Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
ARABELLA
“So before we get to this random little town, we need to talk!” I announced, jumping out of my seat and turning to sit on the center console to face the rest of the car.
Zain had decided to drive, and Ashur, who had a hand on my back as if worried I would fall, had taken the front passenger seat.
Something that was rather ideal because they were not the ones my upcoming discussion revolved around.
I mean, they totally had the potential to be troublemakers, but I wasn’t overly concerned.
“About what?” Saint asked, offering me a cute, attempting-to-be-innocent smile. One that I totally didn’t trust, for the record.
“I told Kalinda that we would try not to kill anyone,” I started.
“Well, why did you do that?” Damian offered me a questioning look.
I sighed in exasperation. “Because—”
“I need you to sit down.”
Razar’s demand had me looking over to him. He suddenly looked stressed out of his mind.
“What? Why?” I even turned to look out the front windshield to see if there were any oncoming threats… Nope. None. The noise that left his throat let me know I wasn’t making him feel better about whatever he was upset about.
“He’s worried about you not wearing a seatbelt,” Cy translated.
“Humans are horrible drivers. You could get hurt,” Blackwell agreed.
I blinked and then nodded in understanding. I suppose this was a similar reaction to when I got worried about them on missions…
“Fine.” I sighed. “But can I at least get you guys to agree to be relatively peaceful until we can get in contact with my dad and get back on the road?”
“Not if someone tries to touch you again, precious,” Amun said, looking very serious. “That’s not acceptable.”
“Something we can agree on.” Saint nodded.
“Please come sit down on the bench,” Razar said, sounding almost desperate.
“You told them?” I arched a brow at Cy, not giving into Razar’s demand right away. I would move in just a minute. I didn’t like not being able to face them when I talked to them.
Cy gave a short nod. “Figured I should provide reasoning for why I killed him.”
I suppose that was fair.
Before I could respond, Razar grabbed me and tugged me down onto his lap.
Luckily, it was right as we made the turn-off for the highway, where I probably would have moved with the force of the turn.
Relaxing into him and Cy, I eyed the town sign for Frostford.
I was really hoping this place would be a bit more relaxed than the places we’d found ourselves in recently.
I hadn’t admitted it to the boys yet, but I was exhausted. All I wanted was to find these god terrors and get back to defend our home from the humans. It would obviously be far more complicated than that, but I wanted it to be that simple, and I for sure wanted a solid night of sleep.
One that wasn’t brought on by being knocked out by power that I hadn’t even realized I had the potential of containing. I swear, my life was getting crazier by the minute. I hadn’t thought that was possible considering what was considered normal.
“Well this is nice.” I tilted my head curiously, leaning towards the window as we passed through the quaint highway town at dusk.
There were a few people out on their porches or leaving establishments on the main street, but outside of that it seemed like a rather sleepy town.
Perfect for not being noticed, especially since it appeared the closest motel was right on the edge of town.
How did I know it was the closest and most likely the only?
They had a freakin’ street sign for it, with a directional arrow.
“No anti-monster posters are always a plus,” Damian mused.
He wasn’t wrong.
When we finally came to the motel parking lot, I realized it was a very upscale version of a motel.
It had three floors, each room having its own door that opened to beautiful little walkouts with flower beds.
The main office had its windows open, and inside I could see an older woman sitting at the counter, knitting and watching something on the television.
The sight instantly put me at ease, which was ridiculous because it was totally possible she was more threatening than any other human we had come across.
“I’ve got this,” I said, before pausing and frowning slightly. “Do we have any of our credit cards—Oh, awesome.” Before I could even finish my sentence Blackwell had handed me a card that had thankfully survived the explosion somehow.
“One of us should go inside with you,” Razar insisted.
“I’m cool with that.”
“Only one of us should go in,” Saint pointed out. “I can go.”
“I will go,” Amun offered, eliciting a feral sound from my god terror.
Nope, we totally weren’t doing this. I opened the door and hopped out, knowing they would sort it out themselves as I made my way towards the office.
Before I even walked in, the woman looked up and offered me a bright smile. “Hello there—Oh! It’s not just you.”
I turned, smiling in amusement to see that Saint had broken his own word and both Amun and him had come with me.
