by Erin R Flynn
I shook my head. “Of course she did. Sometimes I think she is bored.”
“Part of it is grief, and I do not tell you this to try and hurt you, but to outsiders I know she can seem cold at how she has moved on from Bernard. She hasn’t and still struggles with it as do the rest of us. She needs the help and distraction just as the rest of us do after such pain. And as you said, she has missed much she didn’t think she did, starting with him. Sometimes you do much because if you stop—”
“You’re afraid to be left with your thoughts,” I sighed, knowing it well. “Yeah, that’s how it works.”
“You need rest before what you will handle, little sister,” she advised before tapping Orson on the shoulder. “Take us to this pack building she bought. You can show me where I will stay tonight before the club. We will plan much to support her after I see it all.”
Orson met my gaze in the mirror, waiting for the agreement from me, and I slowly nodded. “Yeah, she’s done with the lashing out over grief. You know how that goes.”
“My family has been long dead for thousands of years, Sera. No, I don’t remember that. I would grieve to lose friends, and I have, but family is a different bond and one I have forgotten. Most of us have, but you are reminding us. The coven we were from ran efficiently, but coldly. Apollo is a great master, but he is master. You are more mother, older sister, little sister, or cousin. You are family to many of us in many ways.”
“Thanks. Glad you guys are finding a home here.” My phone beeped, and I checked it, finding out there were some changes in the plan. I reached over and moved my hand to Melicent’s arm. “Brian is at the club with all of our work people. Please, please don’t play games with him. There’s been a lot of shit and he’s been shit on a lot because of it. He was always the squeaky clean boy scout, but people doubt it because of me, being with me.”
“No, not because of you, because of their distrust and hate of us,” she corrected gently. “I understand. I will behave and help. I would never have—I would not have hurt him.”
“Okay, good.”
We arrived at the apartment building, and I saw the impressed looks from Melicent that this was mine and not like she was used to where it was Dorcus stuff. I was a self-made woman who did all of this or whatever. Granted, I’d gotten the money from Igor and all of that, but still, I’d survived where others didn’t and turned it into something impressive.
I was coming around to accepting the pat on the shoulder for that.
“Thanks for coming, sis,” I muttered, feeling a bit shy. “I’ve never had a sibling before. I’m sorry how it happened, but I’m thrilled to have family.”
“I will get there,” she sighed, giving me a one arm hug. “I’m sorry I’m not. I will speak with our sister and what your fairy showed me so when you meet her it won’t be as confrontational. It’s just hard.”
“I get it.” I didn’t, and the look she gave me said clearly she knew that, but I could understand something being harder than I would have thought.
I left Orson and the others to handle getting her settled, curious as to the change of plans. I smiled at Hagan when he opened the door of my apartment, accepting the kiss to my cheek before greeting Reagan who was sitting at the counter.
“Okay, so Brian got pulled into FBI stuff and schmoozing, so you guys are my late dinner dates?”
“Yes, plus, we won’t have the chance to spend time with you soon,” Reagan said, letting me know they’d guessed part of what was going on.
I nodded and sat next to him, accepting his kiss too before diving into the deep dish pizzas they’d brought. My heart felt lighter as we ate, loving the easy and light feeling as we talked. I was still worried if we could get back to where we’d been, as things were most complicated with the twins in many ways.
“That so hit the spot,” I sighed as I pushed the empty box away. “Like dayumn, that hit the spot.”
“Good, but we have more planned,” Reagan muttered as he picked me up off the stool. “You’re amazing how you never treat us like we’re a joint package and make sure we know you see us as individuals, but we don’t have much time, so you get both of us.”
I nodded, snuggling up against his chest. It was as he said but also that they’d taken me for granted when they were together as if a toy they shared, so seeing them individually only when we tried again was mostly for me. I had a feeling they knew that but were making the point they appreciated it too.
“Are we at baths?” I asked quietly when he carried me into the bathroom. “Is that like a fifth date thing?”
“We can join you or not, but you need some R&R, Sera,” he answered gently as he set me on the ledge. He leaned over and plugged up the tub before turning on the water. “We might be on the fifth official date, but we’ve had a bunch of working lunches and other dates.”
“We’re not expecting anything,” Hagan assured me as he carried over three glasses and a bottle of wine. “I can keep my shorts on if you want.”
“No, that’s silly,” I chuckled, leaning over to undo my boots and finding my hands shaking.
Reagan’s hand moved over mine. “I’m nervous too.”
“Promise?”
“Yes,” they both said, but Hagan continued. “I was hoping for a bit of necking and to tuck you in early so you get a good night’s sleep.”
“Necking?” I asked, my nerves easing knowing they were nervous too.
He shrugged as he peeled off his shirt. “That’s what our parents called it. They’d always accuse us of wanting the car to go pick up girls and warn us not to go necking with any of them.”
“I like when you guys talk about them,” I told them as I hurried to take off my boots, a bubble bath sounding like heaven with the stress I was under.
“It took us a bit to realize that since you don’t ask,” Reagan admitted. “But even after we figured out why that was, it was hard to know if we should given you had crappy parents and even worse foster parents than we ever realized.”
