Brothers of the Flame (An Ariel Kimber Novel Book 1)

by Mary Martel

We reached the front door when he rumbled angrily, “Did she hurt you again?”

  This conversation was making me miserable. “No,” I grumbled.

  With his hand wrapped around the knob, he hesitated to open the door. His clear blue eyes roamed over my face, searching.

  “You wouldn’t be lying to me, now would you?”

  My eyebrows rose. Me? Lying? Never. I smirked and shook my head.

  “This isn’t funny,” he whispered, his rough voice darker than normal.

  “Would you rather I cried?” I shot back. “I wasn’t lying. She didn’t hurt me again. But, right now, at this very second, she’s having sex with Mr. Cole on the dining room table.”

  He blinked. He stared at me a beat before his mouth got tight and his cheeks tinted red in anger. “Unbelievable,” he muttered. Then, louder, “Do you always blurt the truth out like that?”

  I thought about it and shrugged. I didn’t know, I’d never really had people to talk to before. Maybe this was my norm?

  “You do it all the time,” he pointed out with a small smile on his lips. “It’s rather endearing.”

  If he liked it then I must be doing something right. Right?

  Something he said earlier bothered me. “You acted like I’d be eating pizza with you, like, you were expecting me or something.”

  He opened the door and urged me through. “I was actually on my way to get you. My twin and I played rock paper scissors to see which one of us was going to come and get you. I lost. Don’t take it personal. You can feel free to feel me up at any time you please. Your mother on the other hand….” His entire body visibly shuddered.

  I threw back my head and burst out laughing. I laughed so hard I had to wrap my arms around my middle. He grinned at me while he watched the show. I shouldn’t be laughing because it wasn’t really funny. My mother was a total Chester the Molester and the twins had fallen victim to her well-manicured hands. It was his disgust and discomfort I found so hilarious. If I had told her someone shuddered in disgust at the thought of her touch she’d call me a damn liar.

  My laughter faded to giggles as he stood there, smiling at me.

  “What’s so funny?” Abel asked from behind me. I only knew it was Abel because Addison stood before me.

  I whirled around to see not only Abel but Tyson and that Julian person from yesterday. All three watching me. My laughter immediately died in my throat. How long had they been standing there, watching me?

  “No, no.” Abel held his hands up with his palms facing me. “Keep laughing.” He looked to his brother and demanded, “Twin, make her laugh again.”

  “All I did was tell her to feel free to feel me up whenever the mood strikes her.”

  Abel smirked at me. “Same goes for me, pretty girl.”

  A surprised burst of laughter escaped me. “I’m not going to feel you up,” I told him honestly.

  “Why not? Too forward for you?” Abel crossed his thick arms over his chest. “Don’t worry about it, pretty girl, I’ve got no problem making the first move.”

  My face heated up in embarrassment as I fought the urge to run screaming in the opposite direction.

  “Shut up,” Tyson snapped as he dug his elbow sharply in Abel’s stomach, making him grunt. “Don’t pay any attention to them, Ariel, they’re both idiots.”

  Addison crowded me from behind and placed his hand on the small of my back. He leaned down to whisper at my ear, “I’m with my twin on this one. I’ve got no problem making the first move, either.”

  “You’re all weird,” I blurted out.

  “You have no idea,” Addison continued to whisper at my ear. I shivered as I felt the tip of his nose run up the outside of my ear. This was not friendly behavior, it was more. Was this him making the first move? My eyes darted around the room, but nobody seemed to notice anything out of the ordinary and I sighed in relief.

  “Let’s go into the kitchen,” Tyson said as he reached out and grabbed my hand. He left the foyer with my hand clasped tightly in his, me trailing along behind him.

  I let out a deep breath and finally took in my surroundings. There was a wide staircase to the right, then we were on the move. We breezed past what looked to be an office. The walls were a deep, dark red and lined with shelves stuffed full with books and picture frames. A massive black desk sat front and center in the room. Weirdly, there was nothing atop the desk and there was no door to the room. If I had an office and I lived with several other people I’d certainly want it to come with a door.

