Mercy's Destiny (Mercy Ashby Book 2)

by A. M. Hardin

"Interesting," I drawl. "I'm looking forward to what mommy dearest has to say."

  Everyone chuckles, except for Parker who looks pained. "Let's just go," he says after a long minute of silence.

  Parker leads us down several hallways, each one filled with expensive-ass paintings or knick knacks that I know would have been broken a billion times over if they were in my house while I was growing up.

  Before Roderick started training me, I was a klutz and tripped over air. It was bad. Thankfully, I'm cured of that shit now, but seeing all these breakable things around is making me fidgety and nervous that I’m going to revert back to my old clumsiness.

  Parker's hand brushes against mine and links his fingers with mine before he squeezes them reassuringly. "Calm, Mercy," he murmurs softly. "Your heartbeat's going crazy."

  "There's a lot of breakable shit in here, Parker. I feel like I'm one step away from destroying all of it. That kind of feeling is making me fidget. I can't help it."

  He chuckles softly and stops at a set of double doors at the end of the hallways. He knocks twice then opens the door. Still holding my hand he opens the door and leads us inside where a gorgeous woman with long raven-black hair stands at a bookcase, fingering the book spines.

  Her movements cease for the briefest moment, the only indication that she knows we're here. "You dare to bring a half-demon into my home?" she asks, voice hard and chilling my blood.

  7

  Mercy

  Parker lets out a sigh. "It's nice to see you too, mom."

  She scoffs. "If you were home more than once every other month I might just believe that." Turning to face us she crosses her arms across her chest, and her eyes automatically narrow on me. Her attention shifts to my and Parker's joined hands, and she hisses, her face hard. "A half-demon? You cannot be serious, Parker."

  "Mom," Parker says, voice heavy with a warning that says he won't tolerate his mother shitting all over me.

  She glares at me for a long minute before turning her glare to her son. "Why are you here?"

  "I told you we would be here for a few weeks, mom."

  "And you brought a disgusting half-demon here? Why?" Her tone makes it clear that no answer is good enough for her.

  "I've also already answered that question too," he says with a tired sigh.

  She makes a non-committal noise in her throat. "You didn’t tell me she was a half-demon,” she spits. Turning her attention back to me, she says, “You may be welcome in my home now, half-demon, but the only reason you're here and haven't been killed the moment you stepped into my home is because my son is taking responsibility for you."

  I tilt my head as I take in the hatred gleaming in her eyes, the anger pulsing out of her, so thick it's suffocating. "This hatred you have of half-demons, it's more than just a prejudice isn't it?"

  Parker squeezes my hand in warning, but I ignore it.

  "Listen, I don't know what one of my kind did to make you hate us as much as you appear to, but I'm not going to stand here and let you insult me. I don't give a shit who you are. You can insult me all you like, just don't count on me keeping my mouth shut after this."

  "You dare speak to me like that in my own house?" She seethes taking a step toward me. "You are nothing, little demon spawn. Nothing but a waste of my time. Leave now."

  "We're not leaving, mom," Parker speaks up when I open my mouth to tell her where she can shove it. I'm thankful he and the rest of the guys kept their mouth shut while I was talking to her. She needs to understand that I won’t hide behind her son.

  "You don't have to, but I don't want it here," she hisses, her silver eyes turning red as her anger rises.

  I bite my lip to hide the smile I can feel wanting to escape. "Yeah, calling me an 'it' doesn't really mean shit. No one in this room is human, so don't we all kind of qualify as an 'it'?"

  "Mercy," Parker scolds in my head, "you're not helping."

  "We've got enough crap to deal with than your mother taking whatever shots she thinks she can at me, Parker. It's better that she realize now that she won't, and can't, intimidate me."

  Parker's mom opens her mouth but doesn't get a chance to speak before I interrupt her. "Look, I'm not here to be a pain in your ass. I'm not here to do whatever it is you think my kind are notorious for doing. I'm just here because this is where Parker and the rest of the guys believe is safest. I'm sure we can manage to get along for the short time we'll be here. Then I'll be out of your hair and you'll probably never see me again."

