by Stacy Lee
“Why has he had five? Wouldn’t he just stay somewhere he liked?” She shakes her head.
“Can’t. The enemy figures out where it is and attacks or the humans become suspicious of the concealed area. The Fairies put a spell on our lands making any humans who come here forget what they were doing and leave. This place has been here too long as is. Almost thirty years. Usually he only stays around ten or so but he really likes it here. I think he has been leaning towards California for the next move. It’s been a long time since he was out that way.” California? Wow, another beach. If I had a choice I would pick the mountains of Colorado, but then again they are very cold during the winter months so maybe California or even Florida wouldn’t be so bad. I’ve always wanted to see Florida.
“When will he move it?” I hoped it wasn’t soon. I hadn’t even learned this one yet. Matter of fact I haven’t been out of the room since we got here. That subtle agitation I’m experiencing settles deeper to burrow under my skin. I rub my arms absently to brush off the feeling.
“Whenever he has to probably. We’ve been here so long there is no doubt everyone knows where to find us by now, so it probably will be within the next couple years. Anyway, I got off topic. Okay welcome to The Beyers Brothers 101. Are you ready?” Her smile widens.
“Sure. Should I get paper to take notes?” She takes in my serious expression and snorts out a laugh.
“If you want to but I don’t think you’ll need it.” That’s what she thinks. I have never been good with memorization. I’ve never been good with much but I made it work. I studied my ass off around the beatings, cooking, cleaning, farm chores and graduated eleventh in my class. I had wanted tenth but I just wasn’t smart enough, just like Uncle said. I was an unwanted worthless brat. Always had been, always would be. I sigh with my thoughts. I needed to stop this. I would never get anywhere like this. I could do this, there were only five of them.
“Okay. If I get confused you will just have to say it again while I write it down.” She arches a brow at me but continues.
“Deal. Archer is the oldest at nine hundred and seventeen.” I gasp, holy hell that’s old! “Yeah, I know, he’s really old. He is the most passive of the six and he tends to hold everyone together. He tries to avoid confrontation most of the time. Archer has what the boys call ‘The Big Brother Power’. It was actually a gift from the Fairy Queen bestowed on him at birth, all the brothers have one. Archer’s is mental abilities. He can literally make the other five, or anybody else for that matter, do anything he wants them to. He doesn’t use it often but when he does it usually ends up with someone being embarrassed.” I remember Dare saying something about this when he explained. His was earth, I think. Cash’s was fire? Ugh, just the name of the man with the two toned eyes makes me shutter in fear.
“Wait, I don’t understand. How can he make them do something they don’t want to do?” I ask, returning to the subject at hand. I’d have time to worry about my fear of Cash soon enough.
“Um…. Oh, I know. I have read some of your Human Mythology books, do you know anything about Alpha Shifters and how he can make the pack follow his commands because he is Alpha?” Her eyes gleam with humor.
“Well, I read this book once about werewolves. The Alpha was powerful. If he told them they couldn’t say something then they literally couldn’t say it. Like it wouldn’t leave their mouth no matter what they tried.” It had been a good read but at the time I thought it was fiction. How wrong was I there!
“Yes! That’s sort of the same thing Archer can do. If say Fin and Dare are fighting and he says ‘stop’ with power behind it then they have to stop. No matter what they do they can’t fight it. Understand now?” Maybe.
“Yes. But how does stopping a fight embarrass someone?” She lost me there.
“Oh, it doesn’t. Archer is the one who embarrasses them. He has a twisted since of humor. Since their mom died right after Fin was born and their dad had died not a month before that, the five were left raising Fin and Archer governed them all. With Archer being the oldest he took on most of the responsibility, meaning he turned into the disciplinarian. Archer doesn’t just punish you for what you did, he makes you learn your lesson. Jack told me about this one time that Fin and Emmitt caught Dare and um….” Her face turns beet red surprising me. She has talked about sex so much I couldn’t imagine what could bring this on. I thought about her words, caught Dare and….Then I could see it.
