Chapter 7
At the sound of a drawer opening, Killian frowned, his hands slowing to a stop on his keys. Looking down, his brows rose at the shadowy hand he saw reaching into his previously closed desk drawer. After some sounds of rummaging, the hand retreated, pulling out one of the big cookies he kept inside.
“What in the fuck, Severo?” he rasped in disbelief.
As the shadow started to drag the cookie across his damn brand new carpet, leaving crumbs as it went towards the door with its prize, he stood up and followed.
Killian followed the hand out of his office, after opening the door for it, and all the way into the elevator and down to the third floor. People eyed him and his shadowy thief while they went, but none were brave enough to say shit to him.
On the recruit training floor, he bypassed the oddly slow-moving hand and pushed into Severo’s office, fully prepared to scare the ever-loving shit out of the Shadow Dweller, but stopped in his tracks when the only one he found inside was Skya.
The toddler was standing in her playpen, fully awake at a time he knew she was supposed to be napping.
Currently dressed as a gray shark, Skya’s bright golden eyes were wide and sparkling in clear anticipation of receiving her stolen prize.
The little girl’s bob-length cyan curls were wild around her head, yet slightly flat in some areas, alluding to her likely having been asleep.
Killian couldn’t help but wince when he spotted the thin, dark line that extended from the shadow at her feet and out through the doorway.
Ahh, poor Seri. The Nymph was going to freak out for sure, he thought as the thieving shadow hand finally made it into the room.
Snatching the cookie up, the hand and the line disappeared as Skya huffed.
Killian wrinkled his nose as he eyed the now dirt-covered treat.
It may be a good idea to switch to individually wrapped cookies.
After tossing the cookie into the trash receptacle against the wall, Killian moved to the playpen, gently admonishing, “Naughty baby, you know you aren’t allowed sweets right after your nap.
At least, not when your daddy can easily point the blame at me.
You know we need to be sneaky about it.” He chuckled, reaching down to tickle her.
She squealed, wiggling, before happily saying her amazing and semi-threatening nickname for him. “Kill-Kill!”
He smirked, but straightened up from the playpen when Severo walked in, the man frowning on seeing him.
The six-foot-four tall, muscular Shadow Dweller, with deep-olive-colored skin, was wearing gray sweats.
The bags under his eyes told him he may not have been sleeping well lately.
Or maybe it was just because he had a damn toddler.
“Uhh? Did you need something?” the man asked, eyeing him.
“No, but I did follow a shadowy cookie thief right to this room. Wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”
Severo winced, but the expression wasn’t reading shocked, more just caught. Or would trapped be the better word? He supposed it all depended on what the Dweller was about to confess.
“You don’t seem surprised.”
“Mm…” The Shadow Dweller grunted as he shifted nervously on his feet, before rushing into the room to pick up Skya, and cuddling her like a lifeline. To be fair, Skya was very huggable.
“You planning to tell Seri?” Killian asked. “I am, of course, assuming he doesn’t know. And based on the guilt I’m seeing on your face, he doesn’t, does he?”
“I…do…plan on telling him…” Severo rasped hesitantly, before swiftly blurting, “Just, HOW?! How can I!? I know what he said, and has said, and thinks…but I—I...” The man sagged.
“Paw-Paw,” Skya cutely cooed while she adorably patted her papa’s chest, the little girl obviously trying to soothe the big man.
Severo let out a distressed whine and kissed the toddler on the forehead. “Love you, Skya.”
“Of you!” Skya squealed.
Killian rubbed his chest as an odd hollow feeling spread. He wasn’t sure what it meant exactly, or why he felt it while watching the two, but it wasn’t the first time he felt something he couldn’t explain, and it likely wouldn’t be the last, so he ignored it.
“Severo, Seri is not the same Water Nymph you first met. He has made a lot of progress. He knows this is coming, and I would suggest that you tell him before he witnesses it and figures out just how long you have known.”
“I would have told him the first time it happened…but…”
He rose a single brow in question at that. “But?”
“Seri sort of had a small breakdown last week about Skya liking some ‘girly’ thing. It was a dress, or something like that,” Severo admitted with a sigh.
“I came home to him crying, panicking, and just self-depreciating. He was feeling horrible, and said that he’d been selfishly lying that he was giving Skya a choice to be herself, when, at the same time, he was pushing what he considered to be ‘gender-neutral’ onto her.
