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

by Mary Martel

  Addison blew out a deep, heavy breath. “I know, twin, I know. It’s just a lot harder than I thought it would be.”

  “Guys,” I squirmed against Abel’s big body, hoping he’d let me up. He didn’t.

  Abel’s hands loosened around my back and slid down so he could hold onto my hips. His fingers dug in, likely bruising.

  “Ariel, you might want to stop moving your body around when it’s pressed up against my dick. It’s gonna get hard if you keep doing that and I don’t want to freak you out.”

  I pressed my burning face into his chest, hiding from both of them. This was a disaster.

  “Maybe we could not talk about your dick,” I croaked out.

  “I don’t know, I kind of like hearing you talk about my dick,” he teased in his deep voice.

  I wanted to crawl in a hole and die.

  “I don’t know, twin,” Addison chimed in, “just hearing her talk about your dick is making my dick semi hard.”

  “Oh my god,” I whispered in horror.

  They both burst out laughing. Addison had his elbows resting on the back of the couch. One big hand cupped my shoulder and the other rested on his brother’s bicep.

  Abel let go of my hips. One arm slid up my back where he pressed the palm of his big hand flat against the middle of my back. His other hand cupped the back of my neck and his fingers tangled with my ash-blonde locks. His big body shook against me.

  My face was so red it practically burned.

  “This isn’t funny,” I hissed.

  “It’s hilarious,” Abel said in between laughing.

  I sighed. My life was so out of my control it wasn’t even funny. And I had no idea how I’d managed to get myself into these weird ass situations over the last week but somehow, I’d managed spectacularly.

  Ringing came from my bag on the floor, it was my cell phone. Since the only person who would be calling me right now was Mr. Cole, I seriously needed to answer my phone.

  “I have to get that,” I told the still laughing twins. “I’m serious, guys.”

  They laughed harder.

  God damn it.

  “It’s probably Mr.-”

  And my phone stopped ringing. Wonderful. I had probably frightened the poor man with the message I left earlier.

  A shadow moved over me. The shadow of a man. I followed the movement and watched with wide eyes as Quinton knelt down and started rummaging through my bag.

  Holy crap! What was it with these people? I had underwear in there, damn it!

  “Uh, guys,” I tried to warn them of our new arrival but they just laughed over me.

  I didn’t think this was going to go over well, not with scary guy Mr. Uncle Quinton here.

  My phone started to ring again as Quinton pulled it out of my bag.

  Oh my god, what did he think he was doing? These people had serious boundary issues. Maybe they just didn’t understand that it wasn’t cool for a guy to go digging around in a girl’s bag. I mean, I’ve mentioned the underwear twice now but I had a bra in there too, and what if there had been tampons? Yeah, I’m sure they were educated when it came to girl problems but that didn’t mean I wanted them to know when I had my period. Not after only meeting them less than a week ago. A few months from now, then we could talk.

  “Hello,” I heard Quinton say.

  Motherfucker.

  The twins immediately stopped laughing.

  “Hello,” Quinton repeated.

  Holy shit. Quinton had just answered my phone. A phone he’d dug out of my bag without permission. A phone he’d answered without permission.

  He had some serious balls, I’d give him that.

  “Just a second,” Quinton murmured into the phone. He pulled the phone away from his ear and placed the front of my phone against his chest.

  “It’s your mother,” Quinton told me.

  Of course it was.

  And, of course, he had to go and answer my phone when it was my mother on the line instead of Mr. Cole.

  I wanted to cry.

  My life seemed really unfair at times.

  Chapter Nineteen

  “Hang up,” I hissed at him. “Seriously, Quinton, hang up the phone.”

  He put the phone back to his ear. “She’ll call you back,” he told my mother. My freaking mother! He pulled the phone away from his ear and tapped the screen.

  Why would she be calling me? Please, please tell me Mr. Cole wasn’t already sending her home. I wouldn’t blame him if he did but I’d still rather he deal with her crazy than have to be stuck with her myself.