  Someone snorts from behind me, and I think it's War.

  "Probably?" she sneers.

  "Yeah, there's no telling what the future is. Contrary to what a lot of our world believes it is not set in stone. So, yeah, probably."

  She glowers at me. "Fine. Let me get one thing straight here first, my son is not one of your playthings. You will keep your hands," her eyes dart to our joined hands then come back to me, "to yourself."

  I raise a brow. "I'm pretty sure I don't consider people 'playthings'. Just as I'm also pretty sure that your son is a grown man who doesn't need his mommy telling him who he can and can't play with on the playground."

  She steps directly into my personal space. "You little bi–"

  "Mom!" Parker snaps. "Enough. You've said your piece, and Mercy's said her’s. Back off."

  "Mercy?" she asks, eyeing me up and down and then she chuckles, a dark sound that grates on my nerves. "Of course. You're the one the supernatural world is in a buzz about, aren’t you? It figures that you'd be a disrespectful little shit."

  "In order to get respect, you need to give respect. You've shit on me since the moment you scented me. That doesn't gain respect in my book."

  "Oh? What about respect for your elders, little girl?" Her face turns into an ugly scowl when I laugh.

  "Woman, I don't treat people with respect until they show a little in return. So tuck your bitch back in, and then maybe we'll actually get along."

  "Alright, enough of this," Hunter says from directly behind me. He places his hand on my shoulder and steps around me, forcing Parker's mom to step away. "Bianca, you and Mercy will be at this shit all night if we let it happen. I sure as shit don't want to waste more of my life listening to you insult Mercy. I'm fairly certain the rest of my team feels the same, including your son."

  Bianca looks at Parker, and I see him nod his head in my peripherals. She inhales deeply then lets out the breath slowly. "Fine. I'll play nice. For now."

  "Big of you," I mutter under my breath, barely audible, but I know Parker hears me because he snorts a laugh and tries covering it with a cough.

  "Parker knows where the guest wing is, you'll all stay there." Preferably away from my son.

  She didn't say it, but the implication was there in her tone. Jesus. Mommy dearest really doesn't want me around her little boy.

  I don't wait for any more words to be exchanged, I turn, pulling Parker with me and walk out of the office. "Where are we going?"

  Parker chuckles and takes the lead, pulling me down the hallway into a corridor of the huge-ass house that looks like it's kind of abandoned. "Here." He gestures to the door beside him. "You can stay in here, Mercy."

  "Your mom is something else," I comment as he opens the door and ushers me inside. I raise a brow at the extravagance of the "guest room".

  "I did try to warn you," he says, a smile playing at his lips as the guys chuckle.

  I shrug. "It's not anything I haven't dealt with before. It's also not the worst I've heard. I'm used to it." Doesn't make it any less annoying, though.

  "We'll all be in rooms surrounding yours, so we're not separated," Parker explains as he turns to leave.

  "Wow, your mom is letting you sleep near the filthy half-demon?" I ask with a grin. "Bet you she loves that idea."

  He chuckles. "She doesn't know, though I'm sure she'll be pissed when she finds out."

  Hunter looks at me over Parker's shoulder. "You're free to explore the house and grounds while we're here,
but only if one of us is with you."

  A growl slips out of my mouth as I narrow my eyes at him. "Seriously? It's supposed to be safe here, why do I need an escort?"

  "It's just a precaution, Mercy," Hunter says, exasperation clear in his tone.

  "Okay, I get that. I really do, but I don't think it's necessary here. Unless you think Torn can get to me here.” He doesn’t say anything. “Do you really think I need an escort?”

  Hunter finally puffs out a breath. “Fine. If anything happens call for one of us immediately. I don’t want to take any chances.”

  I give him a mock salute. “You got it. Now go. I need to be alone for a few minutes.” No one moves. I grind my teeth. “Please?”

  “Alright, guys, just pick your rooms from the ones surrounding this one, then,” Parker says as they all exit my room.

  Once they’re gone and the door is shut, I make my way to the bed and lay on my back. Covering my eyes with my arm, I let out a calming breath.

