Darius Bonus Chapter
The usual Christmas bullshit parade consumed the majority of our afternoon, the endless photoshoot only made mildly more tolerable than usual because we had the Vega twins for company during it.
I watched Roxy throughout every moment, though I knew how to hide the object of my attention from the cameras and scandal-hungry press. But my focus stayed hitched on her, sometimes slipping to Caleb as he threw her flirtatious smiles and flashed heated looks her way between shots.
Roxy rolled her eyes at him or simply looked to her sister in some silent form of communication which often made Darcy smirk to herself or hide a snort of laughter.
I wasn’t sure what to make of it, whether Roxy was still interested in what Cal was clearly offering her or if she was utterly unimpressed by him. Though I hoped it was the latter.
The twins played their parts, posing by a huge Christmas tree, handing beautifully wrapped empty boxes to each of us while they smiled prettily for the cameras. There were no real gifts, not even the pretence that there might be when I looked into their eyes.
Seth cracked endless jokes and Max pumped the air full of Siren magic to help us all get into the festive spirit.
Some of Darcy’s smiles even seemed genuine, but not Roxy’s.
She flashed her perfect teeth at all the right moments, following the instructions of the photographers to the dot, but it didn’t take me long to figure out that she was only doing so to make this sham pass faster.
It bothered me. I knew it shouldn’t have.
Knew I should have been pleased, if anything, to know that we were fucking up her day, but I wasn’t pleased.
And every time she was forced to look my way with a fake-ass smile on her face or pass me an empty box in some pretence of liking me enough to hand out a gift, the knot in my chest only tightened.
“Relax,” Max murmured as the photographers backed off for a few moments, heading away to view the shots they’d taken while discussing how to change things up, shift the light or whatever else they required for this well-staged vision of bullshit.
I glanced to the far side of the enormous ballroom where our parents were being photographed around the blazing fireplace, glasses of mulled wine in hand, raucous laughter breaking out between shots.
It looked like Tiberius was using his Siren gifts to work them all up into a frenzy of mirth, and even my father was smirking like the cat who’d gotten the cream while he let the power take root in him.
I’d watched them do this very thing during endless photoshoots throughout my life, using the Siren magic to conceal any truth which might have been captured on camera.
To the outside world, they were an unbreakable unit of four, their spouses just as devoted to their relationships with one another too.
Their strength, unity, and love for each other as unending as the passage of time.
At least so far as the world beyond these walls was concerned.
“Darius?” Max drew my attention back to him, and I gave him an easy smile, knowing that even between shots, the cameras were never fully off of us during a shoot.
“I’m good, man,” I said, clapping him on the arm and letting him feel the still pool of nothing which was my emotional standard.
“I’m so full from that meal that I’m in danger of popping a fucking button,” he said, a hand touching his stomach briefly. “You didn’t eat all that much though, weren’t you hungry?”
“Ravenous,” I replied, my gaze back on Roxy as Caleb caught her attention by shooting all the way around the Christmas tree, grabbing every perfectly wrapped fake gift and piling them up around the twins in a flash of movement until they were hidden from view entirely.
She laughed from beyond the wall of empty boxes, and that sound made something twist in my gut. It might have been the first moment of actual happiness she’d experienced since we’d shown up here to ambush their day.
“Why didn’t you eat more then?” Max asked while Seth dove headfirst into the pile of gifts and sent them flying in every direction before diving on Darcy and licking her cheek.
She shoved him off, and I let myself grin as the cameras began flashing, picking up one of the boxes and hurling it at the back of Caleb’s head like I was part of the game too.
It may have hit him harder than necessary, but I was still pissed about what had happened at the dinner table when he’d had his fucking hand on Roxy’s thigh at the same time as me.
I still didn’t know what to make of that fucked-up little nugget of my day, but as he shot towards Roxy and flung her over his shoulder, her laughter-filled yells of not-entirely-believable protest were a clear enough answer as to why she had consistently chosen him.
Not that I was an option or had ever presented myself as one aside from that single time.
That single fucking time when I had given up the charade over what I wanted from her and what I needed, and I’d felt the intensity of our connection when it was unleashed to its fullest in the Shimmering Springs.
