by Helen Scott
“Would you like to see?” she asked, her mismatched blue and brown eyes glancing at Aster.
“Please.” The word was a whisper and barely made it past her lips.
Her heart fluttered inside her chest, and she briefly wondered what the doctor thought of all of this. It didn’t matter to her, but she wondered what a supernatural doctor dealt with on a day-to-day basis. What other kinds of creepy crawlies and magical beings were out there that she treated? The question almost blurted out, but then Vivienne turned the tablet so they could both see it.
The screen was filled with a grainy black and white image with a black avocado shape in the middle, and another dark shadowy area off to the right. She pointed at the shadowy area. “That’s your bladder, and this”—she pointed to the avocado—“is your gestation sac.” She moved the wand, and the avocado turned into a grapefruit, but there was something in the middle. “This is your baby.”
There was a little peanut-shaped object in the middle of the gestation sac. Aster’s breath caught, and her eyes went wide.
The doctor tapped a button on the side of the screen and then tapped a box on the screen itself. All of a sudden, a heartbeat filled the room. It was a soft rushing sound with a wonderfully steady beat. Without warning, tears trailed down her cheeks as reality finally set in.
She was having a baby.
Chapter 25
Dem, Thad, and Cin were approaching the last room in the motel when their phones vibrated. A group text from Alec advised them that the first motel had been a bust, so they’d moved on to the apartment complex. They had found the apartment Randall had been staying in.
Their group appeared in the general area moments later. Dem’s heart thudded in his chest like a bass drum as they fanned out, surrounding the ranch-style apartment complex, before Hal opened the door. Thad and Dem had gone around the back in case Randall made a break for it, while Cin and Ben were at each end of the building, but when Hal’s head popped out through the bathroom window, all the adrenaline leeched out of him.
“He’s gone. Not for good, but we should be quick if we want to catch him,” Hal’s baritone called.
They jumped to the front door of the apartment, Cin and Ben just behind them. The place was complete crap. Sure, it was a one bedroom and not a studio the size of a closet, but there was no getting around the fact that the floorboards were about to break any moment and there was probably mold in the walls. Everything about this place screamed health hazard.
“Thad, could you work some mojo?” Dem asked his brother as they all filled the space.
“Only if a couple people step outside. There are too many people here for us to see what’s going on.”
Cin and Ben stepped back out onto the patio area, and Dem pressed back against the wall while Hal and Alec both stepped into awkward corners, the kinds of spaces no one would stand. At least, not if they were given a choice. He watched as Thad called the water to him, creating a mist that filled the room, before he started rewinding time.
There was nothing for a while, and then the scene Aster had described in her vision took place. He scribbled something on the back of a receipt before he left.
“Can you freeze it there?” Dem asked as Randall finished writing.
Thad nodded.
Stepping forward, Dem couldn’t make out what it said. Part of it looked like ‘Gerry’s,’ but the other part didn’t make any sense. Nauti Buoy. Had the man had some kind of seizure? A brain hemorrhage?
“Someone else take a look at this. Looks like he lost his marbles to me,” Dem growled, and stepped away. He knew he was being impatient, but taking care of the man who had been a thorn in their family’s side for the last year would be a relief.
Alec and Ben stepped forward, and his temper started to go south in a hurry.
Ben half snorted, half groaned. “That’s a terrible boat name.”
“Who the hell is Gerry?” Alec mused aloud.
They were certainly masters of stating the obvious. Although, Dem hadn’t realized it was a boat name. Now that it was put in context, it made sense.
“If that’s really a boat name, then it could be the marina that’s just north of here. I drive by it once a month or so.” Ben shrugged, as though he wasn’t imparting important information.
“May as well go check it out. Why don’t you two stay here and keep an eye on the place? Have some brother and sister bonding?” Thad said, smiling at his soulmate.
Dem knew better, and Cin probably did as well, but Thad just wanted her out of the action. Didn’t matter that she could kick ass and take names with the best of them, especially now that she’d come into her powers. He understood, though. The idea of Aster being around while he was fighting was not a pleasant one, let alone her getting hurt while trying to help.
Cin crossed her arms over her chest, scrutinizing Thad. “You get one pass. You sure you want to use it on this?”
When his brother nodded, she sighed.
“Fine, but don’t expect me to sit out next time. At least, not without a hell of a fight.” She turned to Ben. “Let’s go get some coffee and donuts. At this time in the morning, they should still be pretty fresh.”
They turned and walked out, but before she got all the way out the door, Cin turned back around and ran to Thad. “Don’t you dare get hurt, you hear me?” she said in a hushed voice that was raw with emotion.
“I wouldn’t dream of it. You’d only kick my ass if I did,” Thad responded, gently cupping her face. As he placed a delicate kiss on her mouth, Dem averted his eyes.
This was the kind of stuff that made his heart clench and used to make him think of Isa. Now it was only Aster who dominated his thoughts.
Cin blew out of the room again, and they jumped to the marina. Alec and Hal charmed the locals into giving up the location of the boat known as Nauti Buoy. Those two were unstoppable when it came to finessing humans. Dem, not so much. They probably would have run in fear if he tried to talk to them, so he blended into the background. That, at least, was something he was skilled at. No one noticed him unless he wasn’t trying to hide.