  Tyson’s hand gave me a squeeze as he dragged me along. The next room we passed was a formal dining room. The table was even larger than the one at Mr. Cole’s house. Half the top was covered in books, magazines and what looked like unopened mail. What it didn’t look like was a place to sit down and eat a meal at.

  We passed by two closed doors on the left before we entered a bright, open space. I hadn’t realized how dark the rest of the house had been until we stepped into this room. The room was a huge, open area with white walls. Half the space was filled with a state of the art kitchen. Stainless steel appliances, black marble counter tops and a long, wide island with a sink in the middle of it on one side and a row of gunmetal gray barstools on the other.

  The other half of the room was a living room. A huge purple L-shaped sectional couch sat in front of the biggest flat screen television I had ever seen. The white walls were weirdly barren, yet the room felt lived in. In the middle of the room there were two sliding glass doors that were side by side and led out to the backyard. There weren’t any curtains either. How weird. Did boys not care about things like curtains, or had those kinds of things been packed away when they left for the summer?

  “Do you want to sit on the couch, or do you want to sit at the island?” Tyson asked me.

  How was I supposed to answer that when I didn’t know what we were doing? I shrugged.

  “Kitchen,” the twins said in unison from behind us.

  Tyson guided me to the right and straight towards the island. He pulled out a stool and I slid onto it. I felt so exposed sitting on a stool in the middle of the room with my back to the entryway.

  Tyson stood beside me with his forearms resting on the smooth, marble countertop. Abel and Addison sat down on two of the other stools with Abel claiming the one next to me. Despite there being another empty stool, Julian walked around the island to stand with a hip against the counter beside the sink. Where had he come from?

  From their rigid posture, it didn’t look like I was the only tense person in the room. The tension was suffocating. I jumped when the doorbell rang. The twins laughed and Tyson grinned at me.

  “Pizza’s here,” a male voice bellowed from somewhere deeper in the house. An oddly familiar voice.

  “Got it,” shouted a different male voice.

  I leaned forward, closer to Tyson, and asked in a hushed whisper, “Exactly how many people live here?”

  He scooted closer and tilted his head down closer to mine. We were separated by mere inches. “Only four of us live here,” he told me in the same hushed whisper I’d used on him. “It’s my Uncle Quinton and me. I told you Abel and Addison just moved in. Julian and Damien live in a small house together not far from the school. Dash actually lives further outside of town than we do, but only by about ten minutes. We all grew up together, but Julian, Damien and Dash are Uncle Quinton’s best friends.”

  That was a lot of people I didn’t really know. My stomach grew queasy. He pulled back slightly so he could look me directly in the eyes. “You’re going to be just fine, I promise.”

  He kept saying that to me, telling me I would be just fine, promising me things. I didn’t know why he bothered, or why it seemed to matter so much to him.

  “Do you believe me?” He asked, his voice strained. It sounded important to him so I nodded. I might have just lied to him again. Did it count if I knew he believed it? Close enough. “Did you know there’s such a thing as chicken alfredo pizza?” He grinned at
me.

  “Really?” I asked in surprise. I’d never heard of such a thing, but now I absolutely had to try it. Chicken and alfredo sauce on a pizza? Yes, please. Even though I already had my mind made up about it, I asked, “Is it any good?”

  “We’ll find out.”

  He got chicken alfredo pizza for me? They really had expected me to be here to eat with them. My insides warmed as I smiled brightly at him.

  “So pretty,” he whispered as he raised his left hand and ran the pad of his thumb over my bottom lip. My lips parted and I stared at him in shock.

  “Food’s here,” that oddly familiar voice spoke from behind me. I desperately wanted to turn around so I could put a face to the voice. He’d been in my dreams, for goodness sake, and I had no idea what he looked like.

  When he walked around the island and dropped three pizza boxes on the marble countertop I almost fell backwards off my stool. I barely even noticed the other two males who’d walked in behind him. Those dark, dark brown, so dark they were almost black, eyes. They were nearly identical to Tyson’s eyes and I had seen them before. He was the man standing in the shadow of the tree line, watching me. First, he watched me, then he popped up in my dream, now he was inside Tyson’s house. How weird was that?

