by RM Walker
Matt was glad he’d escaped. How the hell she made that connection baffled him.
“We good?”
Matt heard the wariness in Nate’s voice. He had to get this together, it had eaten him alive the other day when he’d stuffed up. And yet, here he was doing the same again.
He dropped his forehead to the table with a bump. “Nate, just kill me. I’m being an asshole again.”
“No, you’re not. Any other girl and I’d say it wasn’t worth it. If it’d been Connie—well, no, that’s just—no. I don’t even want to imagine that. Lily’s special, Matt. It’s more than I thought it could be. She connects with us on a level that makes me feel as if—” He was lost for words, but Matt knew what he meant.
“She feels like home. I’m turning into a girl saying that.”
Nate chuckled. “Let’s not mention this again out loud, but yeah, she’s our home, Matt.” He held up his fist and Matt bumped his against it.
A high-pitched squeal followed by the cackling laughter of the twins and the sound of thundering feet on the floor above made Matt laugh. “I don’t think I want to know.”
“Just put it down to them being a sandwich short of a picnic.” Nate opened the other pizza box.
“Yeah, we’ve known that for years,” Matt replied.
“What’ve you known for years?” Josh asked as they came into the kitchen, Lily close behind.
“That you two are bonkers,” Nate said.
Matt ignored the twins, concentrating only on Lily, her head was down and her cheeks a flaming red. He heard Nate shift beside him, and he looked at him briefly.
“I won’t mess up again,” he whispered.
Nate nodded and reached for a slice of pizza.
“Sorry to say this, guys, but we ate the pizza. Lily, we saved you a slice, but the twins will have to lick the boxes.” Matt kept his eyes on her until she finally looked up and he winked at her.
She smiled shyly, and he winked again, grinning at her. He just had time to turn before she was on his lap, her arms around his neck, kissing his cheek.
Yes, he could do this. He could let go of his jealousy because she loved him as well.
Stalemate
They’d moved to the living room after clearing up and she sat on Matt’s lap while they chatted about football. Watching paint dry was more interesting than football, so she snuggled into Matt and zoned out.
She was drifting when she realised she hadn’t told them what happened with Drew. She sat up, resting her hand on Matt’s shoulder to balance herself. “I forgot, there’s something I wanted to talk to you all about.”
“Go for it,” Jake said.
“After you left last night, from the pub, I went to Drew’s.”
“Why?” Nate demanded, pushing his glasses up his nose.
That wasn’t what she wanted to tell them, so she ignored the question. “He knew that I didn’t know whether to trust him or Jonas.”
“You told him his name?” Nate’s glasses came off.
“No. Of course I didn’t. We call Jonas Subject B.”
“What?” Jake squinted at her and pulled a face at Josh.
“I’m Subject X, Jonas is Subject B and Drew is Subject D when we talk about it now.”
“Why?” Matt looked as confused at the others.
“It doesn’t get confusing then.” She bounced on his lap “Guys, please, that’s not the issue right now.”
“Okay, okay.” Nate slid his glasses on. “What is then?”
“Well, there’s several things really. I asked him if he was lying. He said he wasn’t.”
“That’s pretty much what we’d expect,” Jake pointed out.
“What do you know about Blood Magic?”
“You can do quite a lot with it,” Jake said.
“He told me we were linked because we share blood. He had a book on Blood Magic. It showed how to do this spell.
“You don’t need to be bound to use Blood Magic,” Matt said.
“No. So, anyway, we did it.”
“Did what?” Josh demanded.
“The magic. We set up candles, so he could prove it wasn’t a trick. He lied and showed me what happened, and then he told the truth and the blood didn’t react. He tried it on me and the candle always knew if I was telling the truth.”
“It was the blood that knew if you were telling the truth,” Matt said.
“What did you ask him?” Jake asked.
“If I could trust him, he said yes, and nothing happened.”
“He’s tricky, it’s possible to not tell the truth without lying,” Josh pointed out.