  So much is happening so fast, and I just don’t know how much more I can process. The bullshit the devil was talking about, my dad being alive, Torn being after me now instead of Payne. The lies and the secrets that the guys are keeping from me when I’ve been nothing but open to them.

  I’d really like to say that it doesn’t matter and that it doesn’t hurt. But it does matter, and it does hurt. I wish Xena had come with us so that I could talk to her in person to figure this shit out.

  “Xena?” I call out to her with my mind, praying like hell we aren’t far enough away that it doesn’t work.

  “Yeah?” Her voice comes back, faint but there.

  “You got a minute to talk?”

  “Of course. I’m assuming you mean talk about whatever’s going on with you and your team?”

  “It’s not really my team,” I point out. “But yeah, that’s what I’m not understanding.”

  “What’s there to understand?”

  “Um, take Talon, for example. Ever since we met, he’s been a dick. He hated me, Xena. Yeah, he eventually started cooling toward me, but, when I was with Payne, it was like a switch flipped in all of them.”

  Her soft laugh echoes in my head. “Mercy, they like you. You already knew that Hunter and War did before you even left for Payne’s, right?”

  “Uh, yeah. How did you know that?”

  “I saw you. You were leaving a room with Hunter, then War came up to you and kissed you. From how cozy you looked with Hunter, it wasn’t hard to guess what had happened between you.”

  “That’s not creepy at all,” I tease.

  “Shut up, you know I can’t control them,” she says with a laugh.

  “I know. But that doesn’t really explain the others.”

  “Mercy, for such a smart girl, you’re pretty dumb.”

  “I am not, I’m just confused.”

  “They all like you. They all want to be with you. And you want to be with all of them,” she adds gently.

  “I-,” I start to deny it but I can’t. “Yeah. You’re right. I just can’t handle the secrets from them. I barely know anything about them except what’s relevant to learn at the time that I fucking learn it.”

  “Mercy, they’re all equally as closed off as you are. They’re probably having just as hard of a time telling you about themselves as you had telling them. They’re also focused on you and your safety right now. Their secrets–their lives before you entered it–haven’t been a factor for them.”

  “I guess.”

  “Don’t give them a hard time, Mercy. They’ll open up to you more and more as time goes on. I promise.”

  I let out a sigh. “Alright. Thanks for talking me out of losing my mind on them.”

  She chuckles. “No problem. I’m helping your mom get Vivian ready for bed, so I’ll talk to you later.”

  “Sounds good.”

  “Patience, Mercy. Drop your anger and your frustration with them. It won’t always be this way.”

  8

  Mercy

  My eyes flick to the side as I walk down one of the many, many hallways that makes Parker's parents’ home. Someone's walking behind me, and from how they're practically stomping around compared to the guys, I know it's not them.

  Careful to not alert whoever it is that's following me to what I'm doing, I undo the clasp to the sheath for my dagger at my hip, wrapping my hand around the hilt. Turning and simultaneously pulling the dagger out of the sheath I press it to the neck of the female following me, before she has a chance to even think about reacting.

  Her silver eyes dance with mischief and laughter as they dance between me and the dagger at her throat. "You're good."

  "Why are you following me?"

  "I wanted to meet the girl that my mom's all pissed off about," she says with a wicked grin. "My mom's losing her damn mind that you're here, but Parker won't hear a word of it."

  I pull the dagger away from her slowly as I study her. She does have a resemblance to Parker, but she's practically Bianca's doppelganger.

  "I wasn't aware that Parker had a sister," I finally say, putting my dagger away.

  "And a brother. But we're not supposed to talk about him. He's an asshole and got kicked out and disowned by our parents, leaving Parker as the heir." She smiles. "You wanna go do something?"

  My brow furrows. She's so . . . happy and energetic. I haven't met anyone like that since I first met Xena when we were younger.

  "Do something? Like what?"

  "I really don't care. Anything. I'm not really allowed to leave the house or the grounds."

  "Why?"

  "Because my mom's paranoid as shit. I lost my guards like a half hour ago. They're probably still looking for me."