  I could immediately tell he and Tyson were related. They shared the same height and build. Tall with broad shoulders but slim hips. Where Tyson had long, shoulder length hair, Quinton had a buzz cut that matched Julian’s. He wore a black, long sleeved button up with the top three buttons undone and the sleeves rolled up his forearms. Orange and red flames shot up from his wrists. I couldn’t help but wonder how high up his arms that ink went. He had a small silver hoop in each earlobe. He was lovely to look at but the air around him practically vibrated with danger. The way he held himself, the burning in his dark eyes, he was a coiled snake, poised and ready to strike at any given second. Tyson’s Uncle was a dangerous man and one I absolutely did not want to ever mess with.

  I swallowed thickly, my throat suddenly dry.

  Without taking his eyes off me, Quinton spoke, but not to me. “You didn’t tell me about the wound on her head. What happened?”

  “Not now,” Tyson grunted.

  “The food’s here. Let’s eat.” One of the new arrivals dropped three more pizza boxes beside Quinton’s stack. He had shockingly bright red hair with a matching beard. He had haunted, light gray eyes that told a story I was too frightened to even try to read. This man had demons, and he’d lived through some serious horrors.

  My heart clenched painfully inside my chest as I locked eyes with his haunted gray ones. They radiated a depth of pain I was uncomfortable looking into.

  “I’m Dash.” He frowned at me.

  At a loss for words, I simply nodded. I didn’t feel the need to introduce myself, the way they talked made me sure they all already knew my name. The stool next to Addison scraped against the floor as it was pulled back before someone sat on it.

  “Damien,” he grunted without bothering to look at me. He had blonde hair that was long on top but almost shaved at the sides, it hung down to his ears. His face was thin and sharp, angular with hollowed out cheeks. His skin a golden tan I could tell he’d earned by spending a great deal of time outdoors and in the sun. from what I caught of his eyes, they looked to be a light brown. His eyelashes were thick, almost feminine. He looked like he could be a male model. He certainly seemed to have the attitude for it. From the way he dismissed me he either didn’t approve of my being here or he could give a crap less.

  I liked this about him. Everyone else seemed to like me without even knowing me and I thought it was weird. Damien was different. Either that or he was just a dick.

  A plate was placed in front of me. The pizza on it looked weird with chunks of chicken and white sauce. I thanked Tyson before picking up a piece and taking a bite. It didn’t taste like any kind of alfredo I’d eaten before, but I definitely liked it.

  I watched as Tyson took a huge bite of his slice and promptly spit it back out on to his plate. He dropped the slice of pizza like it was on fire. I burst out laughing at the look of disgust on his face.

  He scowled at me. “That tastes like crap.”

  I disagreed.

  He slid the piece he’d taken a bite out of onto my plate and reached for a different kind. I grinned at him and kept on eating. To each their own. We all ate in relative silence. I kept my eyes on my food or Tyson because I could feel the rest of them staring at me, watching me eat and making me extremely uncomfortable.

  I ate two slices of pizza, one of them being Tyson’s, and could eat no more. My stomach was in knots, otherwise I might have eaten more. The pizza really was that good.

  Under the watchful eyes of every person in the room, I pushed my stool back and stood with every intention of walking my plate to the sink so I could rinse it off. My flipflop snagged on one of the legs of my stool and I stumbled forward. The plate flew from my hands and I watched in wide-eyed horror as the plate hit the floor and shattered.

  I might have suffered the same fate as the plate if not for Tyson and the twins. They were up in a heartbeat. The next second all three had ahold of me. I opened my mouth to say thanks when it hit me. Their heat. So intense it threatened to burn me up where I stood. My body shook uncontrollably as my frantic eyes raced around the room looking for help.

  “Burns,” I whined in a pitiful high pitched voice.

  Immediately they let go of me. I swayed on my feet. Then, for the first time in my seventeen years of existence on this planet, my eyes rolled back in my head and I fainted.

