impatience. Giving up for now on trying to make peace, he nodded for me to continue. Falcone lying and endangering our family, Warren playing peacemaker—what the hell alternate reality are we living in?
“Yeah, so Shell the Good Witch had me take a bonded vow. Basically, we have to return the athame to the Wayland Clan for guardianship when we are done using it for Kayne. If we break faith, then the entire Horseman Clan will incur tragedies until the vow is fulfilled.” I grabbed Lettie’s hand to steady my emotions. I was deathly afraid of something happening to her and pissed I had put her and Julie in any possible future danger. “It means the girls could be in danger one day, just for being our mates.”
“No, it doesn’t, because you’re going to kill your festering, oozy butt brother and give the damn thing back. As far as I see it, this was one smart witch who made sure she got a collateral that you would follow through for—similar to how a bail bond will hold the title to a home. As long as you make court, you keep your house,” Fallon corrected. “Now how the fuck do we get the thing? Did she sign a permission slip or something for you to pick it up and take possession of it?”
“Um… no. We didn’t think of that,” I confessed. Shit, my face feels like it’s on fire.
“Holy Fahrvergnügen! Connor, are you… blushing? Awe, Fallon, look how adorable. Quick, take a picture for the Horsemen Hotties Instagram page,” Julie gushed.
“The what?” Dean growled.
“Don’t worry, baby, you’re hottie number one, always. I even made you the cover photo,” Julie explained, missing the point.
“Yeah, she captioned it ‘Deanie in a Beanie.’ It has 6,785 likes,” Fallon added, not helping and also completely missing the point.
“What part of secret mythical family of immortals tasked with keeping mankind from destroying itself did you miss in your introduction packet?” And there was the point. Well, at least Warren started calm, but ended red and shouting.
“You really expected us to read that thing? I have been using it to keep the end table next to my sofa from wobbling. It was pretty thick there, big guy. We have a fabulous PDF guide for authors on self-editing I can send you—”
“Dear gods, Fallon, shut up before his head explodes!” Dean barked as the vein on the side of Warren’s neck visibly throbbed in time with his pulse. Dean turned his attention back to Julie. “That is it, woman, when we’re done here, you are deleting anything Horsemen related and I am cutting off your Wi-Fi.” The horrified gasp from all three women had me thinking Dean would need to sleep in the spare room, with a weapon… and one eye open. “I understand you need it for work correspondence, so you may use our old dial-up service. It’s still in service for backup to the alarm systems. I would have spanked your ass for this, but you enjoyed it too much last time for it to be a proper punishment.”
“Proper punishment? Cut off my internet? What am I, fourteen?” Pissed, Julie shoved away from the table and stomp-quacked her way out of the room.
Dean moved to follow, but I had to stop him. “As amusing as watching Julie call you a son of a biscuit eater while you beg for understanding, then forgiveness is, we need to get back on task. Julie will just have to stew till we are done here.” He reluctantly nodded and took his seat again. I turned to Warren. “So how do we get the stupid thing then?”
“We take it.” Duh. The duh was sent mentally—just like Warren not to let others know he could have a sense of humor. Might hurt his new Instagram image, I thought.
“No shit, Sherlock? And how do we do that?” Fallon asked.
“We steal it, dear Watson,” Warren answered.
“Damn, you gone and done it. They all know about your hidden funny side, and you will never be known as the dark and broody one again,” I warned Warren.
“Shut it, Connor. Anyway, Dean and I researched the Fowler Museum and the surrounding campus. They are closed Mondays and Tuesdays, or otherwise by 5:00 p.m. I don’t want to wait. I say we go tonight.” He turned and grabbed a folder off the counter behind him. Removing a map, he continued explaining, “There is an entrance close to the Fowler building, here. If we come in the back from around Kaufman Hall, that area should be a dead zone at 2:00 a.m.” He grabbed a second printout that looked like an official floor plan for the building. “Dean looked up the exhibit, Anglo-Saxon Paganism and Mythology: How it shaped modern thinking, and called to find out, discreetly, where it was located.” Warren pointed to an area on the floor plan.
“Yeah, along with thirty-plus minutes of oohing and ahhing at a whole bunch of other crap I couldn’t care less about. Just so they would think I was a teacher looking for a field trip and not a bum trying to steal an artifact on display. Thank fuck it was a burner phone, ’cause I kind of cracked the screen around seventeen minutes in when the harpy at the other end just shrilled on and on,” Dean bitched while glancing at the exit, making it obvious where and whom he’d rather be with at this moment.
