Chapter 6
Ledger
Igroaned into Maya’s pillow, the scent of roses surrounding me despite the fact that her curvy little body wasn’t pressed against mine.
Didn’t stop me from getting fucking hard as well.
I shook my head and sat up, looking around and cursed realizing I was late.
Like school started two hours ago late. Why the hell hadn’t anyone woken me up?
“Maya didn’t want to go to school today,” my twin explained, walking in with two coffee cups. I took one and nodded, feeling relieved because last night with Marco’s executive officers had stressed me the fuck out.
“Why?” I took a sip of coffee and rolled back my shoulders. My dragon offered me a lazy look as I narrowed my eyes at him. I swear to Christ, he was like Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Sometimes he was insane and other times he acted like he didn’t know me.
“Maya is learning about the realms and dragons,” he chuckled, “she doesn’t believe you are a blood dragon, says you are too relaxed.”
I hummed as my dragon offered a dangerous expression, wanting to prove her wrong.
Luckily, I had spent most of my childhood having to shut up and keep quiet so controlling him wasn’t a problem.
Did I want to bite into her soft neck? Oh absolutely.
It was fucking hard as hell to wait on that, but everything was about control. Relaxed, easy control.
The concept that threatened that? How amazing I knew her body would feel under mine or bent over as I bit her skin, fucking her senseless.
How irrationally angry I felt at the concept of her being threatened by anyone.
Both of those would do it. Even her fucking heartbeat, that I could hear from here was enough to push that control.
Relaxed? Sure. Totally completely relaxed.
Can’t you tell? I inhaled another sip of my coffee before standing and looking at my brother, his eyes searching her room as I shook my head.
“Just ask her,” I stated softly. My brother offered me a fake wide-eyed expression.
“Not sure what you’re talking about.” He offered as I rolled my eyes. Right. Because that’s reassuring.
“She’s going to realize you keep taking her shit eventually, just tell her. Maya is amazing, she will probably leave stuff out for you.” I offered as his eyes heated before he looked away.
The mythos surrounding dragons weren’t wrong. Just a bit different than the truth. We all breathed fire, enjoyed violence, and hoarded pretty shit but just like humans, everyone exhibited these qualities differently.
For me, the fact that Maya was in our house was the perfect collection to me. My brother? He had three of her hair ties and an earring she’d left on the counter on his desk. Something that I knew was bound to get worse.
I left the room, leaving him to his insanity as I moved down the hall to where I could hear Maya humming.
Pushing on Marco’s office door slightly, poking my head in.
He offered me a nod from where he was on the phone staring at the TV screen that was on, no doubt for the stock market updates that Henry was obsessing over.
Maya was refreshingly doing none of those things, her soft humming coming from where she was sitting on a large window seat looking relaxed.
Her dark hair was bundled up in a loose wavy bun on top of her head and she was wearing this oversized sweater and leggings with bright yellow socks. She was, in a word, perfect.
“Firefly,” I chimed, her eyes opened and she offered me a big smile. I sat on the edge of the wooden, pillow covered, seat as I intertwined our hands together. “Where is Bella?”
The kitten was adorable and fit Maya perfectly. A small meow answered my question as the kitten walked into the room…followed by Atlas, his head shaking in amusement. Bella curled up under Marco’s desk and closed her eyes causing Maya to sigh happily.
“I’m so excited about work tomorrow,” she chimed happily, after a moment.
“You’re going?” Atlas asked, looking put out by the concept despite it being a day away.
“Of course I am!” She squeezed my hand. “Plus, Jordan is going to be there, she works Tuesday and Thursday--”
The desk phone rang. Marco frowned, putting his other call on hold and picking up the house line. He answered with just his last name and his eyes narrowed thoughtfully as someone spoke on the other line.
“Yeah, thanks for letting me know. It’s not their business why they aren’t there, but feel free to give them my information, they shouldn’t be trying to reach her at school.
” He stated as I shook my head. Annoyed with these people that kept trying to invade our privacy.
Marco had a lot of pull at the school and if I had to guess someone tried to contact her.
