Chapter Thirteen
River
He shakes his head, “No, I don’t know.”
“It’s okay. We will figure it out, and we can take it one day at a time when it comes to your other magic. If it starts to get too difficult, and then you be honest, and you fucking tell us, got it?” I ask.
“Got it,” Raiden replies, “thanks man.”
“No worries, I am excited to see what you can do,” I reply.
He chuckles, “Me too. Since when did you get so insightful?”
“Fuck off,” I grin, grabbing my pillow and launching it at his face. He ducks at the last minute, and the pillow hits Neith’s door above his head.
“Shit,” Raiden whispers, his eyes wide and still leaning against the door.
It suddenly opens, and Raiden falls backward before he can catch himself. He ends up staring up at Neith upside down. It looks so comical that I can’t help but chuckle which brings Neith’s raised eyebrow gaze to me. Fortunately, she doesn’t look pissed and looks more amused than anything else.
Neith
I hear a bang outside the door, and look up from my finished report. I was just giving it one last read through to make sure that it made sense and that I hadn’t forgotten anything important that had happened. It was strange to me to write a report without having to twist the truth and leave things out, especially if a supernatural was involved or my freaky self had done something that would make them even more convinced that I was a supernatural.
Of course, I still didn’t put the fact that I died in this report, something tells me that there shouldn’t be an official written down record of that anywhere. Computer systems can get hacked, and files can be stolen. I am already wanted, or I would be if the people who killed me realized that I was still alive. They don’t know that though and we need to keep it that way because there is no way that a normal human could survive being blown up with a bazooka. Several people checked to see if I were alive or not anyway because they believed me to be a supernatural, and I guess were hoping that blowing me up would prove that I was. Although that doesn’t really make sense, why would you blow someone up to prove that they were a supernatural? I will add that to the list of questions that we need to find out when we go after HID. My point is they all know that I am very, very dead.
Hopefully, I’m not going to have to remain ‘dead’ for long, but that all depends on how quickly we can sort through the leak at HID.
A quiet curse outside the door reminds me what I was doing, and I push away from my desk and walk over to it, pulling it open and trying not to laugh as Raiden falls backward and stares up at me looking shocked and a little scared. A snicker has me leaning out of the door slightly and looking at River. Both of them have their covers with them and it looks like they were getting ready to sleep outside of my door.
I cross my arms over my chest, “Why are you two doing out here?”
They look at each other and then come to some sort of decision.
“You died,” Raiden says softly as he rights himself but stays sitting on the floor, looking up at me. “I tried to find your spirit and I couldn’t find it, Neith. I don’t think I have ever panicked that much.”
“I needed to be close in case something happened again,” River says quietly, he glances away, looking slightly embarrassed as he adds, “I kept seeing it.”
I melt. There is no other word for it, these guys were so affected by what happened to me that they were willing to sleep outside of my door just to make sure I was okay.
That’s fucking adorable and makes my heart skip a beat.
It also makes my following words an easy offer.
Smiling softly, I open my door wider, “Do you really want to sleep out here?”
The guys share a look, and then both jump up with big grins on their faces.
“Hey, you’re wearing my shirt,” River says, a note of surprise in his voice.
I smile, “Of course I am.” Climbing on the bed with a yawn, and snuggling under the covers, they both start to lay their covers on the floor, making up beds and in my sleepy state I make a decision that I wouldn’t have offered if I were completely awake, although I know I’m not going to regret it. “You can get in the bed, we’re adults and the floor isn’t comfy.”
Silence reigns in the room and my eyes feel heavy, just as sleep begins to claim me, the bed dips on either side of me and I smile, thank goodness I didn’t have Betty in bed, that would have been difficult to explain, although maybe not because by now they should be used to me and Betty.
Sleep quickly settles over me as I relax, feeling far more comfortable with the two men in my bed than maybe I should be.
**********
I become aware of voices in my room, but I’m too comfortable to do anything about it. My head is on someone’s chest, their heartbeat steady beneath my ear, and someone else is wrapped around me from behind. We are all cuddled up close and I don’t think I have ever been this comfortable in my life.
“What the hell?” Ransom mutters quietly, sounding amused.
“I couldn’t find River and Raiden, and I got worried since they took the events of the clearing pretty hard. Neith’s door was open, and when I went to close it for her, I heard a familiar snore, got curious, and found this,” Doc says, and I can hear the smile in his voice.
“Lucky fuckers,” Ransom grumbles, making me smile. “We should probably wake them up.”
River’s voice rumbles from underneath my ear, “Go away, sleeping. Comfy.”
I giggle, and Raiden’s arm tightens around me from behind.
“Shh Neith, we’re sleeping,” he mumbles, amusement in his voice.