“Dare and a woman?” I ask to her relieved nod. “He is five hundred I know he has been with women, it’s okay.” And yet, it wasn’t. White hot jealousy flares to life through me eliciting me to shift uncomfortably on the couch. I was already irrationally aggravated and irritated for no reason at all, causing me to not feel like myself, now this. Oblivious she continues.
“Oh, thank goodness. I thought I just screwed up. I know Jack had been with women before me but if you would tell me about one I would be pissed and insanely jealous, it doesn’t matter it was two hundred years ago and the woman is dead now.” Her body shivers with the thought. Oh good, this was normal. I relax a little with her words but they don’t have any effect on the aggravation.
“Anyway they caught them in a pond screwing around and thought it would be funny to steal their clothes. Well, Dare, being Dare and always having to be in control, was not happy with this turn of events. The woman was human and back then you didn’t just screw around without consequences, the women couldn’t anyway. So there they were finished and without clothing. Dare had to run naked to the compound, which was over five miles away, to get a set of clothes for them. He had to leave the girl in the pond hiding behind a bush in case anyone came by. She was hysterical when he left her which drove Dare even crazier. You can’t control a hysterical woman. By the time he got the girl home, in someone else’s clothes, her father was livid. He actually slugged Dare! And he had to let him, the man was human, after all, Dare couldn’t do anything but take it! When Dare got back and found out it was them that took the clothes he went to Archer to let him dole out the punishment.” At this point she is dragging in breaths trying to keep talking without rolling on the floor in laughter.
“Archer forced both of them to go an entire day naked except for a blue bow he had them tie around their manhood’s. It was before I came, but damn, I would have loved to have seen that!” She couldn’t hold it in anymore and I gleefully joined her. Just the thought of the strong men I saw in the field of flowers walking around with a bow tied around their members made it harder to be scared of them.
“Okay, so Archer is a nine hundred and seventeen year old pacifist and a hell of a disciplinarian that keeps them all glued together. Got it. Now Bane was next, right?” I ask when we finally can breathe again and our tears dry up.
Trying to think of a way to keep myself from running screaming from the room when the brothers enter I start a game I played in school when I had to deal with boys. A way to make them less scary was to give them names or descriptions that would make me laugh. Archer would be a gooey hippie with a bow in his hand. That will help when he is staring me down at lunch.
“I didn’t say he was a pacifist just that he was the most passive of the bunch. There’s a difference.” She corrects. A hippie would still work. “Yes, next is Bane who is eight hundred and forty-five. He’s harder to get a grip on. Bane controls air. He can control the winds, storms, drop or raise the temperature in a room at will, anything involving the air surrounding us, he can do it. He is undoubtedly the strategic one. He sees patterns, rhythms, and answers in everything. He is also a musical genius. He can play any instrument you put in front of him. If you ever get a chance get him to play the piano for you. It’s breathtaking.” She sighs dreamily before catching herself and continuing.
“Unless you like the violin, drums, guitar, cello, trumpet or any other instrument better. Those are just as good but my favorite is the piano. He is also the sweetheart of the bunch. He is always polite, he will comfort anyone in need of it, and I
have literally seen him give a homeless human the shirt off his back before. He is a doll.” Her face softens as she talks about him. She really cared for him. It sounded like she cared about all of them. I didn’t know Angie well but I got the sense she was a good caring person. If she thought they were good men then they couldn’t be as bad as I feared them to be. Could they?
Bane could be a shirtless china doll playing the piano. Doll or not, shirtless wouldn’t calm me. No, I better put his shirt back on him and put a picture of the Fibonacci Spiral on the front of it for his strategies.
“Next is Cash.” I remember Cash very well from The Choosing. Even in that dream state he scared me to death. “Six hundred and eighty. He controls fire. His body temp always run hotter than the rest of us so don’t be surprised if he is hot to the touch. I’ve always wondered if when you drink his blood was it warmer than everyone else’s?” She shrugs however curiosity is alight in her eyes.