Henry muted the television as we waited for him to hang up. I watched as he put the phone down and sighed. Sitting up, he looked at Maya before seemingly thinking something over.
“There are human investigators, from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, looking to talk to you, Maya, about your mother and Jed’s deaths.” Marco stated softly, my little mate tensed, her hand tightened around mine.
“Tell them to fuck off.” Sai offered, walking in with my twin. The latter had a silk ribbon in his hand that he slid into his pocket. Maya offered him a small smile that he didn’t catch and I realized she already knew. That shouldn’t have surprised me, the woman caught on very quickly.
“I thought the local office wasn’t going to be a problem?” Atlas frowned.
“Apparently, someone higher up was called,” Henry answered.
“I want to hear what Maya wants to do,” Marco stated softly as Atlas no doubt began to check the security on the property and what the administration had been okay with him installing at school. His hands moving across the keyboard of his phone extremely fast.
Croy joined our family meeting a moment later, looking distracted.
“Will it help to talk to them or make things more complicated?” Maya asked softly, her voice sweet and curious.
“It may help the human media image, but that's about it,” Henry stated easily.
“Is there anything else we could do instead?” Maya perked up, “People think I am bad or whatever right? Isn’t there a way we can show them I’m not.”
“We could hold an interview or two,” Croy offered, refocused on the situation at hand.
“I hate that idea,” Atlas muttered.
Anani looked up at Maya and she continued to run her hands through his hair from where he sat leaning against the window seat.
“It may work though,” Marco grunted.
“I like that idea,” Maya perked up, “would it be in a magazine like the ones I get? Because I’m thinking we could use it as an excuse to get a family photo. You know two things for the price of one, help my image or whatever and get a cute photo of the eight of us.”
Sai grinned, looking absolutely infatuated with our mate, “Maya, you are so perfect it's painful.”
Her eyes blinked wide as she offered a small smile, “If you say so.”
“Alright I’ll call the Times,” Marco grunted, and I made the decision to break the serious tension.
I stood up and pulled Maya’s hand slightly as she hopped up. My brother followed as we left the room and walked downstairs, the afternoon still rainy and somewhat dark.
“Want to bake since we didn’t get to last night?” I asked Maya, who nodded eagerly, letting go of my hand to twist her hair up into another messy bun since it had fallen out.
My brother sat at the counter staring at her while she seemingly didn’t notice. That saying about having stars in your eyes when you are smitten comes to mind. Shaking my head at him I pulled out a cookbook that I’d ordered for her. I already knew what she would want to bake.
“Can we try these?” She pointed towards a recipe for chocolate orange cupcakes with vanilla frosting. I nodded and started taking out stuff as Anani turned on some music causing Maya to hum. The sound made my chest rumble as usual.
I had no idea why but her singing or humming, usually had my dragon freaking the fuck out.
Either getting worked up if it was in a happy way or panicked if it was a small sad sound.
I figured it had something to do with being a phoenix but honestly, I didn’t have much of a grasp on what her powers should be.
“How old are you two?” She asked curiously after a moment, “Like, when is your birthday, because there is a birthday cake recipe in here that I want to try for sure.”
As I set things out on the counter, Anani responded, “Our birthday is August 15th, peanut.”
Her eyes flashed up, “You mean I missed it? Well, why don’t we have a birthday party for you guys also? I mean, I can’t be the only one we celebrate.”
I zoned out for a moment, not hearing what my brother said, feeling a pang of hurt and anger from the past radiate through my chest. Our birthday was never really celebrated.
On purpose. It had always been associated with terrible things.
Our mother died giving birth to us. Our older brother disappeared on our 6th birthday, turning our father into…
well, the monster he became. Every year the abuse got worse until our tenth birthday when he’d dropped us off on the steps of the military academy without another word.
The only plus side was that the next day brought some level of positivity.
We met Marco the morning after being dropped off and he’d brought us into the only thing we could consider family now.
When we had still lived in the Dreki realm, our father had started to reach out to us around twelve, claiming that he had a right to some of the stipend the academy was giving us.
Marco had, of course, fought it. On holidays we stayed at the academy with the rest of our team because when we had made the mistake of going home once, our dad had beat both of us blue. Fucking asshole.
