by Kirk, A
“And I won’t.” Eros bowed deeply. “I mean no harm, young Ayden. I even found your lady love first and pulled her from the raging waters. You and I both aspire to her safety and well-being.”
Ayden glanced back at me.
“It’s true,” I told him. “At least about pulling me out.”
“Forgive me, Eros.” Ayden’s tone held a snide edge. “But since you already threatened to kill her, I’m a little skeptical.”
“Just a playful ruse.”
“Playful?” Ayden laughed. “Why would I believe that a demon god would aspire the safety and well-being of the Divinicus Nex? That’s crazy.”
A cunning smile slithered onto Eros’s lips. “So you do know.”
I froze. Then my head swiveled slowly to study Ayden’s profile, jaw set, lips pressed in a hard line.
I finally found my voice. “Which one of them told you?”
“No one told me.” Ayden ground out the words, anger clipping the syllables. “You should have told me.”
“Then how did you know?”
“How could I not know! We’re trained to look for this kind of stuff. Granted, the girl aspect threw me at first. But come on!”
“Why doesn’t anyone think to tell me they know?”
“Maybe some of us were hoping you would trust them enough to confide in them instead of being so paranoid and thinking I’d — they’d betray you. But I — they are really tired of waiting for that to happen and I — they — ah, screw it.” Ayden kicked the sand. “Why didn’t you trust me? I kept waiting and waiting, trying to give you every opportunity to reveal your big secret. But I got nothing!”
“That must have been frustrating,” Eros said with great sympathy.
“It was!” Ayden said, then glared at Eros. “You keep out of this! But seriously, Aurora, did you really think I’d turn you in? Or I couldn’t handle it? That it would scare me off? That’s so insulting.”
“Indeed,” Eros said. “Perhaps I might suggest more open commun—”
“Shut up!” Ayden and I yelled. He shot flames at Eros.
The demon poofed away and reappeared on the opposite side. Ayden leapt around to stay positioned in front of me.
“What?” Eros looked flabbergasted. “Love and romance are my areas of expertise. I can help. And this is good.” He made encouraging gestures with his hands. “Go on. Let’s get it all out in the open.”
Ayden tried to barbeque him again, poof, then turned to me. “You’d think you’d know by now how I feel. I mean, I’m willing to take control lessons from my mom just so I don’t kill you when we…I…you know.”
Eros popped up on our right, nodding with compassion. “I understand your discomfort.”
“His discomfort? What about mine?” My voice squeaked. “Your mom?”
“Yeah, my mom,” Ayden snapped. “And it’s a long and embarrassing story that I don’t want to get into right now.” He huffed. “If you don’t mind.”
“Seems a good place to stop.” Eros rubbed his hands together. “I suggest you kiss and make up for now and we’ll pick this up later. Perhaps after we’ve suppressed the unleashing of the whole demon apocalypse issue.”
“We are not on the same side!” Ayden’s entire body suddenly whooshed into flames as his hand shot out with a narrow but blazing blast of fire.
This time Eros didn’t turn to smoke. But his sleeve did.
Flames caught on the frothy white pirate shirt, burning through the material and across Eros’s skin.
Ayden clutched his chest and dropped on one knee, groaning. His flames blinked out. I moved toward him but saw Eros raise his eyes, furied with shock and outrage. The demon god looked ready to attack.
I snatched the ring out of the sand. Power surged again. Beams of light shot from the stone.
“Back off,” I warned, either the power of the stone or my own fury boiling my blood.
Don’t know what the ring did, but judging from Eros’s expression just before he blinked out in a pink puff, I was holding some sort of nuclear bomb. He reappeared at the far edge of the forest, staring a murderous glare toward Ayden.
“I’ll forgive you this once, hunter,” Eros growled. “For you are protecting your lady love. As am I. We are on the same side. You will see.”
“Doubtful,” I spat.
Keeping my hand up, light still shining from the brilliant stone, I stepped closer to Ayden who remained down. I didn’t know how to use the ring or how it would fare against the most powerful type of demon, but if Eros made one move against Ayden, I was willing to go down fighting.