“Cash is the ultimate soldier. Nothings soft about Cash. His eyes are hard, his voice is demanding, his hair is even stiff and prickly. However, the man can sing like an angel. I could sit and listen to him sing for hours. He only does it on special occasions but when he does, man. You have been truly blessed. He also has a weak spot for brownies. I swear he could eat an entire pan of brownies in a matter of seconds. The last ones I made him he brought the pan back to me in ten minutes and he even cleaned it! So you know he demolished them in like three minutes, then three to wash the pan and four more to bring it to me.” She giggles.
The ultimate soldier who could sing like an angel and loved brownies, maybe he would be less intimidating if I made brownies for lunch. I could picture him in uniform with wings and chocolate smeared across his face, his finger in his mouth and a bowl full of brownie batter tucked in his arm. I fight a giggle of my own.
“And of course Dare is next. He is five hundred and two. Then Emmitt is four hundred and twenty nine.” I interrupt her.
“Wait. Archer has alpha powers and a wicked sense of humor, Bane can play instruments and Cash can sing. Is there something Dare does?” How embarrassing I don’t know this. I slept with him and I don’t know if he has a hobby! She eyes me for a minute before continuing.
“Oh yes. Ask him to show you his sketches or paintings. He is a fabulous artist.” I nod. She opens her mouth, closes it, then opens it again only to close it once more. Something flashes in her eyes as she studies me. It only takes a second before that something turns to understanding then determination.
“He controls earth although out of all the brothers he uses his gifts least of all. Even small magic he has issues with. The man has been having a love affair with his sword and dagger for so long he would prefer not to use anything else. He only shifts when he is against other shifters and he is alone or caught away from the other brothers. Unlike Emmitt who would prance around in animal form all the time if we let him. As you know Dare is a control freak, which makes him good at hunting down and killing those who break the law. He is an exceptional tracker.” Her eyes dart to the bookshelf against the far wall.
I hadn’t paid much attention to it and the large leather-bound books there but now I can see they are all titles that had to do with the legal system. Some would probably send the human Congress into a fit of hysterics if they knew they existed. For example, ‘Fairy High Council do’s and don’ts’, ‘Shifters: Breeds born and made”, ‘Vanishing Vampires’ and more.
“All the boys know the laws backwards and forwards but Dare is the unofficial lawyer of our race. You have a question if it’s legal, ask Dare. He is also the hardest to warm up to or get to know. Cash seems cold but you get used to his brisk attitude after a while. Dare makes people uncomfortable because he talks in commands. Nothing is asked, it’s ordered. He’s also private. It takes an act of congress to get him to talk about himself. He’s a great guy though, if you can get past these quirks of his.” I realize as she speaks her struggle had been over whether or not to tell me about him or skip to Emmitt. I’m glad she decided to talk. She told me more about him in three minutes than I’ve learned from him in three days.
“Thank you. Now, back to Emmitt.” I wave her to continue, suddenly fighting a rolling wave of nausea deep in my gut.
“It’s alright. Ask anything you want. I know them all pretty well. Emmitt was blessed with water. Well, liquids, it doesn’t have to be water. He could raise the ocean, cause a whirlpool, or pull rain from rainless clouds. Or he can direct the coke in your cup to jump out and fill his cup.” She shrugs but the disgruntled look says he’s done this to her, more than once.
“Emmitt is the genius of the bunch. He has multiple degrees in electronics and medicine. He has others too but he doesn’t share those details with me, I don’t even know if the brothers know how many he has now. He can design the most amazing weapons, computer programs, vehicles, modify helicopters, and he is an electronics genius. He also likes to carve little statues out of drift wood.” Her eyes soften as she raises her arm to show me a charm bracelet on her wrist.