She’d made it clear enough then that it hadn’t meant anything though, so I had no idea why I was even surprised to see her laughing with the pretty boy, falling for his charm and smiles.
I’d pick him too. As much as it pissed me off to admit it, Caleb was easily the better choice. He was laidback, fun, simple.
I was… well I was a head-fuck all on my own, and she clearly had no desire to get any closer to me than we’d already done.
My mind moved to the way her skin had felt beneath the rough pads of my fingers as my hand had skimmed up the inside of her thigh just a few hours ago, and I frowned.
Maybe she’d been fucking with me, drawing me in just so she could reject me and offer a little payback for all the shit I’d gifted her.
I tapped my fingers against the small box sitting in my pocket.
I hadn’t wrapped it. I wasn’t even sure what I’d been thinking when I’d bought it.
Maybe I’d just known that us showing up here today was going to fuck up her plans and I’d wanted to give her something to apologise for that.
Then again, I probably should have bought something for her sister too, if that were the case.
It didn’t matter anyway. Whatever madness had possessed me to buy the stupid thing had faded, and I had no intention of actually giving it to her. She didn’t want a gift from me. And I didn’t really want to experience her laughing in my face as she rejected it either.
Caleb finally set Roxy on her feet, and my gaze fixed on the two of them as his hands lingered on her waist in that green dress, pretending to make sure she had her balance in her heels.
He released her before the press could get a shot of them in the compromising position, shooting away to tackle Seth just as the first flash of a camera went off, leaving them with nothing.
Not that that would stop the stories. I’d had the distinct displeasure of reading more than a few speculative pieces about their possible relationship.
The wider press, which was controlled by our parents, wouldn’t print anything of the kind, but there were online forums and fan sites which had documented more than enough of their not-so-secret hook ups for it to be a fairly public theory that they were in some way involved.
The twins were ushered away to take some shots on an elaborately decorated sleigh which had been set up just outside in the snow, and I chewed on the inside of my cheek as Roxy finally offered up a real smile. Just for Darcy, something her sister had said lightening that darkness in her expression.
I couldn’t stop thinking about what they’d told us earlier, about the two of them always being unwanted additions to their foster families’ festivities.
It bothered me. I didn’t know why it bothered me so much, but I guessed that if I ever gave thought about the lives they’d had in the mortal realm, I’d simply assumed it had been bland and unremarkable. Not plain miserable.
I mean, my life wasn’t exactly a bag of kittens, but I had the other Heirs, Xavier, Orion…
“So where is it?” Seth demanded suddenly, his lips so close to my motherfucking ear that I flinched away from him.
“Where’s what?” I asked innocently, Max chuckling beside me while Seth narrowed his eyes.
“Come on, man, it’s been all day already. I can’t wait any longer.” Seth dropped down onto my lap, throwing an arm over his eyes like some fainting fan girl, and I laughed as I shoved him off of me to land in a heap on the floor.
“You’re being ungrateful as fuck,” I told him, ignoring the puppy dog eyes he was trying on me as I rearranged myself in my seat.
“It’s not funny anymore,” he pouted, and I had to work to flatten the smile which was trying to force its way onto my lips.
“No. It’s not,” I agreed. “I went out of my way to buy gifts I knew each of you would really enjoy. I put my heart and soul into selecting that car for Cal and the speedboat for Max, and you don’t see them complaining, do you?”
“You gave me a bag of freaking Snausages,” Seth whined, looking to the others for help.
Caleb only grinned at him as he dropped into his seat, while Max shrugged like he couldn’t understand the problem.
“Did you, or did you not, eat all of them?” I asked slowly.
“Well, yeah, but-”
“And did I or did I not, call you a good boy when you balanced that one on your nose for five seconds before scoffing it?” I added, and Seth growled.
“You can’t just casually abuse my praise kink by going all Alpha Daddy on me with a pack of Snausages and get away with not giving me a proper gift,” Seth growled, pushing to his feet.
“Since when have you had a praise kink?” Caleb asked with interest, and Seth shot him a dark look.