Apprehension filled her as she turned slowly to look at Jess. Her gaze was focused on Stefan, but the amusement was gone as Jess stared at him with narrowed eyes and a locked jaw. Then she glanced at Isabelle, Jess’s eyes flashed brightly with malice before she turned back to him. Isabelle bit into her lip as she took a step to the side, eager to get away from all of them.
“I have to get the laundry,” she said quickly, desperate to escape.
“Why don’t you wait, I’m sure that Jess will help you,” Stefan said coldly.
“I offered, but Isabelle said that she didn’t need my help,” Jess replied sweetly.
Isabelle’s mouth gaped open in disbelief as she spun back around. Jess was smiling sweetly up at Stefan, batting her lashes as if she were the most innocent thing in the world. Exasperation blazed to life in Isabelle as her eyes narrowed and her hands fisted at her sides. “The hell I did!” she snapped, unable to keep her temper under control for a moment longer. It usually took a lot to truly annoy her, but when she did blow, she could put Mount Vesuvius to shame with the force of her explosion. Jess’s lie, on top of everything else that was going on, was the final straw.
Stefan’s eyebrow lifted in surprise as he tried to suppress a smile of amusement. It was quite obvious to him that the teddy bear Doug had described was gone, and the grizzly bear had leapt forward. He had seen her sister subtly tell her to keep her mouth shut before, and had felt Isabelle trying to control her anger at Jess, but it seemed as if her control had snapped. The fire in her eyes, and her rigid stance, were both fetching and interesting.
“Of course I did,” Jess lied easily.
Stefan found his amusement fading as she persisted in the lie. Vicky and Abby leapt to their feet, pushing at Isabelle. Her jaw clenched tightly and her nostrils flared as she took a deep breath to try and calm herself. “Come on Issy, we’ll help you,” Vicky said softly, pulling at her arm.
Isabelle shrugged them angrily off, determined to bring Jess’s lie to the forefront, and wipe that smirk off of her face. “Mom,” Abby whispered so softly that Stefan barely heard her, and he knew that Jess and Delia did not.
Isabelle closed her eyes and took a deep breath as she struggled for control. She longed to lash out at Jess, to put her in her place, but she couldn’t. She just couldn’t do anything to hurt her mother. Jess wasn’t worth it. She turned quickly on her heel, determined to put as much distance between herself, and Jess, as possible.
“See that proves that I’m right,” Jess said victoriously.
Stefan’s anger continued to mount as he turned back to her. She smiled seductively up at him as she leaned victoriously back in the chair, stretching her arms behind her head in a gesture meant to make her breasts more alluring. She failed miserably. “We both know that you’re lying.”
Her eyes narrowed as she leaned forward in the chair, her blatant attempt at seduction forgotten. “You would believe her over me?” she demanded haughtily.
He smiled coldly as he nodded. “Yes, I do.” He didn’t wait for her reply as he turned and headed back to the house, her anger beat against his back as he moved swiftly across the ground.
CHAPTER 6
Stefan leaned back in his chair, casually surveying the group of people surrounding him. The dining room was exceptionally large, but it seemed minuscule with everyone crammed into it. Ethan, Ian, Aiden, and Doug were sitting on the left side of the large, mahogany table, casually sprawled in their chairs. Mike sat across from him at the head of the table while David, Jack, and Jess took up the right side.
Jess’s hand rested lightly on his thigh as she teasingly rubbed his leg, drifting toward his crotch and then back down again, her earlier ire at him seemed to have been forgotten. He seized hold of her hand, and for the fifth time, dropped it back down. Even if she wasn’t still mad about what had happened earlier, he was, and he was also more than a little disgusted with her. She shot him an angry look, but he turned his attention away from her as he listened to Ethan argue with Aiden, and Ian, over the best way to finish off the last bathroom in the new house.
“You’re not going to be living there!” Ethan announced.
“We will when we come home for vacations!” Aiden snapped.
“Why are you guys even arguing about this? You know that Isabelle is going to be the one that decides what color tile you use. Otherwise you’ll never hear the end of it!” Mike interrupted.