“I have pastries and coffee,” Doc tempts.
I launch myself from my warm cocoon and end up standing at the end of my bed with my eyes still closed, “I’m up.”
“Your eyes are closed,” Ransom says.
“Nuh-uh,” I reply, knowing full well that my eyes are closed.
“You fuckers,” River grumbles from the bed.
Raiden groans, “I was enjoying my cuddles.”
I open one of my eyes since the other one hasn't woken up yet, and search for my leggings, finding them on the floor, I bend down to grab them and then pull them on, inadvertently flashing both Raiden and River, my ass.
“Well, I’m up now,” River teases, and I glance over my shoulder to his heated eyes, still staring at my ass.
I laugh, “Perv. Come on pastries!”
“Fine,” River says and pushes Raiden, “get up.”
“Dude, I’m more awake than you are,” Raiden replies.
Doc and Ransom start laughing as the two in the bed start a pillow fight, and I try to resist the urge to join in because rolling around on the bed with two half-naked men sounds like a dream come true, actually.
“It’s like a comedy show,” Ransom chuckles.
I look around my room to distract myself and say, “I really need to get some more clothes today.”
“We can go after we have finished our reports today,” Doc says.
I point to where my report is still on the desk, “I did mine last night before I went to sleep.”
“You didn’t need to. There was no rush to get it done,” Ransom replies with a frown.
I shrug, “It’s become a habit.”
“Huh?” Raiden asks from behind me.
“I had to get the reports to HID within the first few hours of the job being over. The only time they ever waived that was when I was unconscious for whatever reason, but even then, they wanted it within the first hour of me being awake. I have written reports with internal bleeding before, that was not fun.” I explain as I stretch out a kink in my back.
“The more I learn about the people you worked with at HID the more I want to go through unofficial channels in order to deal with them,” River growls from behind me.
“If we’re doing that then I get to play first,” my smile is sharp and deadly and there is no mistaking the kind of playing that I mean. It won’t be the fun kind, well not for them, for me it’s definitely going to be fun.
“That was hot,” River whispers theatrically.
I chuckle, “Come on, I need food.”
We all leave my room and head to the kitchen, getting raised eyebrows from Van and Reed when we all enter together.
“You found them then,” Reed says as he sips his coffee.
His dark hair is all messed up from sleeping on it and his face is still slightly rumpled, showing that he woke up not long before Doc and Ransom woke us up, it’s fucking adorable.
“They were snuggled up to Neith,” Doc grins as he takes a seat and helps himself to the food and coffee.
I take that as permission to do the same and load my plate up.
“Lucky fuckers,” Reed comments, echoing Ransom’s statement from before.
These guys are good for my ego. We all eat in silence for a while as everyone slowly starts to wake up properly, and I glance out of the huge glass doors that practically take up the entire wall opposite the table that we are sitting at and realize that it looks like it’s morning.
“Did we sleep for the entire day and night?” I ask, looking around at the others.
“Yeah, we all did. I’m not surprised though, we needed it. We haven’t really had a good night’s sleep for a while,” Evander replies.
“Good point,” I agree, and take a massive bite of the flakey pastry in my hand. I have no idea what it’s called. I have never really had the need to learn fancy pastry names, but I do know that it is absolutely delicious, and I could probably eat at least five more.
“If you would like to Neith, I can take you into town after breakfast,” Raiden offers, he smirks, “I did my report last night, so I don’t have anything to do.”
“You clever fucker,” I swear I hear one of them mutter, which momentarily makes me frown in confusion before I dismiss it and focus on a hopeful looking Raiden.
“Since when do you write up your reports at any time other than the very last minute?” Ransom asks him.
Raiden’s smile is proud as he looks at me, “Since the reward outweighs the pain of writing the report.”
“Wow,” Evander chuckles.
Raiden ignores him and asks me, “So, how about it?”
I nod, “Yes please, that would be great. I only need to get a few essentials and then if I can borrow a laptop from someone, I can get the rest delivered.”
“Sure, I don’t mind shopping,” Raiden replies with an easy-going smile.
“That makes one of us,” I grumble, earning myself amused smiles, “can we at least get food that might make it more bearable?”
Raiden nods, “Absolutely.”
“Deal,” I reply, and I push away from the table, and turn to head out of the door, “I guess I should go and get dressed then.”
“Wait, before you go,” Evander says, and I pause hearing the tension in his voice and turn back to face him.
He looks very serious and as I look around at all of the other guys, I realize that he is not the only one and that all of the amusement that was on their faces moments ago has disappeared.
I stand up straighter and cautiously reply, “Okay?”
“Ty rang us before we went to bed, and he said that a few of the other teams had heard of your track record and had shown an interest in having you on their team,” Evander starts to explain.
