Chapter Eight
Mads
It was a few hours’ drive away. The coven was nothing like others, where they’d been compounds or neighborhoods…gated communities. It was almost shabby from the outside looking in.
As they pulled into the parking garage, memories of it returned.
A hazy blur sitting in Baron’s car, falling onto the sidewalk.
He’d been so clueless and disoriented. As his breathing increased, Marquis reached across the console and rested a warm hand over his.
“Are you okay seeing this place again? I know this was the last spot you saw…”
“It’s also where he died. Thank you. I mean it.” Mads took a calming breath and waited as Marquis parked and got out to open the door for him. Baron had never opened a door for him, ever. But it was easy to grow accustomed to Marquis’s gestures. His acts of civility were the way he showed love.
“This is also where I met Rexford’s mate for the first time.” Marquis barely hid a look of distaste.
“Was it bad?” Mads raised a brow.
“It was bad,” a new voice said, one that Mads took a few seconds to recognize. Rex.
“Not. A. Word.” Mads recognized the male. He’d seen him briefly when he’d first been brought to the States and again when Baron had abandoned him. Cade…No, Nite. Midnite.
“Now I want to hear.” Mads huffed.
“I was giving Rex’s magic a feel up and things got heated, and Marquis scared the shit out of me, and I shifted and dove under a car in panic.” Midnite crossed his arms and scowled at Marquis.
“Urinated yourself, I believe.” Marquis snorted.
Midnite frowned. “That wasn’t piss. It was jizz. I liked his magic. A lot.”
Marquis’s face turned a deep scarlet. “Oh! Gods, I didn’t need to hear that.”
Mads glanced at Marquis, who gave him a back me up here expression. Mads could only shrug. “What? Should I be unhappy that it was a successful match? Good for him, honestly. Unless Rex wasn’t okay with it.”
“I was okay with it.” Rex grinned.
“See? Everyone’s happy. Now, where do the fairer ones congregate while the masters do their bit?” Mads smiled.
“Fairer ones? Masters?” Midnite mouthed the word, frowning.
“Old terminology.” Marquis waved his hand. “It’s not uncommon to refer to mages mated to omegas or females as alphas or masters.”
“Oh. I thought the shifters didn’t like that.” Mads frowned.
“Nobody’s said anything to me about it. And I sure as hell won’t be calling Rex a master.” Midnite huffed and strode over to take Mads by his arm. “Get your bags, and I’ll show you to your room, and you can come help us wrangle kids.”
“How many children are here besides my grandson?” Mads grinned.
“Grandsons. Vince, Caspian. Then there’s Blue and Luke—Sailor and Leon’s kids.
And there’s Sheila, our bonus baby. She’s sort of in two families’ care at the moment.
Warring takes the most care of her, but he’s blind, so there needs to be some extra help because Warring relies on her a little too much for comfort.
” Midnite yammered on as he helped Mads with his things and smiled.
“I didn’t know you had two babies…” Mads frowned.
“Vince was adopted.” Nite hefted a bag and shuffled off, lips twisted in a bright smile.
“Vince… Leon… Warring…” Mads halted mid-step.
Nite turned and stared Mads down. “Am I missing something?”
“You all found one another…” Mads counted his breaths, taking deep draws of air and exhaling slowly.
“Found us?” Midnite tilted his head.
“I remember you when you were younger… I saw you once. And Warring is a skunk… Leon is a finch.” Mads nervously scratched at his arm, mind racing. Flashes of beaten-down omegas, familiars, all in a haze until a warm hand rested on his shoulder.
“Hey. If you don’t want to see them, that is fine. Nobody blames you. They know you’re coming. They know who you are and what happened. Together, we heal.” Midnite’s words sank in, and Mads found himself following with uneven steps, mind calming at the reassurance.
“But what if they recognize me? I—if they’re. What if I cause them to be upset?” Mads tensed up, but Midnite didn’t let him stop, merely gestured him on.
He shouted over his shoulder with a bright smile. “No worries, Marquis. Mads and I are going to get along.”
“Make sure he gives you that blooming onion I sent.” Marquis’s call out confused Mads, but earned a solid middle finger.
“What’s with the onion?” Mads followed Midnite, his anxiety easing with every step.
“Long story short—Americans think this chain restaurant called Outback Steakhouse is indicative of Australian cuisine, and they serve a deep-fried whole-ass onion cut up in a certain way where it blooms like a flower. Deep-fried anything doesn’t remind me of home.
” Midnite sighed. “So anyways, Leon and Sailor keep buying the onions and putting them in bags from places that serve fish, and I open it up—Boom, onion.” Midnight sighed.
“That seems mildly annoying.”