  Chapter Eleven

  I blinked and rolled over to my side, only to almost fall off the couch and onto my face. I jerked back and looked around me in confusion. Where was I? My t-shirt and hoodie had ridden up in my sleep, exposing my bare stomach. Quickly, I pulled both down and put them back where they belonged.

  Voices drifted over to me from the other side of the couch. Male voices. This wasn’t Mr. Cole’s house. He didn’t have a couch like this, this comfortable, in his house unless it was in one of the many rooms I had yet to explore. And Mr. Cole certainly did not have a television that size. Most people didn’t have a television that big. Had I hit my head on something?

  “Are we sure it’s her?” Someone asked. I knew that voice, but not very well.

  “Are you kidding me?” Bellowed a different voice. This one Tyson’s and he sounded angry, so much so he was back to being Mr. Menacing Voice. I was glad he wasn’t using it on me. Why was Tyson always so angry? “We’ve known it was her since she moved in next door and Uncle Quinton first saw her. Fuck, half our summer was spent with the two of us fighting over whether or not we should cut our trip short so we could get back here to her.”

  “Calm down.” That was Tyson’s Uncle Quinton, I recognized his voice from my dream.

  “But how can we be sure?” The first voice insisted.

  “Fuck you,” one of the twins snarled. “Did you miss what just happened? She’s one of us and she’s the one we’ve been waiting for, the one we all dreamed about. I can feel it when I’m around her and I can feel her when I touch her. Twin, back me up.”

  “I feel it too, twin, you know I do. We’re not leaving her. We know what we are, always have, and we’ve always had each other. Can you imagine not knowing who or what you are and being all alone? Who knows what she’s experienced so far, what kind of magic she’s manifested. All I know is that whatever the case, she’s experienced it all alone. Well, not anymore. And she’s a girl. She’s special.”

  “Well said, twin. We aren’t leaving her. No way. She stays with us.”

  Were they talking about me? I thought they were. My head throbbed.

  “Last time anyone checked, there were only three other females with known magic in existence. And they’ve all been claimed by covens, we know this. Ariel is special and we need to claim her before someone else takes notice of her. Even if it is just for her own safety and nothing mor
e.” I think that one was Julian. He made no damn sense.

  “How can we claim her when we can’t even agree on whether or not we all believe she is who we think she is?”

  “She’s not going anywhere, Damien,” Quinton snarled.

  “I don’t care what you-”

  My head throbbed harder with each word until I could take no more. “Shut up,” I muttered rudely. “You’re giving me a headache.”

  That wasn’t entirely true. I’d had a headache all damn day, they were just making it worse. I’d never gotten the chance to take any Tylenol throughout the day. I sat up, placed my elbows on my knees and rested my head in my hands. A gentle touch at my thigh had me sitting up straight. Why were they always touching me?

  Tyson loomed over me. He held a clear, glass cup filled with water in one hand and two white tablets in the other. I smiled gratefully as I took the pills and swallowed them down with a mouthful of water. Tyson seemed to like taking care of me. Not that I minded, it felt nice.

  “Thanks, Tyson,” I mumbled with the glass of water still held between my hands.

  I turned my head in an attempt to see if I could see the others. I didn’t make it that far before I caught sight of the sliding glass doors and let out a small, semi-hysterical scream. It was pitch black outside. What time was it, how late? What if my mother had noticed me gone? Would she care? I didn’t know, I’d never had friends to hang out with or somewhere to be other than home before. And I’d never been out past dark.

  I shot to my feet, mumbling, “I have to go.”

  Holy crap, I had to go, go, go.

  Would she be mad? Angry? I didn’t know, but I feared her wrath all the same. Her punishment hadn’t born fruit. My mother would be on the war path and I would be her sole target.

  I had to go.

  I looked into Tyson’s beautifully dark eyes and almost melted at what I saw there. Sweet concern. Dark longing. I didn’t understand him at all.

  “I have to go,” I told him, my voice low and full of desperation.

  “Why?” He asked me quietly.