“He said that before we started. That I had to be very careful how I worded things. He got me to rethink my first few questions because he said he could get around them without lying. I got it in the end, and I believe him when he said he’s never lied to me. I can trust him, I know I can.”
“All right, what else did you ask him?” Nate didn’t seem convinced, and it irritated her.
“If he’d been kept from seeing me, and if the Council still exists.”
“What did he say?” Matt prompted her, his hand on her lower back.
“He said he was kept from me, and the Council does exist, that it will always exist in one form or another.” She watched them looked between each other. “There’s something else. He doesn’t think Jonas is dangerous, but he is lying to you.”
“No.” Nate shook his head. “You heard him yourself. Jonas has us protected and just forgot to tell us.”
“You may have asked it in such a way that he was able to word it without making the blood react,” Matt said.
“Why?” She threw her hands up. “For what reason?”
“How about to make you trust him and not us?” Jake suggested, arching an eyebrow at her.
“I trust you, I told him that. It’s him and Jonas I didn’t trust. But now I know that I can trust Drew. He also said Jonas tried to warn me away from you by the tiles on the Scrabble board.”
“No, that’s just ridiculous. You did it, you arranged the tiles subconsciously,” Nate insisted.
“Why would he warn you away from us?” Jake demanded.
“Because he thought I was a threat to you, that I’d break his cover over you and expose you. But it’s okay, you can tell Jonas that Drew’s put his cloaking device over me. If the Council come here they’d only see me as his daughter, with his bloodline of magic and nothing more. And they wouldn’t detect you at all.”
“What the—look, Jonas said the Council is no more, we have no reason to disbelieve him. Drew on the other hand...” Matt left it hanging but she knew what he meant.
“He hates the Council, he told me why. He worked for them. They told him who to kill, the ones the witch-hunters couldn’t touch.” Frustration joined irritation; they wouldn’t even consider it.
“Why would Jonas lie to us? He had the perfect chance to tell us. You were there! He wasn’t vague about anything, he answered our questions without hesitation.” Nate was getting just as irritated.
“Maybe...” She hesitated and then ploughed on. “Maybe he’s lying about it all because it has something to do with why he’s here.”
“What? Why? That makes no sense.” Nate’s voice rose, and she could feel how tense Matt was.
“Get him to do the blood magic with you,” she suggested.
“We don’t need to do that.” Josh slung his arm around Jake’s shoulder. “We don’t see why he’d have spent so long keeping us in the dark if we were in danger.”
“Well, I don’t know about that. You’d need to ask him.”
Nate folded his arms, his body language telling her he’d stopped listening to her. He wasn’t going to even think about what she was saying. She wanted to tell them about what she’d done, how she’d lost control and hurt Drew, but she knew if she told them he’d frightened her they’d use it against him.
“Did you ask about the Alchemy?” Matt asked her.
“No, I forg
ot about it.” She saw the look that passed between the twins, and she knew they’d never believe him over Jonas.
“Maybe it’s a misunderstanding.” Matt shrugged. “Maybe there’s two Councils and it’s all just a case of confusion.”
She didn’t need to look at Nate to know what he thought, the loud snort was enough.
“Let’s drop it,” Josh suggested. “At the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter.”
“Of course, it matters,” Nate snapped. “We don’t know the real reason Drew is here. Did you ask him that?”
“He’s here because he wants to be my dad? Is that so hard to believe? That he’d want to be my dad?” Anger and hurt washed over her as she struggled to get up from Matt’s lap.
He caught her waist and hoisted her back. “No. That’s not what we’re saying. We just meant that there’s more to just his wanting to see you.”
“How can you possible know that?” she demanded.
No one spoke, and she huffed her breath out. “Look, at first you thought he was hitting on me, didn’t you?”
“It looked like it, and I still stand by that,” Nate answered her.
“He did look as if he was hitting on you,” Matt agreed.
