Chapter 5
Chapter Five
ARABELLA
Well, clearly it wasn’t all that was needed…
it was possible I was going to also need a gallon of coffee to face the table of men in the other room, who were all staring at me in a mix of confusion and frustration.
I understood the confusion, but the frustration…
not so much. I felt like I had done a pretty badass job of gathering more help, considering the sentinels and other terrors were outside now.
Well, except for Mykia. I had tried to urge her to go with them, but the hellfox had instead decided that it was better for her to sit in front of the door to our current location and stay on watch while we had our little meeting. Honestly, she was sort of becoming my favorite nightmare.
I couldn’t tell the boys that, though—they would lose their minds. You wouldn’t believe how competitive they became about stuff like that.
My father hadn’t been surprised by my move and agreed that it was the right choice, especially since the numbers had grown, and the humans had still yet to make a move.
It was like they honestly believed we thought they just wanted to ‘talk.’ That was okay—for now it served our purpose completely.
Still, my father had run out there to monitor everything and mainly make sure that the terrors I had let out were not going to slaughter everyone right away.
Which, of course, left me with my team. Convenient since we had a really intense ‘so not the time’ conversation to have.
I wasn’t nervous. Why would I be nervous?
It wasn’t like we were talking about the one thing that had barred our relationship from moving forward and how it didn’t exist anymore.
It wasn’t like I could find out that they hadn’t really felt that way and that it was just an excuse this entire time.
Nope, not nervous at all. Why do you ask?
I let out a soft hum as I poured myself a cup of coffee in my pink and blue mosaic-looking cup, the quiet lull of conversation in the other room managing to relax me.
I was completely unsurprised, though, when I felt a hard body behind me, and I turned around and looked up into Cy’s mint green gaze.
“Hey you.” I brought a hand up to his cheek in a familiar comforting gesture. “I’m glad to see you’re feeling better.”
Cy exhaled and wrapped his arms around me before he could press his forehead against my own. “I’m so sorry, pixie.”
“Hey, none of that.” I frowned, pulling back slightly. “I’m seriously, completely okay. Plus…” My cheeks heated. “I like you in that form.”
“Of course you do,” he groaned and then muttered something under his breath so fast I couldn’t catch it.
His eyes shaded with something darker. “Is Saint serious? Are you truly okay?”
“Do I look okay?” I asked, motioning to my very solid and healthy self.
“You always look amazing,” he admitted roughly as my cheeks painted pink. I mean, to be fair, despite my messy hair, I did look pretty fabulous. These shoes were one of my favorite pairs, and considering my shoes had their own closet, I considered that a win.
“Cherry blossom.” Damian’s voice had my head snapping over to where he stood in the doorway. I could see the impatience radiating off of him.
I smiled at how cute he looked. “Alright, alright, so impatient.”
“Can you fucking blame me?” Damian growled as I passed him, unable to help the small smile that crawled onto my face at his words.
I couldn’t blame him or disagree, honestly—if I only had pieces of the story, I would feel much the same.
I was just very glad that my father wasn’t here right now. That would be beyond awkward.
“No,” I answered honestly as I rounded the oval table that filled the dark, comfortable conference room.
I still stood by the fact that I needed to get a larger room for all of us to meet in, but luckily, as I took a seat at the front of the room, I realized that without my dad here, we had enough room for the seven of them.
When I sat down, I was immediately comforted by the way Sain’t shadows seemed to intertwine with my fingers, the small shadow figure appearing behind my coffee.
I smiled down at it momentarily before looking around the room.
Saint looked completely relaxed, Razar on edge while his hand tightened on my thigh, Cy seemingly unemotional but I could tell he was curious, and Zain looked almost hyper.
Damian seemed confused, Amun curious for sure, and then Blackwell…
I didn’t know how to describe the look on his face, but I wouldn’t lie that it made me a bit nervous.
Like in a good, toe-curling type of way.
“So…” I hedged and then looked at Saint with a big smile, “do you want to explain how all of this happened?” Pretty please?
“How we were able to fuck?” Saint asked, causing me to exhale, turning bright pink as I pinned him with a dry expression.
The most frustrating part was that I knew he was only saying it like that to mess with Razar and to turn my cheeks pink with his blunt language. I was well aware of how much the moment had meant to Saint. In fact, I had a feeling that Saint was more than just ‘slightly’ romantic.
