Chapter 5
Hugo
Idophia seemed… nice. But weird.
Not that I had room to talk.
She was kind of giving off a strange vibe, but I couldn’t put my finger on what it meant.
Maybe she was just shy or nervous. Maybe she felt weird since Zay, Kian, and I were all kind of close—something that was still strange to me.
I’d never had a lot of friends, but here I was, making friends with Zay’s family members more easily than I expected.
I felt comfortable around Kian after everything that’d gone down in the winter. He’d stayed here for weeks, and he was a really open and fun person to be around, someone who made you feel comfortable, even after meeting him for two seconds.
So I could… be myself around him.
And obviously, I felt the same about my viramore, because duh.
Zay was mine. He owned my heart, and I knew—I could feel—how much he loved me for who I was.
Even though I didn’t know Phia—as Kian insisted we call her—at all, I was good in my own skin with my viramore by my side and his brother across the table. I knew both of them had my back, no matter what.
They made me feel… safe.
Plus, we were in my and Zay’s home. Our safe place.
Soooo… I really was trying to give Phia the benefit of the doubt, but she was just… odd. Maybe it was a nymph thing.
I knew little about nymphs and had never even spoken to one, so I had no idea how to take her behavior.
Actually, that wasn’t true, was it? Zay had a few aunts who were half-nymphs. And did he have a nymph cousin or something too?
So… I supposed it was just a Phia thing, then. Huh.
I glanced at the woman on the other side of the table.
Kian put a card on the table. “I’m playing psychic destroyer. Which meeeeaaannssss, I kill all of your monsters, Phia, and you take two points of damage, so…” She only had one point left, so he’d essentially taken her out of the game.
Since I was already staring at her, I saw the moment a flicker of anger flashed over her face. But it was there and gone in a blink of an eye. Had I really seen that, or was it just my imagination?
She said, “Right. Fine. Killing all my monsters doesn’t count as taking those damage points?” Even when she spoke, I could tell she was pissed off… over a stupid game. So yeah… I really had seen it. Yikes.
“Nope! Sorry, babe, you’re out.” Kian was smiling and enjoying himself. Meanwhile, I was pretty sure Phia was planning his demise. And not just in the game. She was genuinely angry at him.
Trying to make it better, I added, “You were definitely about to kill us all and win the game, so I can’t blame him for taking you out. Although, I think it’s my turn now, right?”
Kian nodded, so I placed a card down. “Boom. You’re dead, and you take twenty damage points.”
“Oh, man! Shit! Twenty? Really?”
I nodded.
“Hot damn, Hugo, I only have fifteen.”
That made me grin at him. “I know.”
Kian laughed as he removed his monsters and took himself off the board. “Ugh, I was finally in a great place to take out Zay too.”
I shot him a wink. “Don’t worry, I’m gonna get him too.” I pointed at the card. “It says if I have more than thirty points, I get to play the card a second time, and I can aim at someone else.” I gestured to the counter in the center of the table. “I’m at thirty-two, so now I’m aiming for Zay.”
“Nooooooo,” Zay whined, making Key and me laugh. “I’m dead. I’m completely dead.”
“Looks like we all are, bro.” Kian shrugged and pointed at the counter again. “Guess that means Hugo wins. Again.”
“Well, shit.” Zaos sighed and leaned back in his chair, putting his arm around me. “You little sneak.”
I snickered. “Yep, that’s me. Sneaking up and taking my revenge.”
“Revenge? What did I ever do to you?”
“Killed my crew in the first round.”
He opened his mouth, then snapped it shut. “Oh. Right. Forgot about that.”
I snorted and nudged him. “Nice try, but you know I’m the champion.”
Kian laughed and threw the cards in his hand to the table. “How are you so good at this?”
I shrugged and started cleaning up. “My sister and I played a lot when we were teenagers. It was basically the only game we owned.” Not basically. It was the only game we owned growing up.
“Ugh. Well, I’m going to buy this game so I can practice at home. Next time, I’m gonna kick your ass.”
“I’ll believe it when I see it.”
He snorted and leaned back, putting his arm across the back of Phia’s chair. I didn’t think Kian noticed, but I definitely saw her move away from him slightly and give him a small and silent sigh, almost exasperated-looking.
What. The. Hell.
“Did you see that?” I asked Zaos through our link.
I heard him sigh in my head. “Sure did. What’s her problem?”
“I think… I think she might be… acting like she likes Key when she really doesn’t.”
“Fuck. That kinda goes along with what Grandpa said. Shit.”
I grimaced internally because it was clear we had a problem, and Kian was going to be the one who suffered from the blowback.
Before I could say anything else, Phia pulled out her phone and asked the table, “Have you all seen that crazy witch video that’s been going around?”
I had absolutely zero idea what she was talking about, and apparently Zay didn’t know either because he said, “Nope. I don’t know what that is.”
Kian shrugged. “I dunno either.”
