The Ties That Bind (An Ariel Kimber Novel Book 4)

by Mary Martel

  It had been bugging me. Why was he going through all of this trouble to make sure nothing bad happened to her?

  The silence that filled the car was suffocating, and I almost wished I could take it back. Almost.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Tyson started the Audi up and he whipped around in the middle of the road. The next thing I knew we were flying down the dirt road and he'd yet to turn his headlights on.

  "I cannot believe you'd ask me that," he whispered angrily.

  I didn't know why he was whispering, we were out of hearing range for Dash and if he didn't hear the car driving off he certainly wasn't going to hear us talking anymore. No one could hear us unless they were in the car with us.

  "Really?" I shot back, sounding surprised and as shocked as I felt. "You sure are going through a whole lot of effort for someone you claim to have no feelings for anymore. I just find that really hard to believe."

  We came to a stop at the stop sign at the end of the dirt road and he hit the lights, turning them on and turned left.

  "I don't care about her," he growled angrily, and I knew he was pissed but didn't care.

  "Then, what the hell are you doing?"

  "If Uncle Quint does something to her then we are all screwed, what part of that aren't you getting?"

  Maybe all of it, I wanted to say but kept my mouth shut.

  He must not have expected me to say anything at all because he didn't wait for me to respond and kept right on talking.

  "The Council, and I have no fucking idea how you've missed this, is not made up of normal, everyday, average people. They are all fucked up individuals and they follow a set of rules that are completely different from what normal people follow. They are not nice people and they are all about one thing and one thing only. Do you know what that one thing is, Ariel?"

  I shook my head and didn't know if he'd seen it or not in the dark car but didn't so much care either way because now I was starting to get angry with him because of the way he was speaking to me. I didn't like it at all and if he didn't stop then we were going to have an even bigger problem on our hands here.

  "They want to make more of us and they think the best way to do that is for females of our kind to have babies with males of our kind. Why do you think things are the way that they are? We can mate with normal, non-magic wielding humans and have children with them but there's no guarantee they will be born with magic and, more often than not, they aren't. And, when such a union is successful, they are never, not fucking ever, girls. Only the female witches breed other females with magic and it has been this way since the trials. It's part of the reason most people think we are cursed. I believe in curses, but that doesn't mean I believe we are a cursed lot. I don't know why things are the way they are, I just know that they are and it's the world we live in and there isn't anything we can do about it but to embrace it and live our lives. That being said, the Council holds females above all else. Annabell, even though she is an evil, soul sucking bitch, is still a female with working plumbing to them and therefore capable of bringing children into this world. She will be seen as valuable to them until she can no longer have children. And, right now, they are all trying to sire a child upon her."

  My lips parted as my eyes widened.

  The Council was having sex with Annabell in order to get her pregnant? That was gross because they were all old dudes and it just was.

  Also, it must be noted, that everything else he'd said had made me incredibly uncomfortable. I had already expressed my feelings before on not ever wanting to have children and I knew myself, I knew it would never change and it wasn't something I would ever be willing to bend on. Bottom line, I didn't want to have children and there would be nothing on the planet I could see changing that.

  I was even more terrified of the Council in that moment then I ever thought I would be. And that was saying something because they had scared the ever-loving crap out of me before I had met them. Adrian had sort of put a damper on my feelings of terror because I didn't think he was all bad and some days I even enjoyed spending time with him. Now I was back to freaking out and hoping like hell I never had to see them again because I was worried they were going to tell me right then and there that I needed to get down to business and get myself knocked up with one of my seven other coven member's babies.

  No thank you.

  Then a thought struck me as I realized which direction we were heading in and I belatedly asked, "Where are you supposed to be meeting Annabell?"

  "The Motel," he said.

  Shit and damn.

  I couldn't go to the Motel with him tonight. Not after finding out Annabell was sleeping with the Council because they were trying to get her pregnant and not after finding out that was why they were all good with one woman being in a coven of several men and in a relationship with them all. They were secret baby making factories.

  I couldn't do it.

  I turned in my seat and frantically blurted out, "I don't ever want to have kids."

  He glanced at me quickly before looking back to the dark road.

  "I know," he said quietly. "I remember."

  His voice was devoid of emotion and I couldn't tell if he was upset by this or not. I had to poke at it because I really had to know if this was something that was going to bother him and I needed to know if he wanted to have children of his own one day.

  "Does that bother you?" I asked.

  "No," he said swiftly and without hesitation.

  His answer surprised me because he hadn't even needed to think about it which meant he'd had his mind made up before I'd even asked him.

  "Really?" I asked, needing to push it because it was important and if we stuck with this relationship, stuck with each other, then I didn't want him to have something to resent me for later. Not that I was willing to change how I felt on it, but I thought maybe talking about it would mean he wouldn't later resent me.

