Sinful

by Jenica Saren

  While that was actually a pretty funny visual, I had to stay focused. I plopped down on one of the couches in the living room and moved my phone to the other ear.

  "Could you guys come home?" I asked hesitantly.

  Beck's voice suddenly grew serious. "Is everything okay? Are you hurt?"

  "No, no! I'm fine. I just need to show you guys something," I told him hurriedly.

  I heard him breath out loudly. "Okay, good," he replied. "We have news, too, so we will be home in five seconds."

  He hung up the phone and I counted to five.

  Sure enough, five seconds later, his voice could be heard from the foyer, booming and more than welcome. "Honey!" Beck called out dramatically. "I'm home!"

  Yep, I never wanted this house to be quiet ever again. The second I heard his voice, my nerves that I didn't even know were frazzled calmed themselves. I immediately felt lighter.

  "Everything alright?" Gatlin asked, hot on Beck's heels as they came into the living room.

  I nodded and shot them a smile, then waited for the rest of the guys to file in and plop themselves wherever there was an opening. My couch was strictly off-limits as I was sprawled across it like a southern belle in full swoon.

  Smirking, I looked pointedly at Kellan, who had propped himself against the fireplace rather than sitting. "I put you to sleep, huh?" I asked a little gleefully.

  He mumbled something under his breath and didn't meet my eyes. If it was anyone but my favourite big, brick house, I would say I caught a bit of a flush across his cheeks.

  "What was that?" I asked innocently.

  "I said," he grumbled. "I liked it better when you gave us all nicknames instead of bleeding magic everywhere."

  His response caught me off guard and I snorted a laugh.

  "Speaking of," Rafe said, interrupting whatever was about to come out of my mouth. "You never gave E a nickname."

  My forehead scrunched as I tried to think. "Huh. I guess I didn't," I mumbled thoughtfully. "But he has one now, for sure."

  "Oh really?" Eliam drawled from where he was draped across the smaller couch like a business model on stock photos.

  Nodding, I propped my chin on my hand and stared at him. "Yep. You're the Asshole - capital 'A'." I said sweetly.

  "You weren't calling me that last night," he replied smoothly.

  "Actually, I did," I reminded him. "I said I wasn't calling you daddy."

  That earned me a couple of loud hoots of laughter across the room and a satisfying eye-roll from the Asshole himself. Oh yeah, I was calling that a win, even if it wasn't one to begin with.

  Eliam feigned a cough into his hand and I smirked triumphantly. "Anyway," he said, composing himself once more. "What did you need to show or tell us?"

  I had actually forgotten momentarily, too happy to not be in a deathly quiet house anymore. That was the creepiest shit right next to that movie about the porcelain doll.

  Reminded, I unlocked my phone once more and scrolled to the most recent and relevant messages from Lex. I handed the phone to Eliam, who was not only the closest but also the only one with his hand outstretched. The guys all but fed me to the wolf. I would remember that.

  Everyone was silent as he read over the messages, then, without a word, he passed it over to Gray. It went on like that for a few minutes and I suddenly understood why some people chewed their nails when they got nervous. There wasn't tension or anything, but the air still felt heavy as I waited for someone to say something.

  Unsurprisingly, Gatlin was the last to receive the phone and I knew it was intentional, especial when his face nearly turned my favourite shade of red with boiling anger.

  "I'll do it," he growled, seeming to have to force the words out.

  Catching him gripping my phone like it was about to jump up and run away, I slowly moved off the couch, plucked my phone out of his hand, and returned to my seat while he stared blankly ahead. He didn't move a muscle.

  "The suspense is killing me guys, someone please say something."

  Eliam was the one who spoke up first. "Was that the ex-boyfriend?" He asked. I nodded my response and he tapped his chin thoughtfully. "Do you think he knows where you are?"

  I shrugged. "I'm not sure. I think he may have some idea, but if he knew for sure he would probably be here already."

  He nodded back. "Agreed. But just in case," he added. "We'll keep a close eye out. No taking off on your own."