“We didn’t see, so we’re out of this equation,” Jake said, and they sank back into the opposite sofa, glued together.
“Well, maybe he did, maybe he didn’t. I didn’t get weird vibes from it—”
“Yes, you did. You said his eyes were lifeless, soulless,” Nate corrected her.
“He probably got a shock bumping into me,” she said. “He did look blank, but what I’m saying is, I didn’t get any creepy guy vibes.”
“Creepy guy vibes?” Jake pulled a face in confusion.
“Yeah, y’know, when a guy hits on you and you can sense there’s something creepy.”
“Can’t say we’ve ever been hit on by a guy.” Jake smirked at her.
“What I’m trying to say is that maybe your suspicions of Drew stem from that. And my suspicions of Jonas stem from him nearly killing me.”
“He didn’t nearly kill you,” Nate scoffed.
“Tell that to my brain cells that withered and died in excruciating pain,” she retorted.
Nate drew a breath to speak but Matt spoke first, “I think the twins are right. Maybe we should forget the whole thing and concentrate on us as a family.”
Nate looked at him in surprise and then slumped, pulling a face. “Agreed,” he grunted.
“Yeah, sounds good to us,” Jake said.
Matt shook his head at Nate, and she knew they weren’t going to push it with Jonas. They were at a stalemate.
“Fine.” If they didn’t want to discuss it, she wouldn’t discuss it.
“Let’s watch a film,” Josh said, and picked up the remote.
The twins had one thing right though, she needed to concentrate on them as a family. It wasn’t just Jonas and Drew who were causing problems either.
“Are you okay? Y’know, with your dad and that,” she asked Matt, turning to see him better.
He put a hand on the back of her neck and kissed her forehead. “I’m fine, more than fine,” he said against her skin. “It’s going to be okay, Lily Flower. As long as I’ve got you.”
“You’ll always have me and them.”
Nate and the twins argued over which film to watch. Matt snuggled down, and she relaxed into him.
She couldn’t convince them about Jonas, but that wasn’t going to stop her from digging to find out what he was hiding. She’d get Drew to teach her everything he knew, every secret spell, every dark magic. And if anything, or anyone, did come for her boys she’d be ready to protect them.
New favourite sound
The lights were out, and the fire had died in the hearth. There was no sign of Lynda when they got to her cottage.
“Where is she?” Matt asked, watching her take out her phone.
“I don’t know. Great. Batteries dead.” She plugged it into the charger and switched it on. “She did have to go into town—oh! There’s a message here. She texted at five this afternoon. Listen:
Something has come up and I won’t be back till the morning. I rang June and left a message asking her to put you up for the night. I haven’t heard from her yet. contd.
She opened the next text and read it out.
I expect it will be fine. If not maybe one of the cousins could put you up. Sorry, I thought I’d be back sooner. Ring me if you need me. Love you lots.
“Where did she go? London?” He was surprised she’d go out, leaving Lily to fend for herself.
“Just into town, or at least that’s what she said. I’ll tell her it’s fine. She doesn’t know about your dad, but it’s okay. I’ll be fine on my own,” she said, tapping out a reply.
“Not happening.” Matt knelt by the fireplace, arranging the wood. “I’ll get the fire going and then call the others to come up.”
“You don’t have to. I’ll be fine here.”
“I know you will. But I won’t be fine knowing you’re here,” he replied.
“The twins were almost asleep on their feet when we left. Nate’s no better.”
“They won’t mind.” He set the last piece of coal and got up.
“Will they mind if you stay here with me, just the two of us?”
“They’d kill me if I left you here alone. And I can’t take you with me.” He swallowed, would it get any easier?
He’d had time to think about it. He still didn’t agree with his father, but he knew that they’d struggle if he lost his seat.
She lifted her hands and cupped his cheeks, tears brimming in her eyes, and he knew it was for him. He smiled at her, sliding his fingers from her lips into her hair. “I would never deliberately do anything to hurt either of them, or his career. But I’m not toeing the party line either. He hasn’t once stopped to think how it affected you. He didn’t care how we were treating you, he only cared about being caught. He didn’t care that I love you.”