“What are we going to do about the girls?” I asked. This was all well and good, but I wasn’t leaving Lettie unprotected. Lettie squeezed my hand, probably sensing my anxiety at the thought.
“I’m not leaving them. You saw how that blew up in our faces last time,” Dean dictated. I wholeheartedly agreed.
“Yeah, but we can’t do this with seven people bumbling around either,” Warren insisted, folding his arms back over his chest.
“May I make a suggestion?” Falcone asked meekly, never looking up from the table as the room fell silent. It was the first he had spoken since leaving the UK. We waited, but he said nothing further and neither did we.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake! I am going to speed shit up here, because I don’t have all fucking day to wait for you ladies to man up and say what needs to be said. It’s almost lunchtime, assholes, and Momma’s hungry,” Fallon ranted, then turned to Falcone. She leaned into the table as she spoke. “Falcone, you screwed the pooch, big-time. You were a selfish cunt and put everyone, your brothers and now their mates, in danger for centuries. We don’t understand your reasons. You haven’t given many, and quite frankly, even if you did, we most likely wouldn’t give a shit. You hurt and broke trust with everyone in this room.” He still had not lifted his eyes. At this point, Fallon got up from her seat and moved around the table and stood next to him. “You’re a goddamn idiot, but that does not mean that we love you any less than we did last week. But will we trust you when it comes to matters with Decay?”
“Fuck no,” Dean agreed.
“Never again, but we still love you. You’re still their brother, and your insight and opinion will always be respected. They are just mad as hell and have every right to be. Give them that.” As Fallon finished, Falcone reached out and wrapped an arm around her hip, pulling her into his side and turning his face into her belly.
I heard him mumble what must have been a thank-you, because she ran a hand through his hair and bent over and whispered, “You’re welcome,” before kissing the top of his head and extracting herself. She took her time going back to her seat to allow Falcone a moment to compose himself.
Fal took a second to look each brother in the eye, but he stayed on me when he spoke. “I’m sorry. I know the words mean very little at the moment, but please know that I am. I love all my brothers, and unfortunately, that has caused me to make some decisions I regret. I can’t say I would have made different ones because, for the moment, all of my brothers are still living.” There really wasn’t anything else to say. We were all pissed, as Fallon pointed out, and we needed time.
Falcone took a deep breath then turned his attention back to Warren. “We should call Zander to protect the girls. He is one of the strongest witches in the northern hemisphere; he could cast and hold a shield around Dean’s living room for two hours. Nothing would get in, not even Dean’s phantom friends.”
“I like it. I could also ask him to whip up an amulet to scramble the campus camera feeds. Something that would have taken me hours of prep work. Fifteen minutes in the kitchen with the right herbs and some bibbidi-bobbidi-boo and he is done.” Warren smiled for the first time in weeks. Strategizing always put War in a good mood.
“Yay, Zander’s coming back,” Fallon mumbled grumpily under her breath. Louder, she asked, “Can Lettie and I go get fucking lunch now?”
“Yeah, I’ll call Zander. With flight, he should be here from Louisiana in about five or six hours. We will all meet back up then,” Warren confirmed, and dismissed the group.
“Oh joy, come on, woman, we need girl time,” Fallon announced, taking my woman by the arm and moving out. We all moved to follow the ladies to see to our own various chores—Dean to Julie, Warren to make calls, and I planned to check in at the office and then steal back Lettie for a little non-nap action.
We were all halted at the doorway, though, by Falcone. “I know what it’s like to live with a gift that kills. What it’s like to hate yourself for what you are. I had to kill, cause so many innocent men, women, and children to starve to death. Their only crime, being born to the wrong place, to the wrong time. It is easier now; the tides have turned, and I now work to prevent what I used to be the origin of.” He sounded so broken as he admitted something we had long suspected he felt but never told any of us aloud. “But I know what it’s like, and I just wanted to fix my brother. I am forever sorry that in trying to do so, I forsook my other three. I love you, brothers.”
“And we you, Falcone,” Warren answered.
“And we you, brother,” replied Dean.
“And I you,” I also added before we all turned to move out.
We all had shit to do, and I had a beauty to bed.