  Opening my mouth to argue, I realised that mentioning a possible threat was likely to get this sort of reaction from the get-go. I wanted to kick myself.

  Kellan made a huffing noise and I turned to him. "If you go to work, make sure your boss-"

  "Not my boss."

  He grunted in annoyance. "Make sure your not boss is there and watching out for you."

  "Sir, yes sir, Captain Bossy-Buff-Guy, sir!" I mocked as I shot him a lazy salute.

  Eliam groaned and I turned back to him, watching with a strange sense of fascination as he rubbed the bridge of his nose. I mean, come on, we both knew he didn't actually get headaches.

  "Please take this seriously, Ria," he commanded.

  Rolling my eyes I lounged further down on the couch. "I am. That's why I showed you guys in the first place," I explained earnestly. "I'm cool with being a sitting duck if I have some ostriches as friends."

  Eliam's eyebrows shot up and he stared at me, bemused. "Ostriches?"

  "Dude, take the compliment," Rafe interjected. I adored him for that.

  "Compliment?" Eliam repeated incredulously.

  Beck cleared his throat, drawing everyone's attention. "Guys, those are the most evil creatures I have ever encountered in my entire lifetime. I'm good with that comparison."

  Rafe and Gatlin nodded in agreement with him and Eliam groaned in a way that said he gave up. I'd accept the white flag wherever I could get it.

  "Okay, that's beside the point," he finally said. "It's our turn to share our findings for the day, alright?"

  Nodding, I turned my full attention on him. "Okay, what's the tea?" I asked seriously.

  "We're not entirely sure it will work, but we think you were onto something last night, when you told me about how you think you stopped feeling the pain."

  I tried to keep my face as straight as possible, because it was a moment that I just couldn't pass up. "Yes, let's have lot's of sex," I said with an exaggerated sultry tone in my voice. "My body is ready.

  At first, everyone was really quiet as the seemed to be processing what I was saying.

  "I think she wants us," Beck stage-whispered to the room.

  Eliam repositioned himself in his seat, noticeably covering the increasingly visible bulge in his slacks as he did. He cleared his throat before speaking and I tried not to laugh.

  "We get it, you're some kind of supernatural sex fiend or something," he grumbled. "But we have something serious to talk about besides your raging female hormones."

  "Shoot, then," I replied smugly. "No one is stopping you."

  He shot me a glare and all I could do was roll my eyes at him. "We think we figured out how to get through the barrier."

  Oh shit.

  19 Gray

  "That sounds logical and mature," Ria said dryly and with a heavy dose of sarcasm after we finished explaining our plan.

  The entire time we were going over everything, mapping out every detail, her facial expression hadn't moved an inch. I was never as good with empathy as Lillith was, her Sin being primarily emotional, but I did get the distinct impression that Ria was judging us all.

  "You want to just beat on the magical barrier," she repeated back, her voice almost toneless. "The very same magical barrier that we've tried everything to get through, including having Big Bird over here pound his fists against it for two and a half hours."

  I nodded in affirmation. "Yes, just short of digging under it, we have tried everything," I replied simply.

  Our thought was that if we could force enough power through the barrier
in the break that was already present, we would have a pretty good chance of tearing the whole thing down. However, I had rationally pointed out, that if we expended that much power, we risked experiencing a bit of difficulty fighting any potential threat inside.

  So, we were renting a wrecking ball.

  "Do any of you even know how to operate one of those?" Ria demanded, looking pointedly at each of us.

  "Well, no," Beck admitted sheepishly. "But Gray could probably figure it out."

  Ria groaned and buried her face in her hands. "You guys are being such males."

  My brothers and I glanced at one another in confusion. "Uh, Ria..." I started. "We kind of are male."

  "Which you know for a fact," Gatlin interjected, raising a suggestive brow. I wanted to groan right along with her then.

