by Poppy Rhys
I hung both of our coats in the closet off the foyer. Two younglings zoomed across the hall ahead, stopping short when they saw Kye.
“AHHH!” they screamed and went running, stirring up a commotion.
“Well...” I mumbled. “That’s one way to grab everyone’s attention.”
Kye followed me through to the kitchen where the conversation slowly died as eyes swiveled toward us.
“Everyone, meet my boyfriend Kye. Kye, meet everyone.”
The word boyfriend physically jarred more than a few of my relatives.
The first to recover was my mother. She plastered on her perfect hostess smile and approached, her hand out. “Hello Kye, I’m Meredith, Holly’s mother.” With a furtive glance my way she added, “You didn’t mention you were bringing a guest for third meal, darling.”
I lifted my hands innocently. “Must’ve slipped my mind.”
Yeah, right.
If my stomach could physically lodge itself in my throat, it would’ve. I had this conflicting feeling of fear and desire for my family to like Kye.
Made zero sense.
Kye gently shook Mom’s hand, his bigger one engulfing hers. My eyes locked onto his claws, noticing they were neatly trimmed.
Had I just missed that before or was my paranoia making me hyper aware of inconsequential stuff?
“Are these for me?” Moms eyes grew in size at the flowers Kye held, artisanal wrapped in brown paper.
“They are,” Kye beamed, his jutting tusks distracting, yet I found myself finding them goofily charming. “Holly told me about your fondness of alien flowers.”
“Did she?” Mom accepted the bouquet and, after giving them a delicate sniff, smiled. “They’re lovely, Kye. Thank you. You brought her father’s favorite brandy, too. She’s just giving all our secrets away.”
“I think she just wanted her parents to like me,” he whispered in a way that wasn’t meant to be a whisper at all.
He and mom shared a cheeky grin. If I knew my mother at all, she was suspicious but had enough decency to save it for when the whole family wasn’t watching.
“Where’s Dad at, anyway?” I asked, not seeing him in the kitchen.
Mom waved a hand. “Oh, he’s around somewhere. I swear that man would be happy living in a cave. Here, I’ll save this for him, Kye. Thank you for the gifts.”
Kye dipped his chin, allowing Mom to take the bottle of brandy. Aunt Gretta nearly shoved my mother aside to shake Kye’s hand and I had to hide my grin. The ice broken, more members of my family came up to greet him, pulling him farther and farther away from me.
There was a reason I called Gretta my favorite aunt. The fact that she was Perry’s mother didn’t bother me. She and her daughter couldn’t be more opposite.
As Kye was meeting family, and conversation stirred back up, Gretta and Mom ended up on either side of me.
“Good for you, Mouse,” Gretta congratulated me while suggestively eyeballing Kye’s backside. “Could crack nuts with those cheeks.”
Mom released a withering sigh while I snickered. Aunt Gretta could be such a pervert.
I was instantly reminded how firm-looking those furry ass cheeks had been the night he’d inspected my living room in the buff. The well-fitted pants only accentuated it.
His blunt tail twitched like he could tell we were watching.
“I’m shocked,” Mom started. “I didn’t even know you were seeing anyone.”
I rushed to an excuse. “It’s relatively new.”
Mom’s left eye narrowed just slightly. I knew that squint all too well. It was her suspicious eye. It always saw past our bullshit as children.
“New? Yet you brought him to meet your family?” Mom’s eye narrowed farther, followed by the clasping of her hands at her front and my nerves rocketing to level one-hundred. “Sounds serious.”
Thank fuck.
I thought she’d for sure accuse it was a sham. ‘Serious’ I could work with. Better they think the relationship I had with Kye was more than less.
I shrugged, trying to play it off. “He’s nice. I like him.”
Aunt Gretta’s snort was so unladylike, my mother physically stiffened. “I’ll bet you do,” Gretta teased.
I was reminded of what Amelie and Dasha had said in the bathroom. About my family walking on eggshells around me. As I looked around the kitchen and dining area, filled with my family, it didn’t feel that way at all.