  "Really," he stated confidently. "It's your body and you have a right to decide what you want to do with it. And if that means you don't want to carry children then that's what it means. I know some of the others will want to have children and will try to change your mind but in the end they will let it be and they will give you what you want because at the end of the day it's your body that would have to actually get pregnant and they will respect you and your body. They might even be disappointed, but they will get over it eventually. Besides, there are lots of parentless children out there who need good homes. Whether they have magic or not won't mean dick to any of the guys and it sure as hell won't mean dick to me. Now, if-"

  I cut him off. "What if when I say I don't want kids I mean in any way and not just because I don't want to actually, physically have a child... what then?"

  "Is that how you feel?"

  I wasn't sure.

  I didn't have anything against kids, but I did have something against the things that could possibly happen to kids. There were no guarantees in this life and I didn't want to be held responsible for the life of a small, innocent person when I couldn't guarantee nothing horrible ever happened to them. The person who I had thought was supposed to love me the most in the whole entire world was the one person who had hurt me the most. And it didn't matter that she wasn't my real mother and never had been. What mattered was that I had thought she was at the time and she had done her damnedest to destroy my life and bring me low and keep me there. It had tainted the way I had looked at things.

  "Anything is possible, girl," he said in a sweet voice. "Bad things happen every day, yeah, it's true. But you're forgetting about all of the good things that happen as well. All of us are broken just a little bit whether we show it or not, we are. I think it's part of the reason you just fit in in so well with the rest of us, because you're broken a little bit too. Together we're all better than we would be apart and we're better off for it too. If we brought a kid into the mix it wouldn't be for years and years from now and after we all decided it's something we wanted. That's how
this works, we all have to be down with it and discuss it before we do something that big. And, besides, it's not just you who doesn't want children one day. Dash is vehemently against it and I think his reasons are a whole lot like yours. So, it's not even something you should be stressing out about right now. I know you're just worried because of what I just said to you about the Council and all, but really, you don't have anything to worry about when it comes to that."

  Well, wasn't that a relief.

  “Now, I want to get back to what I think is important," he said as he continued on speeding down the dark road. "The talk on kids should wait until we're all together to talk about it and it's not really important right now because it's not going to happen any time soon so it's not worth talking about right now. There will come a time when we should be talking about it but that time isn't now. You don't even have to worry about that with the Council."

  I was glad he'd said it because I really didn't want to talk about it anymore either. I sighed in relief and finally relaxed back against my seat. The thought of having children with anyone made me want to break out into hives... The thought of having it forced on me because the Council thought it's what women should be doing with themselves made me sick to my stomach.

  I couldn't think about it or I would end up puking all over the dashboard of Ty's fabulous car and as much as I knew he liked me I didn't think he'd feel the same way after I did something like that. I mean, if our situations were reversed and he threw up all over inside my Rover I would not be pleased with him and I definitely wouldn't be the one to clean it up because cleaning up vomit would make me want to vomit even more. And that was never fun.

  Yeah, no thanks.

  Therefore, I asked him, "What is it that you think is important that you would rather be talking about?"

  I was ready to talk about anything other than having babies and the creepy Council. Or having babies with the creepy Council. Ugh, just gross. And, it wasn't like we didn't have the time to talk, the drive to the Motel where the freaking Council we had just been talking about was staying took a good long while and we had plenty of time on our hands.

  I needed a distraction from what we'd been talking about and the cell phone he'd given back to me that sat like an anchor in my front hoodie pocket and it made me feel incredibly guilty. I knew most of the others, and not just Quinton would see what we were doing as wrong and that's why I felt guilty. Because I knew they'd think it was wrong and I was still doing it anyways and, no matter how heavy the weight of the guilt over that phone in my pocket became, I wouldn't be calling the others to let them know what was going on.

  It made me feel like an extremely horrible person and I hoped when they found out about what we'd been off doing they would forgive the both of us and I sincerely hoped nothing bad happened tonight because if it did they would never forgive me. Or us.

  Geez, this just got worse and worse the more I thought on it.

  Ty had been right. We were both going to be in deep shit and not just with Dash, but he sure was going to lose his shit when he found out about this.

  "I don't have feelings for Annabell," Tyson declared and my head whipped around so fast to look at him that my hair flew around and smacked me in the face.

  I opened my mouth to argue with him because it sure did seem like he had some sort of feelings for her because he was going through an awful lot of trouble to make sure nothing bad happened to her and he kept on taking her calls and meeting up with her when he could have easily hit the ignore button and instead told everyone else that she was lurking about and back to being the conniving bitch that she was.

  I really did not like this chick, and, what's more, I really did not want to come face to face with her. I was worried she was going to bring out the worst in me and that was never something you wanted other people to see.

  "I don't, girl, I promise." He said in a dark voice that hummed with feeling.