As they approached the boat, a man disembarked. They all kept walking past the boat with the dumb name and its passenger, until they reached the end of the pier.
“I’ll check the boat and meet up with you guys in a moment,” Thad said as they turned around and walked back toward the boat.
Nodding his agreement, Dem set off after the stranger, staying far enough behind that he didn’t arouse suspicion, but close enough that he didn’t lose him. Alec and Hal ambled along a ways behind him. A group of three large men such as themselves would draw attention, whereas by himself, he was a ghost through the people who meandered the docks. Sometimes he wondered if it was the dangerous vibe that he put off. Maybe it scared the humans, and they’d just rather not look at him, not acknowledge that he was there.
It didn’t matter. Their aversion to him was usually a benefit, not a hindrance.
When the man entered a cemetery that was situated just behind the yacht club, he hadn’t expected that. Dem dropped back even further now that there were no crowds. The cemetery was old and bigger than it had first appeared. He wound his way through trees, headstones, and statues, while the breeze from the ocean still kissed his skin as it rolled over the gentle hills of the well-kept grounds. Salty air wrapped around him, bringing with it the sound of voices.
It was a meeting place.
Randall stood a little ways up between two trees with a man and a woman to each side of him. The guy, who probably was the owner of the boat, approached them. Dem ducked behind the trunk of a tree and listened in while his brothers approached. Thad had caught up with Alec and Hal, so they were all present.
He tried to remember the last time they had all gone on a mission together. It had to be a few centuries ago, at least. All he remembered about it was the reign of destruction they had brought down on a small village that defied the gods.
Briefing his b
rothers on the situation ahead, he honestly wasn’t sure if they’d be able to take the four members of the Order of Talos on. It all depended on the kinds of powers they channeled from other beings.
“We go for the other three first, and then together, we focus on Randall,” Thad said, his strategic mind taking over.
“And if they all have Keys?” This came from Hal, who was probably the most familiar with the inner workings of the Order thanks to Robin. Plus, he’d had a number of encounters with Randall, the last of which had almost killed him.
“We will have to take them out before they can use that connection. If they do, then we kick ass anyway, same as we’ve always done,” Dem growled.
Nods all around, and they began to fan out, moving carefully between the statues and trees.
“Is no one else coming?” Randall spat the words at the owner of the boat.
“I put the word out like you said, but no one else has responded. I thought they’d just meet us here, but I guess not.” The scrawny man shrugged.
“Pitiful. This is an embarrassment to the Order!”
“I’m sorry, Brother Randall. I—”
The man’s words were cut off when Hal appeared behind him, putting a choke hold on him until he passed out. Having a split-second warning, the other man expected Dem, taking a swing right as he materialized next to him. The punch connected with Dem’s jaw but didn’t have the desired effect. Shaking off the hit, Dem kicked a leg out and swept the man off his feet. The air knocked out of him as he landed flat on his back. One swift jab and he was unconscious.
He looked around and saw Alec restraining the woman. They all hated harming others, especially women, having seen too much violence throughout their long lives. Randall was standing in the center of the brothers, smiling.
“You didn’t have to bring the party here! I was happy to come to you.” He laughed.
“The only party you’ll be going to is one in Tartarus,” Hal ground out. Dem glanced at his brother, using his peripheral vision, only to find a face contorted with rage. It was unlike Hal to let negative emotions take him over, but then, they were faced with the man who had tortured not only Aster but Hal’s soulmate as well.
The reminder stoked the already blazing inferno inside Dem.
The piece of human trash in front of him was responsible for all the harm that came to Aster after their weekend together. He inched forward, closing the distance between them at a slow and steady pace, while his brothers either did the same or circled wider around him. They needed to get this over with before he could call on any powers he had access to. Sure, they’d taken his Key when they rescued Nimue, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t been given another one or something. It wasn’t like they knew how the Order worked.
Dem called his storm forth and made the temperature in the area drop, while ice pelted Randall.
“You know Poseidon tried to keep me prisoner? It’s too bad that some of the nymphs found me so attractive. Otherwise, I might still be locked up in one of his cages.”
“You seduced a nymph?” Alec scoffed as he paced back and forth.
“It was fairly easy. With some work, you might be able to do it as well.”
“You couldn’t pay me enough to be on a nymph’s leash.”
Confusion flashed across his face for a split second. “He doesn’t know,” Dem said, letting the angry mocking tone of his voice speak for itself.
“Oh, boy! Sex with a nymph, it’s binding. She can find you anywhere whenever she wants, and if she doesn’t want to share you, then good luck getting it up for anyone else,” Alec responded, using his ability to come off as completely carefree to taunt their enemy.
Ignoring them, Randall stood tall, and the wind changed. A giant gust swept through the graveyard, almost knocking them all off their feet. When it came back from the other direction, Dem knew it was magical. How Randall was controlling it, he had no idea. Forgetting the ice and the storm he had centered over their target, he changed his storm to blow out from all sides, trying to deflect the wind that was moving with the twitches of his enemy’s fingers.