  “Abel, please move.” I pushed at his chest as much as I could. He rolled over and climbed to his feet.

  Addison cupped my jaw in his big hand and tilted my head to the side. “You’re worried.”

  Was I worried? Yeah, I honestly was. Worried and scared.

  “You don’t have to be afraid of her anymore,” he told me in a serious voice. “There are things we can do to take care of this for you.”

  I didn’t like the sound of that.

  Quinton started laughing and my cell phone he still held in his hand rang again.

  “I get shit on for trying to make one of her problems go away and yet here you are talking about doing the same thing, like it’s acceptable now.” Quinton bitched. “It either is or it isn’t, but if you’re gonna use magic to solve her problems then none of you can bitch at me when I do the same damn thing.”

  I gaped at him. “What are you talking about? You keep talking about magic like it’s real. First in my dre-” I snapped my mouth shut. This was the second time I’d almost mentioned my dream. I didn’t want them to know I’d been dreaming about them. No, not them but him.

  Quinton tilted his head to the side and studied me. The phone stopped ringing.

  “What were you just about to say?” He asked.

  “Give me my phone,” I demanded as I sat up on the couch. Addison had pulled his hand away from my face to study Quinton.

  “Tell me what you were going to say and I’ll give you your phone back.”

  “Just give her her damn phone,” Addison snapped.

  “What are you even doing in our room?” Abel demanded to know.

  Quinton ignored the both of them to, unfortunately, focus on me. “You were going to say dream, weren’t you?”

  I stared him in the eye and thought to hell with it. “Yes, I was going to say dream.”

  The room was silent until my phone started ringing again.

  “What do you remember from your dream?” He asked.

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Abel asked.

  “You were in her dreams?” Addison growled.

  “Can I have my phone?” I asked. “She’s just going to keep calling until I answer. The longer you make her wait the crazier she’s going to get. And she’ll take her crazy out on me.”

  He handed me my phone and I answered before my mother could hang up and call back. Again.

  “Mom?”

  “Why was there a man answering your phone?” She snapped at me.

  “I’m next door at the neighbor’s house. I was in the bathroom when he answered my phone.”

  “You’re not turning into a whore, are you? You better not be because it will make me look bad to Marcus and you better not ruin this for me.”

  I sighed. I really hated this woman.

  “Why are you calling me, mother?” I asked. My stomach knotted painfully. “Did something happen? Is it Mr. Cole’s brother?”

  “You care more about a man you’ve never met before than you do for your own mother.” Her voice had dropped low, turned nasty. This is a voice I normally found extremely frightening. Today I didn’t seem nearly as bothered by it as I should have been. Perhaps it was the distance and knowing she couldn’t, at this very moment, physically harm me.

  Whatever the reason, I opened my mouth and said a bunch of things I shouldn’t. Maybe I would have learned my lesson if she’d hit me with the bottle of vodka as
well as her glass cup. Maybe. But, then again, maybe I would have ended up in the hospital for an extended stay.

  Still… there was no excuse for what came out of my mouth. Sheer madness.

  “You are correct in your assumption that I care more for a stranger than I do you, my own mother. I learned the way from you, mother. You, who cares more for everyone in your life than your own daughter.” I took in a deep, shuddering breath before continuing. “Now that we’ve established that, I’d like to know why you are calling. Is Mr. Cole well? Why aren’t you with him? I thought you went with him so you could be there for him when he needed you?”

  There was a heartbeat of silence down the line before she let out an angry hiss. She sounded like an angry cat who’d just been dropped into a bucket of water.

  “You little bitch,” she whispered menacingly. “You little bitch. How dare you speak to me in such a way. I’m your mother, you don’t talk to me like that.”

  I sighed and slumped back against the couch. I shouldn’t have talked to her in such a way. The distance had given me a false sense of security and made me brave but stupid.

  She let out a pathetic sounding sob in my ear, surprising me. She normally didn’t go through the trouble of shedding tears unless she had an audience to bear witness to them.