“I still think we should celebrate,” she said sweetly, frowning at my brother’s obvious fake smile, “it was the day that brought you two into this world. So I love it.”
I swallowed hearing that word off her lips and said something I never thought I would, “You know what Maya, I think you’re right. Next year we will hold something, but only if you promise we can celebrate it along with yours.”
She broke into a smile as my brother’s eyes widened, “What? Really?”
“I think a change is important,” I stated softly. My brother nodded looking hesitant but we continued to start baking as we used the mixer and made a ridiculous mess, her light-hearted smile somehow making the rainy morning feel a lot more positive. More positive than I’d felt in years.
It also could be how fucking sexy she looked in a light sweater, leggings, and a purple and pink apron, flour essentially covering the two of us. I didn’t even care, if Maya wanted cupcakes, we were making some fucking cupcakes.
It was easier to talk about the others' birthdays as I explained that Marco was the oldest out of our flight.
Atlas was the second oldest at twenty-two followed by Sai who was 19 and Henry who would turn 19 in October.
The fact that Maya was so close in age to the two of us actually fit into our flight really easily.
I knew that Marco was thrilled that she was letting him hold her a birthday party this weekend and I actually liked the idea as well.
One. Because other supernaturals needed to know she was our mate.
Two. I think it was going to make her irrationally happy.
Three. I really did want to celebrate her birthday because that was the day that she officially became ours.
Although, I think I would have always considered her ours if we’d grown up together.
I shook my head thinking about our music career and how at the time it had seemed so important. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely loved music and singing but the actual lifestyle that came along with fame wasn’t very attractive to me.
Anani, on the other hand, was a different story.
Then again, as established, he liked shiny shit.
So fame was part of that in his mind. I had no doubt that the moment he had the opportunity he would be taking her to one of those human awards shows like the Emmys or Oscars, just because we were always invited.
Honestly, the fact that she wanted to be so open about our relationship as a group made all of this feel so much more real.
It was also nice to be able to hold her hand in public without worrying I was messing up some carefully constructed story for the media.
It would be hard to maintain it because I found myself touching her without thinking about it.
Even as we separated out the small liners and began to pour batter into them, I tucked that strand of pink hair behind her ear just so I could touch her.
“I hope they taste good,” she started, looking through the glass oven door as my brother silently groaned, putting his head back at how perfect her ass looked in those leggings. My eyes flickered up innocently as she turned to toss me a smile.
“Should we make the frosting?”
“I already did,” I nodded towards the bowl I’d been working on off to the side to keep my hands busy.
You know, so I didn’t do something rash like strip her bare, lay her out on the counter, and lick frosting off of her perfect body.
Because I wasn’t a rash person. I was totally, completely relaxed. I promise.
“Oh good!” She smiled and took off her apron tossing it on the counter. “I’m going to go shower then, be right back.”
Both of us watched her jog upstairs. I narrowed my eyes at my brother who was staring at the apron. “Dude, no.”
I loved that apron on her. It was bright and colorful, filling this space with a homey touch I hadn’t known it needed.
Every day Maya was here and every time that Marco ordered more shit for her, the house changed.
I knew the baking material that was on its way was an assortment of bright colors from a lime green Kitchen Aid mixer to a set of pink and blue mixing bowls.
It didn’t match the kitchen at all, but I loved the chaos of it more than I could ever express.
“What?” He asked quietly, running a hand through his hair.
“You know what,” I rolled my eyes.
“Where’s Maya?” Atlas walked in from outside, wet from the rain and looking concerned. I arched my brow as my brother said ‘upstairs’.
“Make sure she doesn’t leave the house tonight. Or anytime alone,” he grunted, “I have most of this fucking town under surveillance, and I haven’t seen or heard a fucking peep about Malcolm. I don’t like that at all.”
I nodded putting my head down, realizing that despite our relaxed fun afternoon, we still had a lot of fucking problems to work out. Unfortunately, cupcakes and smiles weren’t going to keep Maya safe. No. You needed something far scarier than that.
Luckily, I think we were the perfect people for the job.