Perry was spinning lies. It didn’t surprise me. Still hurt, nonetheless, so seeing everyone acting normal was a relief.
“I’m stealing you for a few moments,” Gretta declared, grasping my hand. Her sparkling gray eyes glinted, making her wavy platinum blond hair seem more colorful than it was. “Meredith, stop squinting. You look like a shrew.”
Mom tossed her hands in the air and went to busy herself with rearranging the bouquet.
I smiled, allowing myself to be tugged away. Gretta was Mom’s oldest sibling. Mom was in the middle and her brother, Jer, was the youngest.
Gretta had been like a second mother to me and I always loved it when she came to stay. She only lived on the other side of Tinsel, but for some reason, that felt an entire world away.
Mainly because her husband, Eagan Thasher, came from an ultra-snobby family and they weren’t fun to be around. The last time we’d visited, Dad and Eagan’s brother had duked it out.
Not a pretty sight.
Needless to say, I never understood what Gretta saw in Eagan. Who was I to judge though? Clearly, I had terrible taste in men too.
The following week after George and Perry revealed their relationship, Gretta had shown up at my door and grabbed me by the shoulders.
“Mouse,” she’d said, a seriousness foreign to my Aunt Gretta had entered her normally cheery eyes. “There are good people who do bad things, and bad people who do good things.”
I’d been preparing for her to defend Perry, hardening my heart so it wouldn’t hurt as bad.
“My daughter, though I believe she’s got some good in her somewhere, did a shameful, shameful thing. I do not support it, no I do not.” Her cheeks had reddened with her ardent conviction. “She’s always been her father’s daughter, a Thasher through and through. I’ve known it her whole life. I’m not making excuses, I’m just disappointed. And I hope you know that their behavior is not a reflection of you or anything you think you did or didn’t do—it’s a reflection of their own characters. You hear me, Mouse?”
Pretty sure I’d snot-cried for a good half hour while Gretta’d hugged me after that.
I swiped the memory away and frowned as Gretta led me into the great room. The fireplace was lit, its stone overmantel reaching up nearly two stories, just like the wall of windows overlooking the winter wonderland we called a backyard.
I spotted Dad in his favorite leather chair between the windows and fireplace. He didn’t bother raising his head, too focused on whittling another piece of wood.
“What are we doing?” Was this some kind of intervention? If so, Gretta and my dad were not the types. That seemed more like a Mom thing.
“Take a seat, Mouse.” Gretta shoved me down into a chair at a small table. “We’re doing a reading!”
I immediately shot up out of the chair. “No. Hell no. No-ho-ho-ho. No.”
“One little reading never hurt!”
I looked to my dad for help, but he pretended he couldn’t hear us. I saw that smirk on his face though! He was choosing to ignore me.
“You know I don’t believe in that stuff.” That and I still had issues I needed to work through after the last reading.
Gretta scowled, then feigned a pout. “Would you humor an old woman?”
“Old? Ha! I’ve seen your dance moves,” I accused. “Old women aren’t that limber.”
Dad suddenly started coughing.
Gretta glowed. “I will not apologize for my skills. Now, sit. The sooner you let me read you, the sooner you can get back to Kye.”
D
ad’s head lifted. “Who’s Kye?”
“See what you miss when you hide from my sister?” Gretta tutted and then murmured, though I don’t blame you. “Holly’s brought her new boyfriend for third meal.”
Dad’s eyes slid my way as if gauging my reaction. My dad was a man of few words and kept his nose to himself. Yet, with a wife like my mother, who knew every detail about everyone’s business, he probably knew more than he let on.
“He got your favorite brandy,” I teased. Dad stroked his beard, a playfulness in his gaze. He wasn’t stupid. If Kye knew what my dad liked it was because I told him. “You’re welcome.”
He chuckled and went back to whittling.
“Sit, sit. Time’s a’wasting.”
With a sigh, I plopped down in the chair and watched Gretta shuffle the transparent deck of square disks.