“Adam said your dad loves you, Matt. He—”
“He said he was proud of me. Proud of my grades, proud that I’ve not turned into a drug addicted yob who’d cost him his seat. He’s not proud of me now, but I’m okay with that.” Well, he wasn’t, but he hoped he would be eventually.
“I love you.” She stepped closer keeping eye contact. “Stay with me tonight? I don’t know if I’m ready to—”
“Hush. No more worry, angst, or seriousness for tonight. I want to hold you all night, nothing more than that.” Tears welled in her eyes, and his stomach dropped. “Why are you crying?”
“Because I love you so much,” she said, wiping her face.
“Loving me brings you to tears?” He was confused now.
“I’m upset because you’re upset, but I’m happy because I love you so much, so I’m crying.”
“That’s confusing, I don’t get it. Mum only cries when she’s unhappy.”
“I’m sorry, just ignore me.” She wiped away a few more tears.
“Never. I don’t get it, but I’ll never ignore it or you.”
She sobbed, a few more tears escaped, and his bafflement increased.
“Didn’t Connie cry?” she asked.
“No, not that I ever saw.” He handed her a tissue from the box on the table. “Is it your monthly thing?”
“No. I’ve never cried so much before coming here. I didn’t know how emotional I could be.” She wiped her face with the tissue.
“You’re just tired.” He stepped back from her, curling his hands into fists by his sides. “I shouldn’t have said that, I’m sorry.” Damn, he was a first-class idiot sometimes.
“What? Why not? You’re probably right, I’m shattered.”
“He’d shout it at Mum, when she’d confront him. He’d say she was just tired and being silly.”
“It’s not the same, Matt.” She closed the distance and caught his cheeks again. “He was trying to minimize what he’d done, you were po
inting out a fact. Don’t second guess what you say to me. If I don’t like it, I’ll tell you, and you’ll do the same, won’t you?”
“Yeah, I will.” He’d had enough talking for the night, he just wanted to lie down, cuddle her close to him and sleep. “C’mon, we’re both knackered. Let’s go up to bed.”
She took his hand and led him towards the spiral staircase.
SHE CAME STUMBLING in, her eyes half closed. “When I’m made queen, first rule will be to make it illegal to rise any earlier than nine o’clock.” She fell face first onto the bed, her head buried in the pillows.
Matt laughed, tugging his shirt on. “Six is not early.”
She turned her head, sleepy eyes peering at him through a tangle of hair. “There’s only one six o’clock in a day, and this isn’t it.”
“Nuh huh, rise and shine.” He turned to her, but her eyes were closed.
She’d slept from the moment he’d wrapped her into his arms last night, to when the alarm clock went off ten minutes ago. He’d used the bathroom and then shook her awake. It’d been funny watching her stumble from the bed, looking like the walking dead. She’d been no more awake when she’d come back in and collapsed onto the bed splayed out. Her shorts were hitched up and her t-shirt twisted, revealing a good portion of her back. Her legs were as pale as her arms and there was a scar on the back of her thigh. He traced it with his finger, and she grunted, flopping onto her back, tiny grunts coming from her open mouth.
The chance was too good to miss, and he grabbed his phone to take a picture of her. Her hair everywhere, mouth open, eyes shut and face relaxed. She was gorgeous.
He set the phone down, his eyes on the bare, smooth skin of her stomach. A surge of desire rushed through him, and he let his hand hover over her skin.
Had the others touched her here yet?
Of course, they had. Nate didn’t change his sweats because they’d been doing homework yesterday. He waited for the same jealousy he’d felt then, but it didn’t come.
“You can touch me.”
He jumped looking up at her. Her eyes were half closed, a smile curved her lips, and his heart missed a beat. He wasn’t jealous because she owned him as much as she owned them.