That the only one attaching labels to clothing was himself, and that he was pretty sure he’d likely been trying since day one to steer her away from picking things he considered too ‘girly’.
“With his childhood, and what Preston did, he’s just worried that he’s too messed up to make the right choices when it comes to this.” The man quickly added, “His words, not mine. I don’t think he’s messed up… He’s perfect.”
Killian wrinkled his nose. “Right…that…”
Yeah, clothing and gender were topics Killian mostly tried to stay clear of when it came to Seri.
Mainly as the Nymph had some serious trauma when dealing with both, and he had assumed it would eventually come up in therapy.
Because a therapist Killian was not. And he did not do well with crying, and there definitely would have been crying if he had pointed out that by Seri defining certain clothes as boy or girl, he was in fact upholding the gender stereotypes he swore he hated…
“Yeah, that happened Monday last week, and Wednesday was when I walked in to see Skya manipulating her shadow. I just…didn’t think the time was right to tell him.”
It probably hadn’t been, but still… “Severo, you need to tell him. The sooner the better.”
The Dweller nodded. “You’re right…” The man sighed before slowly holding Skya out to him. “Could you watch Skya while I…make the call?”
“Please tell me you aren’t planning to tell him over the phone,” Killian said dryly.
The man’s face twisted in disgust. “Do I look like a heartless idiot to you?”
He smirked as he plucked Skya from the man’s hold. “Do you really want me to answer that?”
Severo rolled his eyes. “I’m going to call to have him come home for lunch, so we can talk in private, in person.”
“Good choice, and good luck.” Killian patted the Dweller on the shoulder before walking out with Skya.
A yawn forced its way out when he reached the elevator. “Ah, a new cup of coffee would be a good idea, I think.”
Killian winced as soon as he thought about the shit that was currently brewing in the coffee pot on the tech floor.
While he knew Cyrus purposely bought shitty coffee for his level, so he didn’t have to refill it often, on Killian’s floor, they took turns bringing in coffee beans each day, and the person today apparently had no functioning taste buds, as it had tasted like ass.
Not even excess sweeteners had saved it.
As Killian stepped into the elevator, he pushed for the ground floor, instead of heading up as he first intended.
Glancing down, he smiled when he found Skya looking up at him. “Ready for a nice fun walk with Kill-Kill, Skya?”
The little girl’s face scrunched up. “Ookie!”
He chuckled. “Well, I suppose it’s only fair you get something out of this walk. And I happen to know for a fact that not only does Chocolate Java have an amazing coffee lineup, but also a rather delectable selection of cookies to choose from.”
“Ookie!” Skya squealed happily this time.
Smiling, he bounced her lightly against his hip. “Come on, you cookie-obsessed child, let’s bust out of this popsicle stand.”
She giggled, clinging to him as he carried her through the lower level and lobby, and out the door.
The weather was perfect—not too cold, not too hot—and at eleven AM, the streets weren’t too busy yet. It only took ten minutes to walk to Chocolate Java, but it was more like twenty before they were able to leave with their goodies.
With his caramel macchiato in hand, and Skya clutching tightly to her giant sugar cookie, the little girl sprinkling grains of sugar all over him, Killian walked through the automatic doors of the establishment.
“Skya, I know having stretchy, bendy, shadowy powers is fun and all, but stealing from my desk is something I’d rather you not do. Though I suppose it is my fault for leaving it unlocked,” he mused, before taking a sip of his coffee, while starting to walk back the way they came.
When she didn’t respond, he glanced down and found her blinking up at him cutely. It was more than a struggle to not be taken in by it. “Don’t act like you don’t know what I’m talking about.”
The little girl took a bite of her cookie, while continuing to blink at him.
“I know exactly what you are doing, and it’s not going to work.”
Apparently, Skya didn’t care that he knew, because the adorable little brat just kept eating her cookie while looking cute and not responding.
Killian snorted, and went to take another sip of his coffee, but the cup suddenly slipped from his hand… A hand that had gone completely numb in seconds.
His fear spiked while the cup broke on the ground, coffee spilling everywhere.
Holding determinately to Skya, Killian didn’t have time to think as his body began to lose all feeling.
He just desperately tossed his head back, changing the direction of his fall, so he landed on his back, and not on top of the little girl.
“Run, Skya,” he tried to scream, but his voice wouldn’t come out. His mouth was not even attempting to form the words.