  I wondered where Mr. Cole was and hoped he was far, far away from her.

  “He dropped me off here like some unwanted piece of luggage while he went off to the hospital to be with his family and he hasn’t been back since.”

  It hadn’t even been a whole day yet. I bit my bottom lip in an attempt to contain my smile. I liked Marcus Cole so, so very much and I liked even more how he was starting to handle my mother. My smile slipped. I would like how he handled her until she decided to take it out on me.

  “Why would he do that?” She wailed into the phone. “Is he ashamed of me? Does he not want me to meet his family? I cannot see why. Have you seen the photographs of his wife? She was a homely thing. I’m not homely in the least, I’m beautiful. You don’t hide away your beautiful girlfriend, you take her out and show her off on your arm. What’s wrong with him?”

  I absolutely did not want to be having this conversation with my mother.

  What was I supposed to say to her? Well, mother, firstly, perhaps you shouldn’t call yourself his girlfriend. Don’t you remember you’re a paid companion? He gives you money and nice, fancy things for your time and the use of your body? The lonely man had needs and you enjoy the size of his wallet. Secondly, it wasn’t the time to show off your arm candy, not with your brother lying in a hospital bed fighting for his life.

  I didn’t tell her any of that. She was unreasonable and wouldn’t appreciate things like logic and truth.

  But I had to tell her something or this nonsense could last for hours and I wanted off the phone with her sooner rather than later if possible.

  “He’s not thinking clearly right now, mother,” I told her. “He’s too worried about his brother. He tried to tell you before you left that he wouldn’t have time for you and you insisted on going along anyway. You should take a nap or something while you wait for him to come back. And he will come back, mother. You just have to wait for him and be patient.”

  She was going to suck at this, I just knew it.

  “Fine, Ariel, fine.” She said. She’d stopped crying for which I was thankful. “You’re right. You’re always right. Whatever. Now, why aren’t you in school?”

  I let out a relieved sigh.

  “There’s been some type of flu outbreak,” I said. I thought about leaving out the gory details and just leaving it at that, but then I thought better of it. The gory details just might be what got me off the phone with her. “Lunch had just started when the people seated at the table next to mine simply turned on each other and started vomiting blood everywhere. And it didn’t stop with them, it spread. It was disgusting and horrifying and there was blood everywhere. School’s been called off for tomorrow because of it.”

  “Ariel, that’s insane. What the hell kind of school are you going to? I can’t get sick. What would Marcus think of me if I was to start puking blood? How unattractive.”

  My mother. She was a piece of work, that’s for sure.

  “I don’t want you going back to that place until we know for sure this nasty business has been taken care of.”

  Since I did not enjoy school, I readily agreed.

  “Now you’ve taken up enough of my time. I have to prepare myself for Marcus’s return. He’ll likely need me to comfort him.”

  She said comfort like it was a dirty word. I didn’t want to hear it.

  Before I could reply, not that I had a clue what to say to her after that, but I wasn’t given the chance. She hung up on me.

  For once I didn’t mind her rudeness. That is until I slumped back on the couch and finally paid attention to the room around me.

  Abel sat before me with his knees to the floor with his ass resting on his heels. His hands, which I hadn’t noticed during my phone call, were placed on the couch on either side of my legs. He watched me with those green, green eyes with a look in them I didn’t quite understand. They were warm, so very warm they were heated and the look was all for me. It was such an intimate look that it made me uncomfortable. So uncomfortable I had to look away from him. Those eyes saw too much of me and asked for more than they saw in return.

  A look over my shoulder told me Addison was still there, leaning over the back of the black leather couch. His hands, much like his brothers, were placed on either side of me. He looked down at me with serious crystal blue eyes. The color burned bright, threatening to drown me in a sea of blue. I didn’t want to drown so I looked away.

  The twins unnerved me. They were far too bold with their emotions and far too bold with me.