“Imagine being postpartum, chest-feeding, and having a craving for salmon and opening the bag only to find a fucking deep-fried onion.” Midnite glared off in a specific direction and Mads nodded in agreement.
“That would definitely suck. I recall craving doubled eggs.” Mads made his way to a set of metal stairs with cement steps and climbed.
“What are doubled eggs?” Nite walked a few rooms down, opened a door, and gestured for Mads to enter. He deposited the carrier bags and gestured for Mads to follow as they strolled back downstairs to what he’d called the community center.
“I think they’re called deviled eggs now. Pronunciation changes over time, but yeah. Boiled eggs with the yolks mashed and dressed up before being piped back in.” Mads fidgeted with his hand self-consciously, the gesture giving him something to do.
“That’s neat to know. It’s hard getting used to this whole living forever thing. So much changes.” Nite waved his hand.
“That’s right. You’re not that old. A teenager compared to most mages… Not that I have room to talk. I was twenty-nine when I met Marquis.” Mads fanned his face to abate the growing heat over his cheeks.
“Thirty-four last week.” Nite stretched his arms and leaned his head back with a deep yawn. “Rex fought me for a while. He was no match for these paws.”
When Nite made a clawing-at-the-air gesture, Mads caught a glimpse of the magic on his fingertips—prosthetics on all of them.
Mads stared in horror that Nite must have caught as he drew his hands back in, hiding them in his pockets with a quick gesture. “It’s not that bad.”
“Did Baron do that to you?” Mads stared and Nite shook his head.
“Human. I was stuck in cat form, and he had me declawed.” Nite shrugged his shoulders. “Rex fixed them up just fine, though.”
“That’s Rex’s magic?” Mads perked up. “He did a good job. I hardly noticed. He really did take after his father on skill.”
“Took after you, too, from what I’ve heard. He’s great at trickery magic and a whiz with fairy gold. Taught me quite a few tricks and with his magic and my thinking, we got some really neat stuff going.” Midnite still kept his fingers in his pockets, though. That much didn’t escape Mads.
“Can I see them again? Please?” Mads glanced at Midnite’s hands and gave his best half smile as Midnite grudgingly pulled them out to show.
Mads reached out to take his hands and turn them over. “It’s lovely work. And there’s so much care put into them. I can tell Rex really adores you from how the magic flows.”
Midnite smiled, withdrawing his hands gently but not putting them back in his pockets. Sometimes, a little reassurance went a long way. They weren’t prostheses for his disfigurement but an advertisement of his mate’s love.
As they continued on past a chain-link-fence-framed swimming pool and toward what used to be the office part of the motel the coven had been made from, the sound of joyful children made Mads perk up.
As they swept in, two adults glanced up—two faces he recognized. Leon and Warring.
“He’s here. Everyone be nice.” Nite snatched a little wobbly stepped Caspian as he toddled over. With a flourish, the child settled neatly on Nite’s hip. “Now where’s my other kid?”
Vince, Mads was certain. A little blond boy toddled over, blue eyes wide and curious. Mads flinched, waiting for the child to recognize him, to be scared, to cry. The little boy only tilted his head and glanced from Mads to Midnite with a curious expression. “Who’s that?”
“We talked earlier. This is Rex’s papa,” Midnite said.
“Nite. Thank goodness you’re here. We have a double-blowout situation.” Leon waved him over, and Nite aided Leon in the changing of a few diapers. The same magic that covered Nite’s fingers shone over Leon’s face. The birthmark that Mads had known him for was nowhere to be seen.
“Grandpeep!” Vince bounced excitedly and before Midnite could correct him, Mads opened his arms and took the little boy in for a hug.
“Grandpeep… I like that. Grandpa isn’t really my thing, is it?” Mads circled the boy in his arms and sighed.
“I seen you before. I can’t remember…” Vince frowned and stared up at Mads.
A flash of panic flicked through Mads’s heart, and before he could say a word, Midnite stepped in. “You probably saw him at a coven meeting or something.”
Nite gave Mads an encouraging glance that he returned with a wave of thanks.
“Did you bring me any presents?” Vince stared up at Mads, and Midnite gave a huff of exasperation.
“That’s rude, Vince.”
“I believe Marquis brought some things.” Mads snuggled the boy for a moment before a little girl with a tuft of white-blonde hair and big pretty eyes bumped into his leg. Freshly-diapered and marked with a birthmark much like her father had. “And this is… Blue?”
“I named her. She’s a good girl.” Vince beamed proudly as a girl much too old to be toddling walked up, nose twitching. She had hair a strange shade of silver, not unlike a mage’s spectrum of colors, with brown highlights and eyes an ice pale blue.