I lowered my voice to a menacing rumble. “You’d better start helping rather than being a deceitful, selfish monster, or I’ll call the Mandatum myself, cry ‘Code Olympus’ so fast and loud the Sicarius will bury you back in hell before you know what hit you. And whatever happens to Psyche…” I rolled a cold, indifferent shrug. “Well, that’s on you.”
I readied for a godlike wrath, but instead, a weary sorrow bled into Eros’s green eyes.
“As it always has been,” he said softly. Then he nodded. “As you wish.”
And he was gone.
I chucked the ring into the sand and felt its energy drain from my body.
Ayden sat up. “That was gutsy. And hot. No wonder you’re my hero.”
I knelt beside him. Mostly because my knees gave out. Threatening supernatural demon gods was harder than it looked.
“What’s wrong?” I said.
“Burns.” He grimaced with pain. “Are they supposed to hurt this much?”
Fresh blood blossomed on his shirt. My skin iced. I fought to keep my expression neutral.
“Probably. But I know what to do.” I swallowed hard and helped him to his feet.
Wincing, he put his arm over my shoulders, then looked down and frowned. “Did the God of Love propose to my girlfriend?”
“Not hardly.” I picked up the ring half-buried in the sand. It lit up in my hand, then dimmed when I put it in my pocket. “I’ll tell you later. Since we’re being all honest, I should give you the heads-up on my guardian angel.”
“Cute.” He chuckled, but then saw my face. “You’re not kidding.”
“Nope. Oh, and I sent myself to the Waiting World. And stopped a bullet.” Don’t care what Gloria said.
“What?” he stumbled. “If you were in the Waiting World, why did you disappear instead of going into a coma like last time?”
I gave it some deep thought and came up with the brilliant conclusion of, “I have no idea.”
He laughed. “Okay, tell me what you do know. I’m all ears. By the way, you asked ‘which one’ told me you were the Divinicus. Who else knows?”
Chapter Eighty
It was still dark, only an hour or so before sunrise, as I hustled with Hex Boys in tow down the side of my house to the door to the garage. I rattled the knob. Locked. Stupid Aunt M and her surprise.
“Blake, open it,” I said briskly.
Surely his powers included opening metal locks.
He glanced at the rest of the boys.
“This isn’t a good idea,” Ayden said. Again.
“I must verbalize my concurrence.”
“That’s all you’ve been doing, Jayden.” For once I understood him.
“Involving outsiders is an ill-advised plan.” Jayden barely contained his frustration. “I told you I could take care of the injuries. At closer inspection they’re not that alarming. Frankly, I believe he’s simply hypersensitive because he’s never before had acquaintanceship with burns and the magnitude of malaise they incite.”
Blake laughed. “Jayden just called you a baby.”
The back of my eyelids itched with exhaustion. I’d had enough.
“Exactly, Jayden,” I hissed. “He’s never had burns, but somehow I burned him. And while Father Bancroft always fixes you guys with his healing power, he’s skedaddled out of town, and you couldn’t go to him anyway because you can’t explain how Ayden could suf
fer an injury he’s not supposed to be able to suffer without explaining me and you can’t do that otherwise I’m in more danger, sooooo this is all my fault, my mess, and I’m going to fix it, which means using my dad because no matter how smart you are, he’s been a trained physician for longer than you’ve been alive and short of magic healing powers, he’s the best man for the job, so you will all wait in the garage while I get him.” I inhaled a long breath and used every remaining ounce of energy to shoot all the boys my nastiest stare. “Now, shut up and follow along. Or I will make you pay.”
They all shut up.
Except Blake.
“Pay how?” he whispered. “’cause I could totally be into this whole dominatrix thing you’ve got going on. Are we talking whips, leather, and handcuffs or—? Ow! Logan, dude, you are seriously repressed. Want Aurora to spank you? Ow! That really hurt. Have you been working out?”
“I hate to say it,” Matthias said with obvious reluctance. “I mean I really hate to say it, but she’s right. He should be checked out by a professional. We just have to come up with a cover story.”