Hal ran toward Randall from behind, only to appear to stop and fight something else, something that none of them could see. Thad tried creating a wall of water around Randall, encasing him in it, but he just walked straight through it as though it weren’t there.
The wind pounded at Dem. His arms were outstretched now, and he was struggling to keep it back from his brothers.
“Alec!” he yelled, needing his brother to hurry up.
“I’m working on it!” he snapped.
Alec’s power was the most destructive of all of them. He could harness the water inside someone’s body and bring it to boil or freeze it. The only problem was he spent so long keeping it suppressed that now he had trouble accessing it.
“He’ll kill Ellie,” Thad said, looking at Alec, the strain showing on his face as he continued to try and put obstacles around Randall.
Their brother’s eyes flashed, and Dem knew Thad had made the right call. Randall stopped moving; even his fingers stopped their twitching. A bright fire of vengeance blazed in his eyes even though the man was stuck in place, promising that as soon as he was free, there would be hell to pay.
The relief from the oncoming wind was instantaneous. Walking up behind him, Dem knew one way to make sure his fingers didn’t twitch again. At least, not for a long time. He took each one in turn, bending it in a direction that bones were not meant to go. Randall screamed after the first one, but then seemed to settle.
It was unnerving. He was breaking the man’s fingers, and there was no reaction.
“Something’s fighting me,” Alec breathed.
What the hell was going on with this guy? He was able to control the wind, which was new, make Hal fight invisible enemies, also new, and now something was fighting Alec. Dem hauled back and punched Randall across the face. The hit landed squarely and should have taken him to the ground, but he remained standing, simply looking ahead.
The ground underneath them began to shake, splitting open between Alec’s feet. Dem and Thad dove for their brother as a massive split appeared, catching him and hauling him back up before the earth swallowed him whole. Their target was on the move once more.
“Did I forget to mention Poseidon’s parting gift?” Randall chuckled.
Clearly the man was off his rocker. Poseidon didn’t gift humans with his powers. At least, not intentionally.
Suddenly, Hal was free of whatever vision had ensnared him and was charging toward Randall.
“Screw it,” Dem mumbled before taking off and charging him from the other side.
The man was a better fighter than he had expected, swinging out and kicking at the same time as Dem and Hal both attacked. Their punches landed, but he seemed to not be feeling pain as he moved around them, avoiding what he could and absorbing what he couldn’t.
Thad and Alec were there then, and all of a sudden, Dem remembered training with their father and grandfather. They had both been fierce fighters, and training with them had the four of them working as a team, trying to take their parental figures down. It was part of the culture back then, especially where they lived. The warriors in the area were no joke, even if they were human, and his father had grown up learning their ways, as well as sparring with their grandfather.
They fell back into the rhythm easily. Two attacking while two backed off, and then they switched. One of them usually focused on striking out with their legs, either kicks or knee jabs, depending on how close they were, while the other focused on elbows and punches.
It was a fair tactic. The opponent never knew which way they were going to be hit next. There were very few people who could focus on two opponents at once, let alone four. Constantly switching up who was attacking meant that it was harder for their opponent to learn their rhythm and tells.
Something happened behind Dem, and just as he landed the punch that took Randall to his knees, Thad’s eyes went wide.
He glanced over his shoulder to find an elderly woman and a young man stepping out from a portal that had opened on the trunk of a tree.
“Sirens, we mean you no harm,” the woman said as she wrapped a scarf around her neck. The white anchors on a navy background were oddly appropriate considering this whole confrontation started with the boat and the marina.
“Beatrice, leave them to me. I’ll handle them,” Randall yelled through a lip that had already swollen to twice its size.
“No, I warned you that I would withdraw if you began to lose. Nothing can beat wind and fire, and if you had been able to manage this one task, then you could have completed our power triad. However, staying true to form, you failed.” She spread her hands in front of herself as though the situation was obvious.
Dem looked around and found the four of them a little the worse for wear, but when he looked at Randall and saw the broken nose, split lip, and broken fingers, he realized that the old lady was right. Randall didn’t stand a chance against the four of them, even with his special powers.
“Brother Randall,” the young man said, stepping forward in his bespoke three-piece suit. “You are hereby excommunicated from the Order of Talos.”
As the young man approached, he withdrew a dagger, and Dem was about to attack, when Thad signaled him to stand down. They didn’t have the element of surprise with these two, and if they were higher ranking than Randall, that probably meant they were more powerful as well. Attacking right now would be foolish and could get them all killed, so he stepped back, allowing the young man to pass by.
“High Brother, please, let me—”
He drew a symbol in front of him with the dagger, and Randall’s words dried up in his mouth. The High Brother gripped Randall’s broken hands and squeezed, causing him to scream in pain. While Randall was on the verge of passing out from pain, the High Brother yanked one arm out straight and sliced up the tender inner flesh of first one arm and then the other, carving up the tattoos in an awful zigzag pattern. According to his brothers, the markings had been what he’d used to call forth his magic on multiple occasions. Now the High Brother had left a thick river of blood flowing from the wounds, guaranteeing that the tattoos would never work again.