The two sides scowled at each other, but they quit squabbling over blue verses green. “Where is Isabelle?” Doug asked, suddenly noticing that she wasn’t present.
Stefan had been wondering the same exact thing. “Finishing the laundry,” Ethan answered absently.
“We really are going to smell like a girl,” Jack muttered miserably.
“This room looks pretty good, and it smells like lemons, instead of flowers” David defended. “Did you know that those curtains were blue?”
“I’d forgotten,” Doug replied laughingly.
“It is nice to have the place clean again, but if my laundry comes back smelling like flowers, or perfume, I am not going to be happy,” Jack said.
“Trust me Jack, perfume won’t help you.”
Stefan’s gaze darted to the doorway as Isabelle swept in. A red bandanna was wrapped around her thick hair; strands of it had straggled free to curl around her exquisite face. Her high cheekbones, delicate chin, and small nose were now free of dirt to reveal the creamy perfection of her porcelain skin.
A barrage of sexual images flashed through his mind, images of what he would like to do to that lithe body, and what he would like for it to do to him. Jess’s stroking hand had been doing nothing to get him aroused, but now blood suddenly rushed to his groin, causing him to harden painfully. He shifted uncomfortably and grit his teeth against the lust that filled him.
“There are times when I wish that I hadn’t had a hand in raising you,” Jack mumbled unhappily.
“Trust me Jack, so do I,” she replied laughingly.
She smiled at him as she ruffled his dark hair. Jack scowled at her as he fixed his hair and smiled softly. Isabelle grabbed the chair from the corner and shooed Jack over to wedge it between him and Mike, purposely keeping her gaze away from Stefan and Jess. Try as she might to ignore him, she was still acutely aware of his presence, and the aura of power that he radiated. His gaze burned into her as she settled into the chair, ignoring the accelerated beat of her heart, and the heat that suddenly flooded her.
“The tile in the bathroom is going to be a light rose, and the counters are going to be emerald green,” she told them as she settled into her seat.
“Oh Isabelle!” Ian moaned.
“Don’t oh Isabelle me, mom and I already ordered them, and they should be here tomorrow,” she retorted as she fiercely returned the dark scowls her brothers gave her.
“It’s so girly!” Aiden complained.
“You’ll be at school most of the year!” she shot back.
“Yeah, but I don’t want to get sick every time I come home.”
Isabelle rolled her eyes as she folded her arms fiercely over her chest. “Just make sure that you clean up after yourself when you do.”
Ian slapped Ethan forcefully on the back. “Sure you don’t want to change your mind and come to college with us?” he inquired with a bright smile.
Ethan just shook his head. “At least I can decide my room and bathroom,” he mumbled.
“Well actually...” Isabelle started.
“Don’t even think about it!” Ethan interrupted fiercely.
Isabelle smiled sweetly at him as she chuckled softly. “Who’s going out tonight?”
“We are!” Ian and Aiden responded eagerly.
“Jack and I are going too,” David said. “What do you need?”
She turned toward him, her eyes involuntarily flicking toward Stefan. He held her gaze for a charged moment, in which she was certain that the air literally sizzled with electricity, before she tore her gaze away.
“I just need some cleaning supplies, and other stuff.” She was amazed that her voice sounded completely normal.
David nodded and leaned back in his chair. “No problem, make a list.”
“Thanks.” She stood abruptly, fighting the urge to flee from the room. “The last load should be done. You guys will be glad to know you won’t have to buy new clothes this week, you’ll actually have clean ones.”
“I like buying new clothes!” Jack yelled at her quickly retreating back.
“You’d better fold them nicely!” Ian taunted.
“Go to hell Ian!” she shouted from the hall.
“I’m going to be living there on school breaks!” he shot back.
“You keep it up and you’ll be living there a lot sooner!”
“You keep it up and you’re going to wake up to a bed full of snakes,” Ethan told him, smiling brightly.
Ian shuddered and leaned back in his seat. “Snakes?” Jess asked in surprise.
