Chapter 5 #2
Out of all the people I don’t want to see today, my cousin Aspen is at the top of the list. I bristle when he gets up from the sofa to join the conversation.
He’s eighteen, but already growing tall, and going by the size of his arms, he’s been putting in extra time at the gym this year.
But what confuses me is the head-to-toe brand-new tactical gear he’s dressed in and the crossbow in his hand, because he isn’t married, so he’s not taking part in the hunt.
Even his mop of blond hair is hidden under a helmet.
Once he lays his eyes on Dalton’s photo, he whistles and winks at Killian. “Pre-kill threesome for you and Damen?”
I have many reasons to be annoyed by him, including the fact that he’s loud, rude, spoiled, and usually looks like an advert for luxury brands rather than a person, but this new idea has my guts twisting so violently I itch to grab the billiard cue from the stand and break it over Aspen’s head.
Damen’s faster.
He slaps the back of Aspen’s head but Aspen just laughs, pointing to his helmet. Damen places his arm over Killian’s shoulders, as if his husband were about to run off to grab Dalton from his cell.
I was meant to be his last fuck…
“How about you shut your face, huh?” Damen asks, shaking his head, as if that can get rid of the flush coloring his cheeks. “Go and fuck him yourself if you’re that keen.”
Even this exchange is an expression of how comfortable everyone is with ‘the gays’. Especially the younger guys, like Aspen, don’t seem to give a fuck, which is as much of a relief as it is disconcerting, because… have I been living my life in a spiral of angst for no reason?
My father would not have stood for it, but he has been dead for many years now.
Aspen grins at Damen. “If he’s prey today, would that make it zoophilia?”
I can’t stand how they talk about Dalton as though he’s not a real person. “Why are you even dressed like this? You’re not allowed to participate in the hunt.”
Aspen turns to me, blinking as if he forgot my presence.
“Oh, I’m not. But I’ll be assisting my dad.
I’ll be taking some photos for him. I even got this old-school camera, because Dad insisted the photos need to be analog, for no ‘paper trail’.
I don’t think that makes sense, since the printout will be on paper anyway but I’m not gonna argue. ”
Kilian raises his eyebrows. “You’ve got a crossbow.”
Aspen’s smile widens, and his eyes gain a predatory glimmer. He’s a little fucking psycho. “Well yeah, I need to be ready for anything.”
Unbelievable. How can his father encourage this bullshit?
But that’s typical. I was held on the shortest of leashes, having to carve out every bit of freedom, but here is my younger cousin, getting to participate in the hunt without the need to fulfill the one rule we’ve all followed for the past hundred years?
Just because he really wants to? I bet his parents let him drive a car before he got his license, and covered any issues with bribes.
“I wonder how you’re going to handle a reality where not everyone caters to you.
Daddy won’t be solving your problems forever,” I say through my teeth, eyes passing over Dalton’s photo on the green table.
I shouldn’t care. He’s just a hot stud. A dime a dozen on any building site, and yet something needy whispers inside me about the things he did to me last night.
Damen smirks at me, for once on my side when he speaks to Aspen. “You’re going to let him find you a wife too, so you can actually take part next year?”
Aspen rolls his eyes, but he doesn’t get to answer because my mom butts in with her bright smile and steps closer. “Are we talking marriage? Are you finally getting an appetite for hunting, Corvus? I know a few very eligible women.”
The hair on my body bristles as the corners of Damen’s mouth lift.
He knows.
We never spoke about my sexuality, but it takes one to know one, and now that he’s a married man with a husband on his arm, he thinks he’s better than me.
“I’m in no hurry. It’s you who were always obsessed with the Christmas Hunt,” I tell him. And it’s true. I don’t need to put a skull on the wall behind me to call myself a Van der Horn. I’d probably take part if given the opportunity, but I’m in no rush.
Even in high heels Mom has to stand on tiptoes to push some of my hair behind my ear.
“It’s not just about that. You could use someone in your life, I always tell you that.
And you’d make such a handsome groom. I’d organize everything.
We can even make it all black and mysterious, if that’s what you want. ”
She’s so excited about it I swallow my scowl.
Killian grins. “Yeah, Corvus. You could have a murder of crows set free at the end instead of doves.”
Mom turns to him as if this is a serious conversation, clicking her fashionable needle-like nails together. “Oh, you can get black pigeons."