  He meant that, he really did. I heard the vow clear as day in his voice. When Tyson promised me things there was no going back on those promises for him. When he'd first started promising me things it had bothered me because I'd never had anyone keep their promises to me before and thought they had always been meant to be broken. Then I'd met Ty and he'd proved me wrong and taught me that with the right person promises weren't a bad thing at all and there were people out there who actually did the things they said they were going to do, that there were people out there who actually kept their words and they were sacred to them. Tyson was one of those people and evidence and time was slowly suggesting that so were the rest of my guys.

  "It's Uncle Quint and Julian that I care about," he said in a serious voice that held just as much emotion as he'd had when he was promising me things. "Uncle Quint, as you know, is capable of doing many things and some of them are horrible. Take what he did to Annabell's face before. That was extreme, and, when it had first happened I had hated him for it. I had loved her then and he hurt her. Even though I was heartbroken over what she had tried to do to us and what she had actually done, it hurt me to see her hurt. And, girl, her face was completely fucked up. Seeing her now, it looks better, but not by much. And that's because of Julian. Uncle Quint wouldn't have been able to do that shit to her without Julian. It had always bugged me that Julian had been involved because he'd loved her too, or, at least he was supposed to have loved her. She claimed both Damien and Julian had loved her."

  He stopped speaking and I sucked in a sharp breath. Okay, so maybe I wanted to go back to talking about having children because this was not what I wanted to be talking to him about. All three of them meant a great deal to me and I didn't much enjoy hearing tales of them loving and being involved with people before me, especially this person, this hideous bitch.

  Truth be told, I didn't think I would enjoy hearing about anyone they had been in love with before who had hurt them in any way. If it had been a sweet kind of love and they had parted for different reasons, like one of their parents got a job out of state and they were forced to move far, far away and their long-distance relationship couldn't hack it and they broke up. That was the kind of relationships I thought I might have been able to deal with.

  Instead, I was left dealing with the crazy kind where the ex had used magic on more than one of my boyfriends and several other witches to boot. Then she'd tried to isolate them from their coven so she could rip them away from their family and use them to create her mega-ultra uber coven and then world domination was likely up next on her agenda. This is the kind of crap I was left to deal with and they had problems because of her. Tyson didn't necessarily get along with Julian or Damien but that was because they weren't all fired up to like him or get along with him because of her and what had gone down between the four of them.

  Even their baggage had baggage and it was extreme.

  Enter me.

  Another girl for them to maybe (hopefully) fall in love with and not get their hearts ripped out of their chests and shoved through a cheese grater this time around.

  I really did not want him to be rehashing this crap with me tonight, or any night for that matter. But mostly this night because in a very short time I was going to come face to face with her and I wasn't looking forward to it at all.

  "Why are you so worried about Jules and Uncle Quint?" I asked seriously, searching for anything to take me away from having to think about his ex and actually meeting her which wasn't something I actually wanted to be doing.

  "Are you serious?" he asked as he shot me a questioning look before he faced the empty road again.

  "Well," I said, "yeah."

  And that was no lie. I didn't understand why he was so concerned about them. Yeah, Quinton had done something messed up to Annabell's face and that was seriously messed up and not something I would have ever dreamed of doing to another human being, but this was Quinton we were talking about and he did horrible things to people all of the time. He'd been doing horrible things long before I ever met him, and he wasn't go
ing to be changing any time soon. I had long since given up the hope of him changing into a sweet boy and had embraced his dark side. It was him, he worked it and it worked for him. Yeah, I argued with him all the time and we didn't always get along, but I would back whatever he did (mostly) and I would trust that he thought he was doing the right thing at the time. That didn't mean I wouldn't argue with him about it later or give him a hard time for it, because I would, for sure. If I didn't give him hard time no one else would. And he needed someone to give him a hard time. It was as simple as that.

  "Julian is just as fucked up and crazy as Uncle Quint is," Tyson told me. "Do you remember that woman who hit you in the face at Dash's house?"

  Did I remember her, he'd asked. Good grief. How could I forget her? I had called her an asshole (because she so had been being one and it was deserved) and she'd smacked me across the face as a result. It had not been my finest moment or my most memorable one. Quinton had literally dragged her out of Dash's house and she certainly hadn't gotten what she'd gone there in search of. She'd been a very pretty gold digger who had married an old man for his money and he'd died and not left it to her. She'd come to my guys to get her cards read and see if they could point her in the direction of where he had left his money because he hadn't actually told anybody, and it certainly hadn't been in the bank.

  Heck yeah, I remembered her. I wished I could forget her because being hit in the face was never something a person wished to rehash. Trust me, I had been there several times in my life and I never wanted to remember any of those times. They'd all sucked royally.

  "Uh, yeah, Ty," I told him, "I remember her. How could I forget?"

  "But do you know what happened to her?" He asked.

  I did not see where he was going with this at all or why it was anything I needed to know.

  We drove passed a gas station that looked like it had seen better days a really long time ago and I noticed the street lights were out around it. I had gone passed here before and we weren't but twenty minutes away from the Motel.