“Yeah, snakes,” Ethan shivered as he made a face.
“What are you talking about?” Jess demanded.
They exchanged amused glances that caused Stefan’s curiosity to be peaked. “Ian, Ethan, and Isabelle got into a fight when she was what?” Mike asked.
“Fifteen,” Ethan answered.
“Ian was thirteen, and Ethan was seventeen. I don’t remember what it all started over.”
“Ethan dared me to take all her clothes and throw them out the window,” Ian recalled, a small smile on his face as his eyes took on a distant gleam.
“So he did,” Ethan said with a bright grin. “She threw a fit. To get even with us she put rubbing alcohol in my aftershave bottle, and threw all of Ian’s clothes into the lake.”
Stefan leaned forward, a small smile curving his mouth as he listened to the story. They all wore amused grins, their eyes twinkled mischievously. They picked up the story where one left off with the easy rhythm that only people who know each other so well could create. “So, of course we put pink hair dye in her leave in conditioner. You know, the one that women leave in for over an hour or so,” Ian said happily.
“You should have seen her!” Jack cried laughingly. “Her hair was this muddled pink color, but her scalp was hot pink!”
“That was a good one!” Mike cried. “They took pictures of her the minute that she walked out of the bathroom. The look on her face was priceless. We all had a good laugh that night.”
“Yeah, after you grounded us,” Ethan muttered.
They exchanged knowing grins as Ian leaned forward, his blue eyes twinkling merrily. “So then, let’s just say, it was all out war. She put super glue in my shampoo. I had to cut it all off in order to get my hands free, and then it took another week to get all the hair off the palms of my hands. She crept into our room the next night and used Nair on Ethan’s eyebrows, taking them off completely.”
Stefan had to stifle a laugh as he found his amusement growing by the second. He had a clear mental image of a teenage Isabelle creeping silently into her brother’s room with the intent of burning his eyebrows off. “That’s awful!” Jess cried her hand flying to her mouth.
The looks on all their faces told Stefan that they thought it was anything but awful. They thought it was downright hilarious, and he agreed. “It took over a month for them to grow back, and my skin was burnt for two of those weeks,” Ethan said happily, his smile fond, and his eyes distant.
“We have some good pictures of that too,” Doug said happily. “Of both of them actually.”
“Needless to say, for about a week, no one slept, and we had to buy new bottles of shampoo every day just to make sure that they were sealed tight. Finally, Ian and I cornered her, held her down, and chopped her hair off. It had been down to her waist, we chopped it to just beneath her ears.”
“I kind of regretted that one,” Ian said sadly. “She cried for a week.”
“Yeah, that one wasn’t as funny,” Ethan said ruefully. “But she declared a truce.”
“Our mistake was that we actually believed her. We should have known that wasn’t going to be the end of it. Two weeks later, when we were certain that she really wasn’t going to do anything else, she got us. She went out and hunted up dozens of snakes,” Ian continued.
“It took her the entire two weeks to get them all. She went out every night, and caught a few more. She waited till we were sleeping, tied our hands to the headboards, and put them in our beds.”
“That’s awful!” Jess gasped.
They were all smiling now, and Stefan actually found himself chuckling. He couldn’t remember the last time he had laughed, but the picture in his mind was vastly amusing. He could only imagine the victorious gleam in her eyes when they had awoken the next morning. “It was horrendous,” Ethan said with a shudder. “We hate snakes! I woke up to them slithering all over me. I’ve never screamed so loud in my life!”
“Isabelle got good pictures of that too,” Jack said happily. “It was hilarious!”
“Mom freaked out,” Ian continued. “No one would come close enough to untie us, and Isabelle refused too. It took a whole lot of threats from our father before she finally relented and took the snakes away. For months afterward we wouldn’t go to sleep without making sure that there weren’t any still in our room.”
“We called the truce after that. The only one in our family that can stand snakes is Isabelle, and there isn’t anything worse than the thought of waking up to them again,” Ethan said with a shudder.
