by May Dawson
Ryker pulled back slightly, his warm green eyes intent on my face. “Something bothering you, Firestarter?”
I shook my head, just faintly, because I didn’t want to leave the warmth of his touch behind. “It’s been a weird week. The good stuff… it’s as hard to make sense of as all the bad. Maybe harder.”
“You’ve had a bad run of things,” he said. “But it’s going to be all right. We’ll make sure your sister makes it to Heaven. Take care of the Company. And then it’ll just be… us.”
That low, sexy us warmed my soul.
And then a niggling thought struck me. “Heaven?”
“Of course.”
Mr. Joseph had said we would bring Ash back to life, in the body he’d kept on ice for her, but I couldn’t tell Ryker that. Not here. He was still watching me as if he knew I was hiding something from him, and when his face was only inches away from mine, it felt impossible to lie to him.
I felt the corners of my mouth flicker up in a sad approximation of a smile. “It’s hard to think about. My sister going into Heaven.”
“I know. But it’s better than being lost in the Far.”
Maybe. But Heaven wasn’t better than being alive.
The house was quiet until I reached the basement stairs and pushed the door open; I could hear the clash of sword bracing on sword. Levi and Jacob must be down there training. I rubbed my shoulder, which were still sore. Didn’t they ever take a rest? Levi was still healing from his wounds. I worried that these boys thought they were immortal, that Levi would pull his stitches and be slow to heal because he couldn’t slow down.
There was the clashing sound of a sword flying out of someone’s hand and a thunk as it hit the wall. I was very familiar with those sounds after my recent training sessions; I wasn’t very good at holding onto my sword against the boys, let alone getting many hits in.
I took one step down and then froze as I heard Levi ask, “So how are you and Ellis getting along?”
“I’ve been taking it easy on you, because of the stitches.” Jacob’s voice was wryly threatening.
“Just wondering. You two are stuck with each other, she’s not going anywhere.”
I shouldn’t have kept eavesdropping, but I was so curious what Jacob would say. Would he tell Ryker and Levi that he wanted to be free from the harem? From them, as well as from me?
“We talked yesterday,” Jacob said reluctantly.
“How’d it go?”
I could hear the faint smile in Jacob’s voice when he admitted, “I almost apologized.”
Levi laughed. “And did she almost accept?”
“I think she told me to fuck off. That was my take-away.”
I frowned, crossing my arms over my chest; that was definitely not what I’d said, or meant. And there was a big difference in my mind between I’m sorry for what I did wrong and let’s start over. But it wasn’t like I could storm down there and correct him. I glanced down the hall to the door that stood open to the garage. I could still hear Ryker rustling around in the garage, putting away the kayak and camping gear. I should be helping him.
“You really don’t feel anything…?” Levi trailed off.
I mean, how am I supposed to not eavesdrop when they’re going to talk about me?
“It’s different when you’re not fully human, I guess,” Jacob said.
“I guess.” Levi sounded doubtful.
“Come on, let’s go another round if you’re up for it.”
I took a careful step backwards up the stairs and then tip-toed down the hall until I was back in the doorway to the garage. Then I bounced down the steps to drag the cooler out of the car. “I’ll unpack the leftovers.”
Ryker hooked the kayak to a winch hung over the rafter and began to hoist it up so it would dangle out of the way of their stolen cars. “Thanks.”
The cooler bumped against my legs as I carried it towards the house, and I pushed it up the stairs, over the threshold, and then stopped. “Ryker. Quick question for you.”
“Shoot.”
“Can you read my mind?”
He grinned. “I wish, Firestarter. That’s not how this works.”
I nodded. Well, that was a relief. “But we can communicate.”
“Yeah. It’s easier for me when someone is dreaming, though. Otherwise you have all your walls up.” He shrugged. “Maybe with practice, we can communicate all the time. We can work on it.”
“How can someone have a wall up against something they don’t even know exists?”