  But to not look at the twins left me with Scary Uncle Quinton with his nipple piercings and who had no problem answering my cell phone after he’d dug through my personal belongings.

  He didn’t look away from my hostile gaze. In fact, he was far bolder than either twin. There wasn’t heat in Quinton’s eyes, only arrogance and something a whole lot darker. He sat sprawled on the floor, propped up by his forearms resting on the carpet. His legs were spread wide and my disheveled pink and white bag lay on its side between his legs, some of my belongings spilled out of it.

  Right there on top for all to see was a pair of my underwear. They were black and lacey. I didn’t want Quinton touching my underwear. Or, my anything for that matter.

  I opened my mouth to probably yell at him. He must have seen some tell on my face because he spoke before I could get my first word out.

  “There was no flu outbreak at your school today,” he told me. The arrogance grew from his eyes to his face as he gave us all a haughty look. It wasn’t exactly friendly.

  I frowned at him. “Since you seem to know so much about what happened today, at a school you do not even attend, I might add, why don’t you tell us what happened.”

  This ought to be good.

  I remembered Tyson blaming the bloody incident on his Uncle and his promise to explain everything to me. Where was he now?

  “Where’s Tyson?” I asked. Even to myself I sounded angry. The longer I looked at Quinton sitting there with my underwear on the floor between his legs for all to see the angrier I seemed to get.

  I didn’t know what was happening to me. I used to be so mild mannered and I never ever even thought to raise my voice. It’s like a part of me had been locked away and for whatever reason it had suddenly been released. I didn’t want to be an angry person and I didn’t want to be mean to people. Bad karma and all that. I tried to stuff my anger back inside where it belonged. It was just underwear; did it really matter? It’s not like he’d never seen a pair of girl’s panties before.

  “What,” Quinton smirked at me and it was a very unfriendly, predatory look, “are we not good enough for you? You gotta have Tyson? Is he better than the rest of us?”
>
  He was no longer smirking and seemed rather angry. I did not enjoy having his anger directed my way.

  He and Tyson had a lot more in common than I had originally thought. Like their matching tempers and the fact that they both seemed quick to anger. And those deep, dark, bottomless eyes.

  Abel had eyes that penetrated you. A person could drown in Addison’s eyes. Tyson had eyes you could sink into. Like an opening in the earth, rich and brown in color and bottomless to the naked eye. Something you could sink into and never ever wish to resurface again.

  I had just realized Quinton’s eyes were Tyson’s eyes only set in a different face. They looked like brothers.

  “Ariel,” Abel said my name as his big hand landed on my thigh. “Are you alright?”

  I shook my head. Damn. I’d been staring. And at Quinton of all people. No good.

  I cleared my throat and closed my eyes. Best not to look at them, any of them. Why couldn’t I have found some girls for friends, or even some ugly people?

  “I asked for Tyson not because I like him better than you, though, to be fair, you weren’t wrong, I do like him more than you. I asked about him because he promised to explain what in the hell’s going on here. He promised me. I trust him not to lie to me so I wanted him here for whatever this is.” I shrugged my shoulders as if that explained it.

  I could feel a headache coming on. Come to think of it, I’d had a headache off and on since my mother hurt me.

  “It’s simple,” Quinton said. “You don’t need Ty to explain it to you. There was no flu outbreak and those students weren’t poisoned. What happened today happened because I made it happen. And I did it with magic.”

  Chapter Twenty

  The room had gone as still and quiet as the inside of a tomb. They didn’t even look to be breathing.

  “What do you mean by magic?” Ah, my voice was back to sounding angry.

  Magic. Magic. Magic.

  The word seemed to follow me everywhere I went. There was no escaping it.

  I had an image in my head of Quinton standing in the middle of a dimly lit stage wearing a black cape and holding onto a black magician’s wand. Underneath his cape he wore tight, black leather pants and a bright, blood red vest. The vest hung open, exposing his naked chest. The silver in his nipples shined like a beacon against his skin.