“They didn’t want to stay in the car,” I explained with a shrug.
She nodded in understanding. Her silver hair was braided down her back, and as she looked over us with silver eyes, I realized that there was no judgment, only curiosity. It went a long way to making me feel better about staying here.
“How can I help you folks?” she asked, putting down her knitting needles.
“We need a room—several, actually,” I said. “Maybe four?”
“Shouldn’t be a problem. How many nights?”
I tilted my head in thought. “Just two.”
“Two it is. Let me just work up a total,” she said, scribbling something out on a pad of paper before entering it on an old-fashioned register. “Have you guys ever been to town before?”
“First time,” I admitted.
Her smile grew. “Wonderful weekend to be here, lots going on. We’re having our annual festival.”
“Sounds fun,” I said authentically. Saint ran a hand up my back, and Amun leaned on the counter, watching me with interest. I don’t think he was used to interacting with humans to any extent, so I think he found it fascinating.
She rang up the total, and I handed over the card without looking.
“Your rooms have a mini-fridge as well as a microwave. We don’t have room service here right now—my nephew is out of town on a weekend hunting trip, and he’s our chef—but there are several numbers I can give you for local delivery places.
Our pool is open; it’s on the bottom floor all the way out back, and it’s indoors.
If you have any questions at all, I will be here all night.
My daughter will be taking the morning shift—I’m a bit of a night owl myself. ”
“Same,” I commented in understanding.
“Here are the four key cards.” She handed them to me and then looked at her watch. “If you aren’t tired yet, the first night of the festival should be getting started. You can take Cresent about half a mile south of here, and you will find the fairgrounds.”
“What is it in celebration of?” Saint asked, twirling a piece of my hair around his finger.
Her eyes lit up. “Fifty years ago today, we had our first non-human resident move here.”
“You guys have nightmares here?” I asked, not wanting to misunderstand her. I also used the term ‘nightmares’ where humans normally used ‘monsters,’ so it was hard to tell what she meant.
“Completely mixed population—almost fifty percent exactly, but with everyone marrying each other and making babies”—she smiled softly as if it made her authentically happy—“I’m sure there will be more.”
I blinked in surprise. Not only was this a diverse place, but it clearly had low-level terrors if humans were surviving the mating.
“That won’t be a problem, right?” She suddenly looked tense.
“No.” I offered her what I hoped was an understanding look. “That’s amazing to hear.”
It was actually more than amazing. A piece of my chest that had been seized in stress completely relaxed.
“Good. We accept everything here except hate.”
I was officially in love with this place.
I was even more in love five minutes later as I stood in a room with a double queen bed, face-planting into soft, lavender-scented sheets. I really wanted to go to the festival, but before I could fully form a plan, my eyes fell shut as I gave into the exhaustion pulling at me.
The gentle brush of rough fingers against my face, pushing back a piece of hair, brought me from the land of unconsciousness to a place where I was a bit more functional.
Just a tiny bit though. I would have been very okay with continuing to sleep, but when I blinked my eyes open to see Ashur over me, a goofy smile spread on my face.
“You’re beautiful,” he murmured, causing my cheeks to light up.
A deep growl had me turning my head to find Zain, of all people, pinning him with a look. “Seriously? Come on, man. This is important.”
“What’s important?” I asked, sitting up. Hope lit within me as I realized Zain was holding a landline phone connected to the wall.
“The call is going through to the institute,” he said with a proud smile as he threw it on speaker, the ring loud and a bit obnoxious.
I knew this wasn’t a secure line, so there was a really good chance he wouldn’t pick up, but hopefully Love and Peace had explained what had happened and he would be looking for odd calls since we’d never checked in—
“Hello?” My dad’s voice sounded a bit robotic, the line static.
“Dad!” I immediately said, not wanting him to think it was a dropped call or a misdial.
“Arabella.” He breathed out in relief, emotion coating his voice. “I was worried.”
“The RV—”
“I know, I saw the alarms.” He muttered a curse. “Let me get your location. I’ll send a team to pick you up—”
“No!” I protested, knowing he would literally send them immediately if I didn’t explain the plan. “We need to find the other god terrors. I’m not sure if you got the message—”