“Yeah, I did,” I whispered, looking away. All the guys in my life—and even friends—had pushed to get me to talk about Thomas Spelling and what had happened, but I couldn’t. I had that locked down tight, and I couldn’t let it out when we were still handling the mess of Grand Rapids. “Can we have happy tonight? There’s enough darkness coming, and I’d like some happy before that.”
“Fine, I can talk all about me,” Hagan sighed, giving a goofy huff as he finished undressing.
And he did. Well, they both did. I spent the next hour in a bubble bath with them sipping wine and listening to their stories. Nothing more. Not even touching, and we just relaxed.
I laughed so hard when Hagan admitted he’d tended to “borrow” stuff from kids in his class when they’d bragged about what they had knowing they were super poor. He said it was worth the spankings or upsetting his parents to knock the little shits down a few pegs and remind them that things could be taken away if people didn’t deserve them.
Reagan told me about how he’d started a garden in the very tiny backyard they’d had to help. And he’d done really well until he’d weeded the garden but actually pulled out all the baby plants because he hadn’t known which were weeds and what were the plants. Hagan teased his twin at how hard Reagan had cried even if the seeds had been free because their dad had taken his rare free day to help Reagan get it set up.
“Will you show me?” I asked when I was done with my wine. I leaned over and touched Reagan, dying to see them as munchkins. I giggled when I got the images. “Oh my god, you guys were so fucking adorable! Like seriously, so cute.”
“And now?” he murmured, studying my reaction.
I swallowed loudly. “You know I find you both handsome for different reasons. I’m trying.”
“We know,” he whispered, moving his hand to cup my head and brush his lips over mine. “We’ve been plotting something, but we don’t know if it works. We’ve been dying to give it to you, but we’re scared we messed it u
p.”
“I appreciate you trying,” I offered, unsure of what else to say when that was such a vague thing to say.
“Can I kiss you again?” He smiled when I nodded, taking the kiss a bit deeper but not too much. “I’m sorry I’ve been so scared to kiss you.”
“I get it.” I’d been a bit thrown when he hadn’t kissed me after our first date, but he’d admitted that he was too afraid to see if I still acted scared of them after what had happened on New Year’s or even before that with what he’d said about me being a dead fish and us messing up. I leaned in and kissed him this time, sighing happily. It felt right to kiss him.
“You’re tired,” he murmured against my lips, moving his arms around me and lifting me out of the tub. He handed me over to Hagan who was waiting with my robe.
“Or do you need a quick finish in the shower?”
“No, I’ve got time to shower before my flight. I couldn’t catch a super early one.”
“Good, you need the sleep,” he muttered.
True, but it made the plan a bit harder too. I seriously doubted with my luck that the stars would align and make things easy on me for once.
But apparently I was wrong because that was exactly what the twins had planned.
They set me on the bed and shared a nervous look before Reagan went back out to the kitchen before returning… With a ring box. He chuckled when my heart started racing.
“We’re not asking you to mate,” he promised, kneeling next to the bed and taking my hand in his. He opened the box to reveal a gorgeous multi-stone ring with a rainbow of colors in emerald cut all around the platinum band. He took it out and slid it on my middle finger, and it was a perfect fit. “Now try to get images again, Sera.”
Hagan knelt on the other side of me, taking my other hand and giving me a worried look. It took me a second to realize what Reagan meant since I was taken aback by the ring. I tried to get anything from either of them, and I couldn’t.
I couldn’t see anything from them.
I shook my head, letting out a shaky breath. “How? When?” Then I realized how. “Nina?”
“Yeah, we asked if there was some way to maybe block your clairvoyant side after we realized how badly it hurt you that we left your bed,” Hagan explained. “It was one of the first things you said in therapy and how much it hurt we would just run out like we didn’t care. I want nothing more than to always snuggle down in bed with you.”
“We both do,” Reagan added. “She didn’t know of a way, and after you admitted to Alena and Zeno that you would go to therapy with us, they stopped being angry that we hurt you and listened to us about what we wanted to figure out.”
“That was months ago,” I muttered, glancing between them. “How long did this take to make?”
“A while,” Hagan sighed. “Nina never tried something like this, as it wasn’t hiding a paranormal side or trait but a human one. You’ve got like an extra sense basically. It was like trying to purposefully blind a person or whatever. There was the risk of it doing damage, and it’s not like there are a lot of clairvoyants. It took a lot, a lot of research and legends and everything to find. Dain had people pulling all kinds of stuff from fairy libraries and—”
“Wait, Dain knew?” I blinked at him when he nodded. “Who else?”
“Everyone,” Reagan chuckled. “Everyone knew and was trying to help, Sera. Noah got with some of his contacts. Brian helped get some of the books Nina needed brought into the country safely through contacts he had. Tristan’s blood was needed since you still can’t get anything from him even after your bond was broken. That was the missing piece, Nina said. We’re sorry it took so long. We thought it would be something easier but—”
“It was hard to not have it affect any other part of you,” Hagan cut in, waving him off. “And the ring will adjust with you if you shift. That way no more short circuiting your mind if people freak out around you or anything like that.”