“People have all kinds of walls up, Ellis.” He stepped back from the winch, slapping one palm against the other to shake off the dust.
I sat down on the steps that led up to the garage door. “I was thinking about the history of the Four and the Lilith.”
“I did a bad job on our date if you had time to think.” The grin he shot me was devilish.
“That date was perfect,” I said. “But before you distracted me from the bizarre state of my life, I was thinking about how weird it was that this is what the angels came up with for Lilith’s…penance. Wild sex and lots of love.”
And danger and terrifying walks into the Far and dark-siders that wanted to murder her reincarnation all over again, like Samael once murdered her. Living as a Lilith was not exactly a life of chocolate-dipped-strawberries and silk sheets. But still. It was weird.
“Maybe it was never about penance,” he said, leaning back against the car. He stuffed his hands into his jeans pockets so his broad shoulders rolled forward slightly; I always found that relaxed posture adorable. “The first Lilith killed herself to get her way. Because she found life on this planet so unbearable. Maybe just doing the work she was meant to do, finding the joy in this fucked-up world, choosing love… that’s what she’s supposed to do, to become who she’s supposed to be.”
“And who is Lilith supposed to be?”
Ryker half-shrugged. “I’m not the philosopher around here.”
“I thought you said you were the smart brother,” I teased.
“You ever going to unpack that cooler?” Ryker teased back.
“No,” Jacob said from behind me, and I jumped, pressing my hand to my chest. Good grief. I had jumped like I was caught doing something I shouldn’t, like eavesdropping. I heard the cooler slide down the hall as Jacob pulled it out of the doorway. “Of course she isn’t.”
I ran up the steps and reached to grab the cooler before Jacob could carry it off. Carry it off smugly. I knew he was happy to do a little work if it meant he could insult me about being a princess, yet again. “I’m getting it now, thanks.”
“It’s all right,” he said. “You should get some training in before you go out with Levi tonight.”
I quirked an eyebrow at him. “Are you feeling okay?”
“I’m not being nice to you.” He hip-checked me out of his way, not too hard, and picked the cooler up to carry it into the kitchen. “Like I said before, I don’t want to see you die in front of me.”
“It’s just so sweet that you care.”
“Bare minimum of caring,” he promised me, glancing back over his shoulder. “Like, I don’t mind if you get hurt a little. Maybe stabbed, but not close to any organs. Punched, that’s fine. No head wounds—you really can’t afford to lose any brain cells.”
“You are such an asshole.”
I saw him grin over his shoulder before he glanced away, like he didn’t want to let me see that he was joking. I heard the fridge door swing open as he unpacked the leftovers.
Ryker brushed behind me, resting his hand on my hip as he passed by into the kitchen.
“Seriously,” Jacob said, “You packed cold cuts for your big date? You’ve got no sense of romance.”
“Coming from you?” Ryker asked.
Angels had literally no sense of romance; they weren’t supposed to desire humans or each other. They loved, but not like we did.
But I knew, since I’d been in Jacob’s room looking through his bookshelv
es, that he read love stories, like he was trying to figure out mortal love. Even though he said he didn’t want any part of it.
“Might not be human,” Jacob said, grabbing a roll of paper towels from underneath the sink and beginning to wipe out the cooler. “But I bet I could do better than bologna if I tried.”
“Great,” Ryker said, leaning against the kitchen island, crossing his arms over his chest. “You take Ellis out on a date, then. Show us all up.”
“I’m not taking Ellis on a date,” Jacob said. “We’ve got work to do. People trying to kill us—”
“They want to take us alive,” Ryker interrupted. He chose optimism.
Not that his brand of optimism comforted me much.
“—and you and Levi are just all love-struck.”
“It’s important that we bond too,” Ryker said. “That’s part of what’ll give us the juice to go into the Far. And then not die there.”
“Taking her to Dave and Buster’s is not going to prevent us from dying bloody in the afterlife.”
“So don’t take her to Dave and Buster’s,” Ryker said. “You’re so smart. Come up with something.”