One charm is not silver but wooden. It is the most intricate little turtle I have ever seen. Its shell has a swirl pattern that had to have taken him hours to complete. It was beautiful. “He gave me this as a birthday present last year. I love turtles, if you can’t tell.” She grins and fingers the charms. I notice for the first time they are all turtles, not just the one. Turtles in every shape, size and design.
A genius who carves beautiful things. Maybe if I picture him as a turtle sitting on a piece of driftwood on the beach with a bow taped to his back. I couldn’t forget the bow!
“And last, but not least, is Fin. Who is three hundred and ninety nine. Fin was blessed with the physical aspect of things. He can turn any object into another as long as that object is the same size or smaller. He can turn a tomato into an orange, a table into a chair, a stack of paper into a book. But he can’t turn a pebble into a brick. Fin is also the class clown. He isn’t happy unless everyone in the room is at least smiling, laughing is better but smiling will do. He is constantly playing practical jokes on the brothers. Never walk into a room before one of them if Fin is snickering behind you. A bucket of water or worse is probably on the other side waiting to drench someone.” She lets herself laugh for a minute at a memory she doesn’t share.
“He can also fix anything mechanical. Cars, planes, boats, trains, motorcycles, he can do it all. A complete grease monkey. He is also a hugger, real touchy-feely type guy. He is a flirt but he keeps it to the single women and only harasses those with mates to get on the mates nerves. So be warned, if he hits on you he is trying to piss off Dare for some reason or another. My suggestion is to ignore him.” Good advice. Besides Dare would probably take his head off for flirting with me. He says I’m his too often not to take offense to something like that. I wouldn’t respond to him flirting in the first place because there was no telling what Dare would do to me if I did. Fear and agitation crawl under my skin annoyingly.
“Does he have a hobby too? Like the art or singing?” I ask curious. They all had something to relax them, Fin was bound to have a hobby.
“He is the most amazing chef. He loves to cook. When we have group meals or celebrations he is always in charge of the food. Do you like pasta?” I nod. “If he ever offers to cook for you and lets you choose, pick his five cheese ravioli. Oh, my. They will melt in your mouth they are so good.”
Fin will be easy. A monkey in a clown costume holding a cake in the shape of a bow. Then if Dare pisses me off I can pretend he shoves the cake in his face. I grin.
“Fin was taken over a year ago by the head vamp Monty. He was tortured for almost three weeks before the boys found him. He hasn’t really been the same since but he tries really hard.” She shrugs and looks away dismissing the comment. I let it slide and change the subject.
“The powers given by the Fairy Queen are the six aspects of life?” I ask cautiously not sure if I caught that right,
“The four elements then tw
o extras.” She shrugs not understanding me.
“I realize the four natural elements are there but if you add in Archer and Fin’s you have all six aspects of life. Right?” She cocks her head like she doesn’t get it. “Air, water, fire, earth, mental and physical. Together they cover every aspect of life.” Her face lights up.
“I never thought of it like that. I always wondered why she didn’t repeat two of them beings she normally only gifts the four natural elements. The mental and physical were new. Now I know.” She grins. “So, does that help any?” She looks sympathetically at me. “I understand why you are afraid of men, Marnie. Anyone who has been through what you have would be. But I can tell you the brothers, all six, are really good guys who would never touch a woman that way. If one ever did the other five would kill him, brother or not. Don’t be nervous about meeting them. You’ll be fine.” She pats my hand before standing.
“It did, thanks.” I’m surprised to find it really did help. I was still nervous but now I had a familiar coping mechanism to get through it. I could do this. I just had to not panic. Easier said than done when all six men were at least a foot and a half taller than me and stronger. Much stronger.
“No problem. That’s what friends are for. Now go take your shower, I held you up long enough. Find me later and let me know how it goes.” She winks and turns towards the door.
“I will.” She waves over her shoulder when she leaves. As soon as she’s gone my agitation from earlier returns full force. I shake my head and return to the restroom. Shutting and locking the door behind me I climb into a nice hot shower. While I’m there I fine tune the pictures in my head of each brother.