  "Your mom has guards on you? In your own house?" I ask confused. Who does that?

  "I know! It's ridiculous. Anyway, come with me, and I'll give you a tour. I'm sure Parker hasn't done that yet. He's been busy trying to get mom to see reason. It's pointless, though, that woman never sees reason."

  "You're very chatty, you know that?" I ask with a smile tugging at my mouth.

  "I have no one to talk to except for stupid bitches and my guards. And they're all old, stuffy, turned vamps that were turned late in their lives. Yeah, I'm in need of a friend," she says with a shrug.

  A chuckle slips out. "Okay, I guess."

  She takes my hand and starts dragging me further down the hall. "I'm Farrah, by the way."

  "Mercy."

  “So, you really pissed my mom off, by the way. It was awesome to hear her bitching about it the next morning. She’s always so cold, and never shows any emotions, but she was supremely pissed about how you were so disrespectful to her.” She pauses as we get outside. “I’m totally not complaining. It was just seriously strange to see my mom so bent out of shape.”

  “Farrah,” Parker drawls from behind us. “What are you doing with Mercy? And where are your guards?”

  Farrah turns, dropping my hand, and scowls at Parker. “Don’t you go tattling on me, Parker. Those stuffy, old kooks were driving me fucking mad.”

  I turn around and see Parker standing with his hands in his front pockets as he studies me and his sister, a smirk on his face. Kai’s standing beside him with a grin and his arms crossed.

  “Farrah, haven’t you learned by now that whenever you get loose and your brother’s around, he’s the one who’s sent after you?” Kai asks with a chuckle.

  “Fuck off, Kai,” Farrah snaps. “I just wanted a little girl time.”

  “Girl time?” Parker asks, eyebrows raised. “How exactly did you even meet Mercy anyway?”

  “She put a dagger to my throat,” she says with a grin. “She’s freaking good, bro.”

  Parker frowns at me. “You pulled a dagger on my sister?”

  I narrow my eyes at him. “I wouldn’t have pulled the damn thing if she weren’t creeping up behind me.”

  Kai snorts and shakes his head, while Parker laughs. “Alright, I know you wouldn’t have done
it if there wasn’t a reason, I was just asking.”

  “Anyways,” Farrah says, impatience coloring her tone, “Mercy and I are going to go walk around. Bye now.” Farrah grabs my hand again and starts to turn us around again.

  Before we even get a step in, Parker’s standing there in our way, eyebrow raised at his sister. “Seriously? You really think that’s going to work?”

  “It was worth a damn shot,” Farrah mutters under her breath. “Come on, Parker. Give me some leeway, please?” She puts her hands together like she’s praying and bats her eyes at him. “Pretty please, big brother?”

  Parker rolls his eyes. “That shit stopped working on me years ago, Fare. You’d have better luck pulling that shit with dad.”

  “You’re an asshole,” Farrah grumbles, letting go of my hand again. “Then if you won’t let us go alone, will you at least walk with us?”

  Parker stills, and I bite my lip to stop my smile at the indecision on his face. “I don’t know, Farrah.”

  “Come on, you and Kai are more than capable of protecting us, and if the way Mercy came at me earlier is any indication, she can kick ass just as well as, if not better than, you guys. You know you want to,” she adds slyly, making him narrow his eyes at her.

  “You’re too damn good at getting your way. I pity the male that ends up with you,” he says with a smirk playing at his lips.

  “Mm, we’ll see,” she says with a smile. “I doubt I’d be a good partner for anybody, I’m not exactly easy to control.”

  “No, you’re definitely not,” he mutters. “I don’t know,” he repeats.

  They start arguing and Kai comes to stand on the other side of me and nudges me with his elbow, holding his hand out for me to take. “Come on, I’ll show you around a little bit while these two argue it out. They can be at it forever, trust me.”

  I chuckle and take his hand in mine. “Alright. Let’s go.”

  “So, did Hunter and Talon explain to you guys about what his dad said?” I ask Kai after we’ve walked for about an hour. Now we’re both sitting at the edge of a small pond, watching the moonlight dance across the water.