I hadn’t fibbed, I really didn’t believe in this stuff. At least, not until last time and all the events that directly unfolded.
I’d convinced myself it was a coincidence, but who really knew?
Gretta spread the deck before me. “Pick the first disk that calls to you.”
“None of them call to me.”
She leveled me with a glare. “Child.”
Pursing my lips, I picked one at random, sliding it toward me.
“Now pick a second.”
I did.
“And a third.”
After I picked the final disk, Gretta swiped the deck, placing it to the side before flipping over the first disk in front of me.
I didn’t realize I’d been holding my breath.
The card glowed with a glitzy holographic image. A four-headed snake curled around a glass heart, squeezing it until it burst, shards flying everywhere. The moving image looped repeatedly.
Perfect. This is going well.
“Hmmm,” Gretta hummed and scowled. “This is the Serpent of Oborosa. He’s a slippery one. Be careful of your peers, Mouse. Friends aren’t always friends.”
That was vague. Vague, and common knowledge. That was the thing about these disks. Most of them were nonsense. Just like horoscopes. Generalized information that could be applied to anyone, anywhere, at any point in their lives.
Ridiculous.
Gretta flipped the second card.
A red waterfall flowed, and I couldn’t help but snort. “I hope this is code for red wine. Because I could use some right now.”
“This is Fernisha’s Fountain.” Gretta chuckled. “Expect your menses soon.”
I eyerolled so hard it hurt.
See what I mean? Ridiculous.
And finally, she arrived at the last card. I peered closer. The image had falling snow and purple vines riddled with thorns that dripped with blood, staining the white ground. Beyond it, three suns rose.
“Let me guess, my menses are going to be extra crampy this month?” My eyebrow hiked into my hairline.
“No, these are Rendu Vines and the Triplet Stars. It just means the situation you may find yourself in could be painful, but there’s warmth at the end of that journey.”
“Sounds like a load of crazy.”
“What’s life without a little crazy?” Gretta waggled her brows and looked past my shoulder. “Right Kye?”
I craned my head on my neck. Hadn’t even heard his hooves on the wooden floors. He regarded me with a strange expression, but it quickly morphed into a small smile aimed at Gretta.
“Meredith sent me in to let you know third meal is ready. Holly, can I speak to you for a moment?”
Any excuse to get away from Gretta’s ullek disks, I stood. “Sure.”
We traveled downstairs into the empty game den. My fingers drifted over a puzzle board before I turned to Kye. “Thanks for saving—”
“You lied.” Kye’s eyes were narrowed to slits, his nostrils flared, and his breathing picked up. His voice was razor sharp. “A berchta always lies. I should’ve known!”
“Whoa, what the hell are you talking about?”
“I’m not a witch,” he mimicked, in a terrible impersonation of yours truly, I might add. “I don’t want to trick you.”
“I’m not a witch!”
“I witnessed you foretelling the future with my own eyes!”
“Me?! That was Aunt Gretta, not me. And besides,” I crossed my arms, “all that shit is fake.”
Now wasn’t the time to mention how real it felt the last time I had a reading.
“It was vague information. Like hey, I’m gonna get my menses soon, like I don’t already get them every month. And hey, maybe watch out for backbiters because we all know I have enough of those in my life. And maybe, maybe one day this shit-show will be over, and I’ll stop compulsively flushing toilets and creeping on my ex like the psychopath I apparently am.”
I sighed, realizing I needed to talk to my therapist again already because Kye just got an info dump of my life the past three years and he was looking at me like I’d lost my ever-loving mind.
Which, I had. A long time ago.
“I’m not a witch, those cards are bogus, and I’m not trying to trick you.”
Kye scrubbed his horns, clearly frustrated. “No, you’re just tricking your family. How am I supposed to believe you won’t trick me when you’re lying to them?”
“Way to pass judgment.” That stung more than it should have. Mainly because he had a point. “You were all for it this morning.”
Not that I faulted him. I’d do everything I had to if it meant escaping a hellish interdimensional prison.