“Needless to say, we declared Isabelle the queen of the wars and didn’t ever do anything to her again,” Ian said with a bright grin.
“Yeah, they focused their torment on me instead,” Aiden said laughingly. “Unfortunately, I hate snakes too.”
Stefan started to really laugh then. He could picture how awful, and wonderful, it must have been to grow up in such a large household. He had a feeling that he was only hearing about some of the tortures that they had put each other through. “That is the most horrendous thing I have ever heard!” Jess cried indignantly. “That is disgusting and cruel!”
Suddenly they were all laughing. “What’s so funny?”
He looked up to find Isabelle standing in the doorway, her brow furrowed questioningly as she balanced a laundry basket against her hip. “We were telling Stefan and Jess about the snake war,” Mike answered happily.
Isabelle smiled brightly; her vivid eyes twinkled merrily as she glanced at them. For the first time since he had met her, she was actually smiling at him, and he found the effect amazing, and more than a little unnerving. His eyes locked on hers, the smile slipped from his face as he was rocked by a fierce wave of desire that hardened him painfully. Her smile quickly vanished as she ducked her head.
Stefan felt an odd sense of loss as the intimate contact was broken. The breath rushed back into his lungs as he inhaled sharply. He shifted again, his erection suddenly becoming unbearably painful. “You named it the snake war?” Jess asked, her eyes darting toward Isabelle and narrowing angrily.
All his humor vanished as a fresh wave of anger washed through him. Isabelle met Jess’s gaze, before she turned her attention back to her family. Jess reached out to touch his leg again; he instantly batted her hand away. She glared angrily at him for a moment before plastering a smile to her face and turning away.
“We have had a few wars,” Ethan answered. “We started to name them when I was about twelve.”
“That way we could keep track,” Ian explained happily.
“What were some of the other ones?” Jess inquired sweetly. She looked exceedingly innocent, but Stefan could feel the resentment seething within her.
“Well, let’s see.” Mike leaned back in his seat as he thoughtfully tapped his chin. “There was the ice war, the water war, the fire war....”
“The paint war,” Ian chimed in. “Mom almost killed us over that one! I’ve never seen her as mad as she was that day!”
“What did you do?” Stefan inquired
as he tried to divert his attention from Isabelle, and the aching pain in his loins.
“Our mom left out a bunch of paint that she didn’t want,” Ian explained.
“Red paint,” Ethan elaborated. “The color was too dark, and she didn’t like the way that it looked. Well, we found it, and decided to paint each other with it. I was eleven at the time, Isabelle was nine, Ian was seven, and Aiden was four.”
“I never stood a chance,” Aiden said with a bright grin. “These guys corrupted me!”
“Hey!” the other three protested. Stefan found himself grinning again in response to Isabelle’s exquisite smile, and gleaming violet eyes. When she smiled, she was the most beautiful woman that he had ever seen. He found himself oddly captivated by her, and the realization was more than a little unnerving.
“I think we were playing cowboys and Indians,” Ethan said laughingly. “And we wanted to paint the Indians, or at least that’s the way it started. By the time we were done, we were completely covered with it.”
“It was in my hair for a week,” Isabelle said brightly.
“At least your hair was already darker by then; I looked like Opie for a month!” Ian cried.
They all laughed loudly as their faces, and eyes, took on fond looks of remembrance. Stefan found himself becoming enchanted with the entire group. He couldn’t imagine what it must have been like to grow up in such a warm, loving environment. Especially since his own childhood had been a cruel time that he’d spent his entire existence trying to right.
“There was also the dare war, whoever did the dumbest thing, and survived, won. Ethan won it by throwing himself off of a forty foot cliff,” Aiden continued.
“We quit after that move,” Isabelle said laughingly.
“You’re lucky you weren’t killed!” Jess gasped in horror.
They all exchanged secret smiles as Ethan shrugged. “Broke a few ribs, but I heal quick,” he added with a wink, causing all of them to chuckle.
“There was the fish war, the parakeet war...”
Destined (Vampire Awakenings) Page 7