“Saint…” I arched my brow.
“Would you prefer fornicated? Copulated? Screwed? Shagged? Bonked? Canoodled? I have a lot of options, flower, you just let me know what you would like.”
“Saint.”
“Sorry!” he exclaimed and offered me a smirk. “I mean make love.”
Better.
“Can someone just explain what the hell is going on?” Razar demanded sharply.
“Arabella isn’t human. Not fully.” Saint shrugged before looking at Razar. “And you aren’t wrong, I did kill her. Sort of. But not the way you’re thinking— Fuck!”
I squeaked as Razar darted across the table and collided with Saint, laying him out on the floor with a hit to the face before reappearing back in his chair, his hand curling over my thigh.
My mouth fell open as Saint groaned and muttered annoyances under his breath, Razar looking completely unrepentant.
“That was a good one, buddy,” Zain commended Razar.
“That was your last one,” Saint snapped.
“Then stop saying you killed her,” my night terror growled.
“Let’s just avoid that phrase for now?” I hedged.
“Fine.” Saint rolled his eyes at Razar before sighing. “When Arabella and I mated, her heart stopped beating for less than a second, but it was enough for me to rip out her soul and place my mark on it so that we were truly mated.”
“And she survived that?” Damian frowned.
“How?” Amun demanded, a flash of something that almost looked like jealousy flashing across his face.
Was it in reference to the soul thing? I honestly felt like I had enough ‘soul marking’ space for everyone, but maybe Saint would disagree…
And Christ, what was I even saying? I literally was assuming so much when it came to Amun.
“Because we are her mates. Specifically, her chosen mates.” Saint tilted his head.
“But that isn’t a good way to really explain it…
Okay, so when I first arrived, when I was called here in the first place, it had been several decades since I’d been in human form or even on this plane of existence.
When I became solid, I’d been in the middle of a spree of taking care of some souls when I felt a pull here and followed it, to appear in Arabella’s room, which I’m positive Razar remembers. ”
“Unfortunately,” Razar grunted.
“Yes, well, unlike most terrors, I knew I had a fated mate. All god terrors do, I just wasn’t positive when or how I would ever meet them, but when I arrived it became pretty clear that was what my little flower was. Mine. My mate.”
“Dude.” Zain narrowed his eyes at his possessive words.
“What?!” Saint grinned as Blackwell let out a low rumble. He sighed. “Alright, fine. Can’t take a joke, any of you…although it’s not really a joke, but no matter. The point is that I knew Arabella was my mate, and I also recognized what she was.”
“What she was?” Blackwell asked.
“And you said we were her mates, but only god terrors have mates?” Cy clarified.
“I am getting to that,” he explained. “But when I first arrived, I realized that Arabella had chosen five other mates herself already, so instead of telling her, I let myself get used to the idea of sharing her instead of stealing her away.”
Which sounded so hot. Like, Oh no, the big scary monster is going to steal me away for nefarious things… Please…stop. I tried to restrain the laugh that almost bubbled out of me at that thought.
“So why the fuck didn’t you tell us?” Razar demanded.
“I tried to!” Saint snarled. “I tried to tell you a million fucking times that she couldn’t die from being with one of us, but finally I decided that I would just wait to explain it to Arabella so she wouldn’t be shocked when I told her that she wasn’t a normal human.”
“Still shocked,” I mumbled.
“Nightmares have always existed, long before even humans, but until the fall of the veil, we never truly had a societal structure like we do now. Still, there were some rules that everyone was very aware of…which is why ‘what’ Arabella is plays into her ability to mate with us,” he explained.
“Humans have never been able to successfully mate with nightmares without being in danger or dying… until the sis metas.”
Amun froze as his eyes widened. “That’s not possible, Saint.”
“Clearly, it is.” Saint motioned to me.
“What are sis metas?” Damian demanded.
“When they were brought into existence, maybe as a natural mutation or by the fates themselves, it was very clear to almost all nightmares that they were nothing like the other humans on Earth. They weren’t scared of terrors, essentially void of any fear, and found themselves constantly gravitating towards our society rather than the human one.
They naturally stood out despite being completely ‘human’ in most regards. ”
“Soothers?” Cy asked quietly.
“Nightmare soothers,” Saint agreed.