Okay, I was putting a stop to this before I ended up on some hellishly awkward candlelit evening with Jacob. I held up a hand. “Thanks, but no thanks.”
“I didn’t ask you, Princess.” Jacob said.
“Yeah,” Ryker said. “He’s not going to ask you because he’s too scared you’ll say no.”
Jacob straightened from the cooler, narrowing his eyes at Ryker. “I’m going to go study. Because I’m focused on things that matter.” He turned to me. “And aren’t you supposed to be in the dojo already?”
“Right,” I said. “Going. Would much rather get my ass kicked in the dojo than…” I trailed off. It had been on my lips to say than spend the night with you. But suddenly that seemed too mean. We’d been bantering before, no matter how sharp the edges were. I didn’t want to hurt Jacob’s feelings for real.
But I should.
So I swiveled on my heel and headed for the basement, my head held high.
5
“I cannot do this,” I said, dropping my sword to the mat and crossing my arms over my chest. “I’m so afraid I’m going to hurt you.”
“Me?” Levi sounded incredulous, even though he had been fencing one-handed, his other arm protectively held over his side. “You aren’t going to hurt me, Pretty Girl. Going to take another year or two for me to worry about that.”
“That’s encouraging,” I muttered.
“I’m being honest,” he said.
“You’re being cocky.”
“Well, yeah.” He flashed a grin at me, revealing the faint dimples in his cheeks. “That’s honest too, though.”
Ryker clattered down the stairs to join us. I turned to him with a grin as he jumped down the last few steps, because my heart always lightened when I saw him, but his face was serious.
“Levi,” he said gruffly. “I got a call from Dad.”
“Yeah? What does he want?” Levi stepped towards me, holding out his hand for my sword. “It’s all right. We can pick this up again tomorrow.”
“Good.” I rubbed my tense shoulders; every muscle ached after training to fight. “Maybe you’ll be that much closer to healed and I won’t have to take it easy on you.”
Levi grinned and shook his head, carrying the swords to hang on the wall.
“Dad wants us to join him on a hunt. Vamp nest. I was going to tell him to call someone else, we’ve got stuff going on here.”
Levi nodded, still facing away from us. “Yeah.”
“But then I was thinking. Maybe it’s not a bad idea. He might have some ideas about who the Fourth is.”
“You think Mom told him?” Levi turned, crossing his arms over his chest. “Why the hell wouldn’t she have told us then?”
“She was trying to protect us,” Ryker argued.
“I know,” Levi said. “Did a hell of a job of it, though.”
I knew it hurt him that he had forgotten all about Jacob after Wendy hid Jacob in England and burned his childhood photos. Levi, who was only four at the time, had become convinced that Jacob was an imaginary friend. Jacob had never forgotten about Ryker and Levi though.
Quickly, to change the subject, I asked, “Do you think he’s older or younger?”
“Older,” Ryker said. “Mom was pregnant when we were kids, but she lost the baby.”
I hesitated, biting my lower lip. I knew Ryker wouldn’t like what I was about to say. Then I asked, “Are you sure?”
“Yeah,” Ryker said. “I’m sure. We were with her. She got jumped by some demons. Fought her way out. But she was hurt. And then she gave birth too early.” He turned away. “I saw what should have been… a baby, Ellis. It didn’t make it.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“It’s fine,” he said gruffly. “Levi, I’m going to call dad from the office, get the details on this nest. You coming?”
I felt guilty about having brought up those memories for Ryker. “I’m going to take a shower,” I said, intending to give them their space.
But Ryker reached out and grabbed me around the waist, dragging me into his arms for a hug. I squeezed his warm, hard chest tight, wishing I could make it up to him.
“It’s all good, Firestarter,” he murmured into my ear. “It’s been a long time.”
I nodded, feeling relieved, and then Ryker took a step back. He smacked my ass playfully. “Now go take a shower. The nest’ll wait. Levi needs his chance to take you on his much-more-boring date.”