“This is the best gift ever,” I choked out, sliding onto the floor and hugging Reagan, pulling Hagan closer until they surrounded me. “Thank you.”
“We’re sorry it took so long,” Reagan said again, Hagan echoing him as I cried silent tears of joy and relief. “Can we sleep over? Not sex but—can we stay with you tonight, Sera?”
I bobbed my head, too overwhelmed for words. Yes, of course they could. They’d figured out the way for me to feel not so alone and give me the help I needed most.
“Then let’s go to bed,” Hagan chuckled, practically vibrating with excitement as he hurried to move me back to the bathroom and dried the small area of my hair that had gotten wet from the bath.
“What’s up?” I asked when we were done and found Reagan on his phone with a big smile.
“Just telling everyone it worked so far. At least it’s a step, right? I mean, you’ve not gotten anything for several minutes, and Nina said we might have to wash the ring to keep it clean or something, but hey, it’s a start.”
I walked over to him and waited until he lowered the phone, giving him a soft kiss. “Yeah, it’s a really good start.”
Understanding filled his eyes that I meant more than the ring, and his smile grew. He stood faster than I was ready for and hugged me, spinning us around as he laughed.
And the ring did work. For the first time in forever, I snuggled down between the two of them and didn’t have a single thought or image that wasn’t mine. I didn’t have to siren people to sleep with them anymore, and that was awesome.
Especially because sometimes I liked getting the images from them.
3
The next morning I took a hot shower with Reagan and Hagan… And I didn’t mean the temperature. Oh no, it was maybe one of the steamiest showers I’d ever had, and we didn’t have sex. There was a lot of touching and tons of happy noises, but mostly I kissed them and we upped the intimacy level. They fingered me as I jerked them off, but it was all the feeding and touches that made it so hot.
“So you guys should sleep over a lot,” I panted when we were done. “Like a lot.”
“I love you so fucking much,” Reagan whispered, hugging me tightly. “You come back to us as soon as you can, okay? Don’t get hurt this time.”
“I’ll do my best, I promise,” I murmured, rubbing my cheek against his. I gave the same attention to Hagan before we finished up. They were pacing as I packed, most of the stuff to be brought later, but I needed at have at least one bag with me. “Guys, chill. I’ve got years of experience in undercover work, okay? This is nothing. I’ve had to sneak into way worse hostile areas than this. This is still the US.”
“Yeah, I think I’d rather you head to the Middle East than what you’re walking into,” Hagan grumbled, scrubbing his hands over his head.
“You guys gotta chill or you’re going to give it away.”
“Actually, we figured most everyone would think we just pushed you and it didn’t go well,” Reagan admitted, shrugging when I gave him a look. “We’ve never done this, Sera. It’s not easy to be on this side.”
“I’ll be fine,” I told them again. I gave them each another kiss before applying the bespelled lipstick from Nina to change my appearance. I locked down my power so anyone would think me human, and left with just my bag, knowing my phone, wallet, guns, and keys were in the bags that would come later since they were dropping them off at Orson’s.
I noted how Giles watched me curiously, not because he knew it was me, but he was paying attention and doing his job as the front desk. We didn’t want humans just wandering around to start trouble.
“Orson said for me to tell the front desk I stayed with him last night and he got a call,” I told him, making my voice sound curious.
“I understand. Have a wonderful day, miss.” He smiled brightly at me, no clue who I was and no red flags raised now.
I jogged the few blocks to the “L” and hopped on the train that would take me to the right transfer point. I switched lines and headed to the airport, glad for the
reading material from Melicent.
And there was a lot of it. Holy crap, could Alena make a lot happen. Granted, we’d been discussing for months what the ultimate outcome needed to be, but still, given how many bureaucracies she’d had to go through, it was impressive. She also knew business better than I did and which lawyers to hire to make it all work.
Once at the airport, I pulled out my passport for one of my old undercover aliases and checked in for my flight. Just in case someone still had followed me or found me of interest, I made sure to head to the wrong terminal, change in one of the bathrooms, and then turn back around before then going to the right terminal. It still put me about twenty minutes before my flight, and I spent it stuffing my face at a busy shop that hid me well.
When they started calling for boarding, I hurried to get in with the first class. It was actually amusing that I’d never traveled first class besides when undercover and then getting spoiled with my own damn plane so that even first class seemed a pain. There were worse things to be than spoiled given how hard I worked.
I was out for the flight, waking when we landed. I only had my bag, but I still headed to baggage claim, as it was good to use the chaos always there to meet up with my ride. Sure enough, I saw one of Milo’s guys who was still human holding up a sign with my alias’s name.
“I heard the pizza here is better than a real pie. Make me a believer,” I greeted, wanting to shake my head at the code phrase. Then again, they all sounded goofy given you knew what they were.
“I got a place that will blow your socks off,” he replied, nodding for me to follow. He brought me to the parking garage, both of us careful and checking everything out but not looking like we were. The movies had to make it obvious for effect.
In reality, if you were checking over your shoulder like that, you were already screwed and probably busted.
“If I didn’t know it was you and Milo hadn’t warned me, I would never have believed it,” Travis muttered after we got in the car. “Seriously, it’s trippy.”