“Already got one. Blake?” I gestured to the door.
Blake fluttered a hand. There was a click. I turned the knob and entered expecting the aromas of a construction site — metal, wood shavings, oil, paint — but it smelled clean, polished.
Huh.
Before I could tell them to beware of loose wires, there was a hum and lights flickered to life. Things started moving. I stumbled to a stop. Someone bumped into me. Then I stared open-mouthed at what used to be our garage.
Chapter Eighty-One
“She built this herself?” Tristan’s voice still pinged with awe. “Incredible.”
We were all checking it out—except Blake who’d started pumping iron with the weights in a far corner—but Tristan had been drooling over Aunt M’s ridiculously complex system like a kid in a candy shop.
When the lights first came on, it just looked like a bunch of sleek, built-in cabinets. But as we watched, panels slid away, shelving and desktops seemed to feed out from the walls, and in moments, we were looking at an incredible computer setup that looked like it could monitor space satellites.
On Mars.
Several individual computer stations, another at a large desk with a couple of big screens on the wall, and all sorts of storage along with printers and oodles of electronic devices, most of which I didn’t recognize.
“Wow,” Tristan said as he and Jayden opened a cabinet and checked computer components. “This is next, next generation super-computer stuff.”
Jayden nodded. “But how could she procure technology which shouldn’t exist?”
“I think she builds it herself.” I shrugged. “It doesn’t look that different from other computers.”
“But it is. Inside.” Tristan carefully closed a cabinet door. “You know what this means?”
“My aunt went insanely overboard?”
Tristan’s eyes sparkled with excitement. “That, and this system is not only faster and smarter, almost Artificial Intelligence kind of stuff, it’s also,” he paused as if waiting for a drumroll then whispered the next word like it was the answer to the universe, “untraceable. Even to the Mandatum.” He dug in his pocket and pulled out the Mandatum tracker that had come off the lava gorilla demon. “I can find who last checked this out.”
“Finally, some good news.” Too exhausted for enthusiasm, I motioned for Ayden to take a seat. “Wait here. I’ll get my dad. Tristan, hack away.”
“With pleasure.” Tristan rubbed his hands together then cracked his knuckles as he sat at the big desk, Jayden hanging over his shoulder. Tristan tossed the tracker to Logan. “Find the serial number.”
I looked around. “Where’s Matthias?”
The door to the kitchen burst open and Aunt M cried, “Ah ha!”
Tristan spun, fell out of the chair and onto his back, then raised his hands. “Aurora said I could touch it!”
Logan dropped the tracker and joined the rest of the boys who were backing toward the door.
“What are you doing here?” Aunt M demanded.
“Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to ruin the surprise.”
“No, I mean…” Aunt M roamed squinty eyes across the group, then jabbed a finger at me. “You didn’t sneak out?”
I paled. “Well, duh. I’m right here.”
Not exactly a lie.
“Oh.” M pushed her glasses up her nose. “Ummm, might want to go tell your parents that. I already sounded the alarm.”
“M!”
“I saw an empty bed,” she said unapologetically. “Teenagers are rash, self-indulgent, and irresponsible. They don’t consider the long-term consequences of their actions on themselves or others, so I thought you were out doing something stupid with your boyfriend.” She lifted a shoulder. “Or kidnapped.”
I heard the thumping of angry parent feet above. Great.
Aunt M gasped. “Holy hackers, Batman.”
Tristan’s hands were up again. “I didn’t do it!”
M gave him a pained look as she waddled past and tried to lean over, her hand reaching down.
For the tracker.
I scurried over and picked it up. “It’s nothing, Aunt M. I’ll throw it away.”
“Don’t you dare!” She snatched it from my hands. “Oh, it’s off.” M laughed with more than a touch of hysteria. “Didn’t think I brought any of these with me. Pregnancy. Fries the brain.”
“This thing is yours?” I tried to snatch the tracker back, but M stashed it the one place I wouldn’t go. Her bra.
“One of my many patented devices. Nobody else has them. Or can duplicate my special blend. I’ll take care of it.”