“We’ll see,” Levi said.
“You’re going shopping,” Ryker said. “Shopping is boring.”
“Not for all of us,” Levi said. As I ran up the stairs, I could hear them bickering as they headed to the office to call their dad back. I wondered what Duncan was like. It was hard to imagine Ryker and Levi as kids, with a mom—as strange and mysterious as Wendy was to me—and a dad. A dad who had chosen not to be in their lives, at that. Unless he needed help with killing things.
No wonder the boys joked that Hunter families were all dysfunctional. Even the ones who knew each other.
As I passed through the empty dining room, I found myself wondering what would happen if that poor lost baby had actually been the Fourth. Was it possible that sometimes, not every member of the Four made it to adulthood? After all, there had been so many generations of the Lilith and the Four born into times when infant mortality rates were horrifying.
I stopped at the table, flipping open the Lilith verses to the concordance. I wanted to see if the records were consistent. Maybe it was possible to go into the Far, even without having practice like Roxy and her team had, without even knowing the Fourth. Maybe we would never find him at all. I didn’t want to talk to Ryker or Levi about that, though, when I had just made them remember the sight of their pregnant mother battling desperately… and losing the fight to save her baby.
That made me imagine my sister, wandering the Far in her sapphire prom dress, unable to ever escape. I shook my head faintly at the thought. No. I would find a way to rescue her, no matter who could go with me. If it came down to it, I was sure the four of us could be enough.
I glanced through the list of Liliths, seeing four men’s names along with every Lilith through the years. So much for that theory. Maybe there really was an oldest brother out there somewhere.
I closed the Verses, running my thumb over the gilt-edges pages. As I set it on the table, I saw the hand-lettered, ancient text that Jacob had left open. An illustration drew my attention at first, of a monk with his arms raised, standing between a man and woman with their backs turned to each other. I frowned at it, leaning forward; it was written in a language I didn’t know, all rounded letters with little curliques.
“I didn’t know you learned Latin,” Jacob said from the doorway. He looked at me over the top of his mug, taking a long sip of coffee. “You could be useful after all.”
> “Not so much,” I admitted. I’d meant to say I didn’t know Latin, but I bit down on my lower lip as I realized I’d accidentally confessed that I couldn’t be useful. To the one guy who would take it that way. And Jacob would relish the admission.
He slid back into his chair. His big shoulder pushed against me gently, but I didn’t move out of the way. I was still studying the page.
“Enjoying looking at the pictures?” he said. “I’ve got some comic books upstairs you might like.”
“Is this what I think it is?”
“What do you think it is, Princess? I’m not the mind-reader around here.”
Apparently, there were no mind-readers around here. That would be too helpful. “Is this a spell to make us… not want each other?”
“I don’t need a spell not to want you,” he said automatically, but his heart wasn’t in it. He flipped the cover closed, even though I was leaning over his shoulder to look at it still. “Yeah. It is.”
“Were you going to tell me about it? What do we need?”
“What’s there to tell? It’s a knights Templar spell, which means it might have enough juice to take on an angel curse… if it works at all. The ingredients they had available to them were different than what I can get my hands on now.”
“I just wondered if you were going to tell me about it.” I felt the sweat still beaded along my hairline slide down my face, and I straightened up, pulling away from Jacob; I’d been leaning so close to him. “Sorry, I stink.”
“I wasn’t going to tell you with Ryker and Levi around,” he said tartly, as if I were stupid for not thinking about that. But I didn’t want to keep secrets from Ryker and Levi. The one I already carried was bad enough. “And you’re fine.”
“I don’t stink?” I yanked at the front of my damp t-shirt, taking another step back.
“You are such an elegant lady,” he said. “But no. You smell like you usually do. Like red-hots.”
I crinkled my nose at him. That was concerning. “I smell like hot dogs?”
“No,” he said impatiently. “Like the candy. Are we done here?”
“No,” I said. “Do they have red-hots in the U.K?”