  What she didn't know is that until she and Eliam did the deed, Gatlin almost never shut up about having her between the sheets. Somehow, it got brought up in every conversation and he wore the fact like a badge of honour. Which was good for him, in all honesty, but not so fantastic for the rest of us after the fiftieth or so time we'd heard about it.

  That's not to say that he went into vivid detail when he spoke of it, but more that it was just always mentioned in some way. From innuendos to snarky volleys, there was a way he fit it in when she wasn't around.

  "We would, of course, hire a human to operate the machine," I clarified for Ria. "Under the guise of continuing demolition on the church."

  "One problem with that," she said thoughtfully. "You said that they were scared of the site, for one. Second, wouldn't they, you know, notice that they're slamming a wrecking ball into nothing?"

  "That's two problems," Rafe pointed out.

  "I know how many problems that is!" Ria shouted back at him.

  Eliam, Kellan, and I stared at each other while the others bantered back and forth. Out of all our brothers, the three of us tended to be the most rational, if not the most level-headed. That isn't to say that we were all cool and collected.

  No, that role fell to me.

  Despite being off-topic and wasting time with their bickering, it made me happy to watch them all interacting, acting like the family we were. Amelie, my wife, would have been warmed by the sight.

  Amelie always treated my brothers like they just fit. When I settled with her, they continued travelling, but they would always come together at our house in the Romanian country every so often. We would all sit by the fire, catching up and enjoying each other's company.

  When our family grew by one, our daughter, Mariana, grew up enjoying the stories that my brothers brought home with them. She insisted that she would grow up to go on adventures just like them, sailing to foreign lands and seeing giant wooden horses with her own two eyes.

  None of us truly went on adventures anymore, though I'd travelled for several decades after my family's passing. All in Mariana's memory and honour.

  I'd grown pretty weary of the world after some time - it was even my idea to find a house together and settle down, but even that grew lacklustre and lost its novelty. It wasn't until Ria crash landed into our little bubble that I really started enjoying life for everything it was again.

  Wherever she went and whatever the case, she brought intrigue and always kept me guessing. I was immeasurably proud of her for the way she always seemed to bounce back with a smile and something witty to say. It was what living looked like.

  It was the breath of fresh air I didn't know I needed and the shock of reality that I didn't know I wanted. So many times I'd wished I could die, and be with my wife and daughter again. Ria reminded me of the good things that life had to offer, in spite of the bad.

  "What are you smiling at, lazy boy?" Ria snapped then - not rudely, more in a joking way. I knew the difference.

  "I am not a chair," I pointed out to her.

  She blinked at me several times before looking at the others and jabbing a thumb in my direction. "What do you guys even do with him?" She asked in exasperation.

  "Stick it in his ass," Beck answered with a straight face.

  "You do not," I scoffed.

  "Not when you're awake, obviously. That would be weird."

  "I feel as though I should be concerned."

  "I'd definitely be concerned, but he's joking, Gray," Ria clarified. Living was getting easier, but social cues still left me feeling a bit lacking.

  "Oh."

  Turning to Eliam, I tried to direct the conversation back to the topic at hand. "We've talked over almost every detail except when," I told him.

  Ria made a sort of strangled sound. "No one responded to my obvious issues with this plan."

  Oh. Right. "Mental manipulation is rather simple for us," I explained. "Rafe is simply going to... Give their greed a little nudge."

  I glanced over at Rafe and he nodded his assent. "And again, I'll simply manipulate their perception of reality a little. Just enough that they believe they're hitting the building."

  She rubbed the bridge of her nose as if she was frustrated. "I still don't understand how a wrecking ball is going to do more damage than Kel."

  Kellan grunted, more of a satisfied sound.

  "Iron," I said. "Most magics are vulnerable to iron to a certain degree."

  "So a giant ball of iron would be more effective," she finished, nodding as she finally understood.

  "Yes, that's it."

  Eliam stood then. "We'll go tomorrow morning, first thing. It may take a few hours, so be prepared," he told us. "Relax tonight and remember to dress for rain tomorrow."

  "Yay," Ria said unenthusiastically. "And why aren't we just doing it today? You know, when the sun is out?"