The tension drains from my body, and I smile, “Oh, you had me worried for a moment then I thought it was something serious.”
“It is,” Reed says bluntly.
Ransom takes over the explanation, “Unlike humans, supes do it a bit differently. If two teams wish to have a certain person on their team, and neither one backs down, then one of the teams can challenge for the Choosing. It doesn’t happen very often anymore because usually, everyone respects the choice of the individual.”
“And it’s not so necessary to make sure that the teams are well-matched now that we aren’t in Trieneliea,” Raiden adds.
I am going to make sure that I ask questions about that later on, but right now I feel like there is a much more important question to ask, “So, if someone challenges you guys for me like I am something to own, then I have no choice but to wait and see who wins me like I’m a prized fucking cow?”
The whole table winces.
Evander clears his throat and carries on explaining, “Not exactly, you have to compete in a series of tasks, some by yourself and some with the teams that are interested in you. The tasks are dangerous for supernaturals, but for you, they risk being deadly. When you have passed all tasks, the scroll inscribes the best team for you, and it’s not like, ‘Oh, you guys will kind of fit;’ it’s like a soul connection, and you are bonded for life. No one can deny the connection, and it comes with certain perks too, and an extra level of respect in supernatural society, and especially in the realms, if the team were ever to travel to them.”
I take a deep breath, “Okay, I sort of like that bit, I guess. I am assuming that because this is a supernatural thing, I can’t just tell the other team or teams to fuck off and that I want to be on your team?”
I need the clarification.
“No,” Evander grimaces.
“But it’s only a possibility that someone might invoke the Choosing. It’s not a certainty,” Doc says.
I detect something in his voice that makes me ask, “What aren’t you telling me?”
“It isn’t a certainty, I didn’t lie, but we are pretty sure that one of the teams that have expressed an interest in you is a team that fucking hates us for no other reason than we are better than them,” Doc explains.
“So there is a chance that they could invoke the Choosing, which could potentially kill me, just to get at you?” I ask.
Reed nods, “Yes.”
“If that happens, fates be damned, I will make their lives a living fucking hell,” I growl.
“Deal,” River replies, his usual mirth missing from his eyes.
“No choice,” I mutter. The guys shake their heads. I can see how much all of them hate this, and that takes the edge off slightly.
Slightly, but not enough. The current knot of anger, and fear at the thought of being trapped in a situation I have no control over threatens to stir memories that I need to stay buried, walking through these emotions is not going to fucking work this time they are too raw, too triggering. The voices get louder as if they are trying to help me drown out the threatening memories too, but it’s no good.
There is only one thing for it.
“Neith?” Raiden asks, his dark eyes swirling with concern.
“Have you guys got a gym?” I ask.
Griff frowns, seemingly as confused as the others, but he answers me anyway, saying, “Yes.”
“Show me?” I ask as I stand from the table, bouncing on my toes.
He nods and gets up; I follow him, aware that the others are following as well.
I glance up at River, “Do you have some headphones and something I can listen to music on?”
He nods and jogs in a different direction to the one that we were going in. I love that he didn’t ask any questions. He catches back up to us as we move further into the house and then push through big double doors that lead to a state of the art gym, I am too fucking mad to notice much else about the room but I zero in on the bags in the corner.
“I just need a minute,” I say, hoping they don’t ask me questions.
“Of course, we will leave you to it,” Doc says firmly, as if he is warning the others to do just that.
River hands me a set of on ear headphones, and his phone, his music app already loaded, I scroll through the playlists until I find a heavy rock one and nod my thanks. As I’m putting them on the music already playing, I catch Evander’s confused look.
I’m not surprised, I have never been very good at being told what to do, and I used to get crazy emotional and pretty much have tantrums if I was forced to do something, serious things, not things like homework and shit. Basically, I was very immature about it.
I still explode, especially when it’s something as serious as this is. It’s hardwired into me and has also become a trauma response, thanks to my past. Under normal circumstances, I can push it away until I’m calm enough to deal with it. However, these aren’t normal circumstances, this has the potential to be a life and death situation, and if it does come about, then, the likelihood is it is because the team has a problem with the guys.
That’s pathetic.
I don’t explain to Van that I had to learn to control my emotions this way, because he is going to ask why and I am not ready to share that part of my life, not all the bad came from Dimitri, some of it came from before him.
I shudder and shake my arms out to hide it, again it would cause questions I don’t want to answer.
With the music blaring in my ears and the voices buzzing loudly in my head, I do the simplest and quickest stretch that I can get away with, just so that I don’t end up cursing myself later. I start hitting the bag, running through my usual routine, and then switching it up. It would be so much better if it were fighting back, and I didn’t have time to think .