She headed back into the house. With the only credible lead I had on the traitor who was trying to assassinate me. The boys shared my panicked look.
“M, wait!” I rushed after her through the kitchen door.
Dad, his hair sticking out in every direction, was grabbing the phone. “I’ll call Sheriff Payne!”
“Then Interpol!” Mom screeched. “They might have her out of the country by now!”
“Dad!” I caught his wrist.
Dad stopped mid-dial. Mom dropped the car keys and purse.
“Oh, yeah,” M said as she passed them, “Aurora was in the garage.”
Dad gave her a hard look. “You didn’t think to check before waking me up telling me my daughter was off making me a grandfather?”
“How could I know she’d be ruining my surprise by playing with my work of art? She failed her computer class.”
“I got a B!”
“B-minus. That’s failing. And that would look good compared to what your grades look like now thanks to the Hex Boys.”
Oron’s wails carried through the house.
“Fantastic.” Mom flung off her jacket and trudged upstairs.
Dad’s voice was rougher than his morning stubble. “M, you’ve seriously got to—”
“Pee.” Aunt M patted her stomach. “Baby on my bladder.” She waddled out.
I went after her, scrambling for a plan to get the tracker back, but Dad stepped in front of me and caught my shoulders.
“We may have overreacted,” he said. “But let’s turn this into a positive opportunity to have a little heart-to-heart. I know we’ve had The Talk before.”
Oh, no.
“Dad, I’ve really got to talk to Aunt M.” I side-stepped him.
He blocked me. “And your mom’s been encouraging you to be open to your feelings and trust the love.”
“Yeah, we covered all that.”
“But I just wanted to say that sometimes, at your age, love can often be confused with,” he looked me dead in the eye, “lust.”
Oh, God.
“Dad, please,” I choked.
He wandered the kitchen. “I was a teenage boy once, too, and I know how they—”
“Ew. Just stop.” I glanced at the door to the garage. It was c
losed. But…did I hear snickering? “You don’t have to worry.”
“Not that Ayden’s a bad guy. But he is a guy and you’re a beautiful girl and in the heat of the moment…”
If he only knew the irony of that statement.
I slapped my hands over my ears. “Lalalalalalala.”
“Fine, fine. But you know what I’m saying. I want you to know that you can talk to me about anything. Even…” he took a deep breath, “sex.”
“Dad!”
I opened the door to the garage, ignored the boys’ vast ranges of amusement — of course they’d heard every humiliating word — and pointed at Ayden, slumped and pale, his shirt stained dark red.
“He’s bleeding.”
Ayden’s smile was weak. “It’s nothing, sir.”
Dad’s face went eerily neutral.
“Well, son, good thing you’re a doctor. Oh, right. You’re not. I am.” Dad’s voice was rimmed with steel. “Which makes you the patient and me in charge. Aurora, get my medical bag. Boys, get him in a chair at the table.” Dad went to the sink and started washing his hands. “Because I’m willing to risk my entire career on the rash diagnosis that that,” he indicated Ayden’s chest, “isn’t nothing.”
Chapter Eighty-Two
With Oron asleep on Lucian’s shoulder, the Lahey clan, minus Selena and Aunt M, along with the Hex Boys, minus Matthias, formed a quiet semi-circle behind Dad to watch him put the final touches on Ayden’s wounds.
This wasn’t how I’d dreamed of enjoying the sight of Ayden’s half-naked form. Nope, the fantasy hadn’t included the gaping crowd. And for that matter, it didn’t have Dad treating Ayden for Aurora-inflicted, life-threatening injuries.
I felt like a walking death-ray.
But I felt a whole lot better with Dad caring for the injuries. I knew he’d save the day.
So with worry somewhat assuaged, I bit my lip and let my gaze travel over Ayden’s shirtless physique, a welcome distraction from the sinking abyss of guilt.
As Dad worked on the wounds, which were mostly concentrated on his upper chest, Ayden tensed often, giving me a delightful view of the multitude of muscles that ripped his body into knee-weakening gorgeous. Sculpted biceps. Broad shoulders. Abs worthy of Michelangelo’s chisel.