“I doubt father would approve if he was here with us,” I say, because recalling the dead has the fortunate side effect of dampening joy.
Mom’s shoulders sag, but it’s been so many years since my father’s death, I don’t feel sorry for bringing it up. “It’s true, he did prefer things somber.” She strokes the lapel of my jacket with a thoughtful expression. “You’re just like him. So you need a bright spark in your life. I’d know.”
Me and my father weren’t exactly alike, but I have to admit that after his death I took on many of his characteristics.
And while him and mother were like ice and fire, he did love her.
He was the night, and she is a firework.
Too bad fireworks are a danger to themselves and those around them in the wrong conditions.
Dalton’s cocky grin appears in my mind unasked for and unwanted.
He’s a dick who provided dick, and that’s that.
I don’t have a reason to care whether he lives or dies. He’s not the only guy who’s good at fucking. The fact that the way he spoke to me, watched me, held me, did something to me shouldn’t matter. And yet… am I ready to let his life go to waste, just because it’s the convenient thing to do?
“You seemed to like that girl you brought with you two years back. What happened with that?” Damen asks with the ghost of a smile.
Smug fucking bastard.
The girl was an escort I hired for the role of my girlfriend, and I haven’t seen her since we parted at La Guardia following our return to NYC.
“I won’t settle for anything that isn’t perfect,” I say, meeting his gaze.
Mother doesn’t notice the quiet standoff and wraps her arms around mine. “I bet my Corvus will be one of those boys who really likes someone soft and gentle at home.”
I look at her and try to smile, but I don’t think I’m doing a very good job of it.
My mother’s from another big crime family, and she’s always been a carefree princess.
I was raised by a nanny, and she would come to my bedroom each evening to read me a single story.
I don’t think she was a bad mother necessarily, but now that I’ve grown up, I’ve had to face the fact she’s adrift without someone to guide her.
Without Father, that became my role, because I am not entrusting any of her boyfriends with anything.
Killian grins and I await the next dig. He wouldn’t be so confident around me without Damen inches away. “Remo’s taking care of Whiskers for us over the holidays, I bet he knows a lot of single cat ladies.”
Ah yes, the cousin who does his job but avoids most family gatherings. How I understand him right now.
Aspen looks me up and down and shakes his head. “Kill… This man wears black at all times. He’d be living with a lint roller. His mom is right. He needs a firecracker. Let me take you out to one of the clubs with my friends—that would loosen you up.”
I don’t think Aspen is anywhere near as aware of my sexuality as Damen, but I still hate every second of this stupid teasing. I’m twenty-eight, for fucks sake, I can handle my love life or lack of it. I am in complete control of my life and I like it that way.
The last thing I need is advice from a barely-legal psycho with half his brain on killing people, and half on tits.
“You know what loosens up people? When you cut them open taint to asshole. Or a dosage of propofol.”
Silence stretches a bit, Mom drifts off to the table with snacks, and Killian goes a little pale. Exactly what I was going for.
Aspen clears his throat. “Actually. Speaking of poison. I was hoping you’d have some cousin-to-cousin advice…
I’m not planning on shooting anyone today, since I’m not actually taking part in the hunt, of course, but if say, one was to shoot, like, in self-defence, is there a poison one could put on the bolt to make the death more painful in case the shot person runs away? ”
Dalton’s face, twisted in a mixture of ecstasy and pain flashes through my mind, but when I try to shake it off, the vision expands instead of leaving me be.
Dalton’s half-naked, with crossbow bolts pinning him to a tree as if he’s St. Sebastian.
His lips quiver, no doubt cursing me for giving him false hope when psychos like Aspen are allowed to shoot at people for no good reason, just because it’s fun.
Dalton didn’t do anything.
It’s debt.
Not even a real crime against the family.
I imagine his skull on the empty bit of wall in front of me, and it finally sinks in that I am not okay with that scenario.
I might not be willing to come out, but I do want to experience the absolute abandon of being Dalton’s bed mate again. I could tuck him away somewhere. He’d play along, of course, because who wouldn’t? He’s reasonable enough to not want to die.
I’m not done with him.
Not yet.
“Corvus?” Aspen waves a crossbow bolt at me.
“Do your own research,” I slap the bolt away and walk off with new determination.
Dalton will be my Christmas present to myself.