  E raised a brow at her and smirked slightly. "Because it's currently almost four in the evening, you haven't eaten, and I'm not calling the contractors to work overnight."

  For a moment, Ria looked alarmed before she quickly composed herself. "Oh. I slept a long time," she commented, sounding the tiniest bit surprised. "I guess I needed it, but now I'm hungry."

  "If you hadn't tried to put us all to sleep, maybe you would have had breakfast," Eliam chastised.

  "I want a grilled cheese," she muttered. "I'm calling Drea."

  We all stared at her collectively, bemused.

  "You can't make grilled cheese?" Gatlin asked, the first to crack.

  She huffed in response as she started tapping away on her phone. "I can!" She objected, weirdly focused despite her multitasking. I also smelt a lie. "Drea's is just better." By quite a lot, I was sure.

  All of us watched in rapt fascination as she called Drea, explained her food crisis, and then as her face turned down into a frown. "Yeah, I totally get it. Come back soon, we miss you. Love you too, babe. Bye."

  Ria got off the couch and started out of the room. "I'm going to go starve until someone feeds me or I get in the mood to drive," she sighed out dramatically. "Oh, the misery!"

  Eliam snorted, the rest of the guys snickered. I even cracked a smile. Another thing to love about Ria was her character in general - full of surprises and never a dull moment.

  "I'm ordering pizza," Kellan called, surprising damn near all of us.

  About half a second later, she was skidding back into the room. "Can we watch a scary movie and play that racing game Beck hates?" She asked hopefully, practically bouncing on the balls of her toes.

  Everyone made varying sounds of agreement and she launched herself over the back of the couch she had vacated. "Food please," she said, her mood turning around so quickly, I was surprised her head still sat straight.

  She grabbed the remote off the table and turned on the TV, flipping through streaming services, childlike excitement and joy exuding from every inch of her. If I could read auras like Kellan, I'm sure hers would have been bright and glowing, just like her.

  We spent the rest of the night gorging on pizza and brownies. Ria attempted to put on various movies involving ghosts, demons, and other supernatural beings, but soon gave up when we c
ontinuously disproved something that came across the screen.

  We settled with playing a variety of games until Ria looked like she was ready to pass out, at which point, Beck scooped her up and took her to bed like the gentleman he secretly was.

  When she got up with very little resistance in the morning, we were all pleasantly surprised. It was a constant battle to get her out of what was essentially her evil lair, but she seemed chipper.

  The biggest surprise was that she was dressed, not only that, but dressed for the weather. So many times, I'd wanted to call her out for wearing something unreasonable, but I never wanted to overstep.

  As my brothers never failed to point out, I had a habit of speaking before reading the room. It was one of my many flaws.

  She came into the kitchen and made a beeline for the coffee maker, immediately seeking out E's coveted secret brew.

  In all my years of knowing the man, I'd never once seen him allow anyone else to drink his coffee - that included Lillith, our seventh Sin and the woman he'd been hopelessly in love with from the day that they painfully met. It spoke to his character and true feelings a lot that he was so unbothered by Ria drinking his supposed off-limits morning treat.

  Trying to subtly analyse her, I wanted to maybe try to understand her a little from the outside. Eliam had explained to us what she had revealed to him of her past, and I was left a little dumbfounded. It was difficult to understand, really, how she had managed to not only survive, but to come out on top in spite of everything she'd undergone, thriving and blossoming into the confident, witty, compassionate woman that she was.

  As I stared, albeit rudely, her hands shot up to her ears all of a sudden. She remained that way for only a couple of seconds and no one else seemed to have noticed. Then, she just continued on making her coffee.

  When she was done, she turned and sauntered over to the table, sneaking a pinch on E's backside as she passed him at the stove. He shot her a glare, but she pretended not to notice as the others howled.

  "I will never unsee that," I muttered.

  Ria took her seat - yes, her seat, as she continually reminded us - and grinned at me. "Don't be a Bitter Betty, Gray," she teased.