I scrubbed my face. “Listen, let’s just do what we agreed to do. I’ll help you, you help me, and then when it’s all over, we don’t have to think about each other ever again.”
He grunted. “Fine.”
“Fine.”
He gestured toward the stairs. “After you, darling.”
“Thanks, honey.”
As I brushed past him, I tried not to register how charged the air around him felt or that the whole time I walked up the stairs, I could feel his gaze on my ass.
Smile, Holly.
TWELVE
KYE
I’d already forgotten the names of her family members, hadn’t I? If I thought really hard on it, I might remember.
But Holly’s ass was burned into my immediate memory and it left zero room for anything else.
The way she angrily stomped up those steps made her hips sway in a manner that should be illegal. The skintight jeans she wore—which looked painted on—molded to every curve and dip along her shapely legs and cheeks.
It didn’t get any better when she turned to scowl at me either, because her turtleneck sweater left little to the imagination. Her breasts would cup nicely in my palms. And her nipples would gently pebble against them too.
I’d gotten a good enough hint of their size. Like fat gumdrops that would be perfect for sucking.
Stop, you idiot.
I’d just accused her of lying. Which, I still didn’t trust her. Maybe she was a witch, maybe she wasn’t. It was too early to rule anything out and I needed to keep my horns about me.
Berchtas were tricky.
By the time we joined everyone, Holly was back to smiling. We were the last ones to the table and I even held out her chair like a fucking gentleman.
I could keep up my end of the deal.
After someone—I think his name was Delaine, one of her cousins—passed me the platter of sliced roast, Meredith popped the question.
The question. The one Holly had prepped me for. The one we had to get our stories straight about.
“How’d you two meet?”
I saw Holly open her mouth, as if she were about to answer.
Aht-aht.
I beat her to the punch. “We met on Love Is Holo.”
I’d seen Love Is Holo on a commercial last night while trying to get comfortable on the couch. An app for desperation.
Holly’s eyes immediately found mine and murder shone there.
I’d gone completely off
script. This wasn’t what we rehearsed. But I was done playing by these rules. If Holly wanted me to go along with her weird, slightly sad plan, we needed to spice it up.
Her trio of muscled, weightlifting cousins—think their names were Troy, Jag, and Dirk (hey, Holly’s ass hadn’t erased my memory after all)—began to laugh.
“No way. You use that app, Holls?” Troy sounded surprised.
“I—” Holly croaked.
“Didn’t know she was on there too,” Dirk admitted, his knife pausing on his plate as if he realized what he just said.
“Goddamn, I knew you used that app!” Jag taunted Dirk. “Explains so much. No offense, Holls.”
Meredith frowned. “What’s Love Is Holo?”
“A hookup app,” Jag volunteered, and the trio chortled anew. “The algorithms pair you up and send you on blind dates. You don’t know what the other person looks like until you meet.”
“Didn’t think you had it in ya, Holls,” Troy teased.
By then, I had a shit-eating grin on my face as I passed the mash-filled bowl. “Potatoes, Holly?”
Her face was five shades of hot as she took the bowl and angrily scooped heap after heap of mash onto her plate before passing it.
“I was drunk.”
Gretta cackled and Meredith’s lips pursed.
“Now, now,” I chided. “You were sober when we met.”
“I meant I was drunk when I signed up,” she amended and smiled sweetly at me. It didn’t reach her eyes though. Those still spoke of murder. “But I figured, what the hell, ya know?” She shrugged and poured herself a healthy glass of wine.
It glub-glubbed from the bottle, drawing everyone’s attention. Holly stopped it right under the rim of the glass before downing half.
“First thing she said,” I continued on with this tale, “can I feel your horns?”
“Got straight to the good stuff,” Gretta hooted, holding her glass out for wine too.
Holly obliged. “Why waste time, right? He does this thing where he thumps his hoof when I scratch under his chin.”
Chuckles echoed around the table. Now it was my turn to scowl. This had backfired. I sure as fuck did not thump my hoof with chin scratches.
She was making this up.
Crafty witch.