Rage bloomed in his chest when the little girl started to cry, the feeling only grew as Killian found himself unable to do a damn thing as people in all black approached and tugged Skya from his hold.
Right before the world fell away, the click of a solid metal collar around his throat told him enough about what was happening.
Cyrus’ hands clenched, his nails drawing blood from his palms, as fear and uncertainty rose up while he watched the thread he’d altered go taunt, snapping fully into place, telling him full well that the new fate he’d created was now in motion.
To whose detriment, he didn’t know… But even with all the fear and uncertainty, he still couldn’t find it in himself to regret it, when the alternative was a world without Killian… He just hoped that didn’t change…
Seri North sat on the plush couch in his living room, eyeing Severo, who sat right next to him, as the Shadow Dweller continued to say absolutely nothing.
Which wasn’t exactly a disappointing endeavor as his man was hot as hell with his dark-black hair pulled up into a messy bun, his strong, pointed nose, deep-olive skin, five o-clock shadow, pointed ears, and hazel eyes.
At the same time, the man being hot didn’t take away his irritation at the lack of answers as to why they were there.
“So you see—well—actually, the thing is—”
“Severo!” he snapped, cutting the Dweller off. “Just say what you are actually trying to say.”
The Dweller swallowed hard before blurting, “Skya has started to manipulate her shadow!”
A surge of fear rose up inside him, but he shoved it back down, refusing to let his past taint how he viewed what his daughter was, what the love of his life was.
“Ah…I see. I mean…” Seri swallowed. “We knew it would come eventually, right? I just didn’t think it would be this soon…
” He shook his head and sighed. “No, I suppose it’s right on time… ”
“Yeah, she is on time… I’m sorry, Seri.”
Seri met Severo’s gaze, and his stomach twisted as he spotted the man’s hesitation, not to mention the tears forming in his Dweller’s eyes. He hated that he was responsible for both.
Cupping one side of Severo’s face, he stretched upward and lightly kissed the man on the lips. “I’m fine,” he promised. “I was prepared for this. It doesn’t change anything. She is our baby, and she is just one of the Shadow Dwellers who I love with all my heart.”
“There’s…” the Dweller trailed off with a wince.
“More?”
“Mm?”
Seri sighed and just guessed. “How long has this been going on?”
“It hasn’t been that long, really! Just a week, just since last Wednesday. I would have told you sooner, but I felt it wasn’t the right time with what happened earlier that week.”
“You mean me freaking out about Skya wanting something pink?” he said with more than a little self-disgust.
“Yes…that…” Severo gripped onto his hand, which was still resting on the man’s cheek. “Seri…I—”
“I’m fine,” he promised again, though he knew it was partially a lie.
The truth was, when he thought about how he felt knowing Skya’s powers had finally shown up, he was mostly okay. Sure, the fear had been instant, yet he hadn’t found it that hard to push it aside. It was just everything else—well, mostly just his gender issues.
Seri wasn’t sure how he managed to convince himself that his backwards thinking was not only right, but that it was the only way to keep Skya from experiencing the horrifying, identity-erasing shit he dealt with growing up, along with the added trauma that Preston gave his ass, but he had, and he’d been wrong…
He just didn’t know how to handle that, or how to move forward and stop feeling like a total failure as a parent, while shoving down any negative emotions he had towards clothing, as he went about buying things for Skya.
Severo’s mouth opened, but the man hesitated, his eyes growing wide in concern as an odd alarm sound rang out loudly from the Dweller’s pocket.
Seri frowned. “What’s…?”
“Emergency call alarm,” Severo stated stiffly as he pulled from his hold, and hurriedly slipped his still ringing phone from his pocket. The man quickly released the screen, answering without hesitation while setting the phone to speaker. “What’s going on, Cyrus?”
“I’m so sorry…I didn’t…” the Fate rasped, the man’s voice sounding oddly hollow.
“What?! What’s wrong?!” Severo demanded, as the Dweller’s hand seemed to tighten dangerously around the device.
“Killian’s been taken by traffickers. Skya was with him—they took her too.”
“WHAT?!” the Dweller roared.
“No,” Seri rasped, before he found himself screaming in denial, “No, no, no, no. NO!!”
He gasped as tears flooded his vision, the world spinning around him when his chest constricted, while his heart felt like it had shattered into pieces.