Phia got a strange look on her face, like she was eager or maybe like she was a lioness and we were her prey. Okay, that was kind of mean and uncalled for, even in my own head. She wasn’t that bad. Just maybe bad for Kian.
“Look at this.” She held her phone up so all of us could see and played a video.
It was shaky and a little blurry at first. I had no idea what the hell she was showing us, but then the camera focused and the shape of a person surrounded in black smoke—or was it shadow magic, like a witch?
—became clear. There was so much shadow around them I couldn’t even make out a single feature.
The person stepped forward and pushed their arm out in front of them.
Vines tore from the ground, shooting up in the air. The camera person screamed and backed away far enough that we could see the vines wrapping themselves around three people.
I squinted. Holy shit, it was three police officers, if their uniforms were anything to go by. Although, they definitely weren’t Brinnswick uniforms. Huh. Perhaps somewhere in Gauhala?
The officers screamed as they were wrapped in vines from head to toe. The shadow person slowly walked toward them, shadows flicking out, making it look like they had a hundred arms.
My heart raced from the sight. I couldn’t imagine how terrified the police officers were with that person coming straight for them. They looked like something plucked straight out of a nightmare.
The shadow person stopped directly in front of one of the men, and the shadows wrapped around them both. The police officer let out a terrified yelp, but cut it off after only a second. From the shaky video view, I couldn’t tell if the shadows were hurting him or not.
Before I could ask the question out loud, a deep voice began speaking. For some reason, I’d expected the shadow person to sound inhuman, like a demon with a million voices at once or something. But they didn’t. They just seemed… normal. A deep voice, sure, but nothing too wild.
But then the words became clearer, and I thought maybe I was wrong.
Maybe they really were a demon. I almost laughed out loud and rolled my eyes at myself when I realized they were speaking in a different language—a normal one, not something from the depths of hell or whatever nightmare my brain had conjured up.
Too bad there wasn’t a translation on the video.
The shadow person let out what sounded like an angry growl, stepped back, then reached their hand to the side and swiped down in midair.
They stepped in the same direction as their hand, and their body slowly disappeared like they were stepping behind a curtain.
And then they… disappeared into thin air.
The shadows disappeared with them, but the vines remained wrapped around the officers.
Yells and gasps were heard through the video before the whole thing went black.
What. The. Hell.
Were there supernaturals who could just disappear like that?
Did that mean they could appear out of thin air too?
That was… holy shit, that was a terrifying thought.
“Wasn’t that wild?” Phia asked.
“Yes! What the hell was that? What kind of magic was that?” I asked. “Do you know what he said?”
“I’m not sure, but someone in a comment said the guy said something like Stay out of my business, and I’ll stay out of yours. This is your final warning. But I don’t know if that’s true or not.”
“Wow. That’s… yeah, I don’t even have words, honestly.”
Phia let out a small laugh. “Right?”
I looked at the others since they hadn’t said anything.
Kian’s eyebrows were raised, looking as surprised as I felt. I expected the same expression from Zay, but when I looked at him, he seemed more thoughtful than anything else.
After a moment, Zay said, “That had to be fake.”
“What? Why?” Phia looked annoyed, as if personally offended by the accusation.
I could feel how uncomfortable Zay was, so I reached under the table to rest my hand on his leg, giving it a squeeze. He instantly blew out a deep breath before speaking.
“Witches don’t have that many powers.”
“That was witch magic?” I couldn’t help but ask.
Zay nodded. “Looked like it to me.”
Phia asked him, “What do you mean about the powers?”
“Every witch only has one affinity—either nature, death, light, or shadow. That video had the same person using shadow and nature affinities—possibly death too, but I’m not sure—so… it’s not real. It can’t be.”
Phia still looked personally offended. Actually, she looked even more offended than a moment before. As if she’d made the video herself or something. “How do you know they aren’t a different type of being? Maybe there’s something out there that looks like witch magic but isn’t.”
Now Zay was exasperated. That surprised me. He usually had more patience than a saint. He said, “Like what? I’ve never seen anyone use magic that looks like witch magic, let alone use two or three different affinities.”
“I’m sure there are plenty of rare species out there that none of us knows about. Just because your family has a ton of different species in it doesn’t mean you know everything about everyone.”
Phia’s look of disapproval ran deep, and I could feel how uncomfortable it was making my viramore.
Zaos said, “Of course I don’t know everything. I’m sorry, Phia. You’re right. Maybe there’s someone out there that has magic like that.”
She stared at him for a long moment before she huffed, stood, and walked away.
Kian sent Zay a small glare, and my viramore held up his hands in defeat. “I didn’t mean to upset her.”
Kian sighed. “I know.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “And I agree with you. That can’t be real, but…” He trailed off with a shrug. “She had a really shitty day at work, so she wasn’t in the best mood before we got here. I know she’s being… well, just… please give her a chance, okay?”
“Of course, Key. You know we will,” Zay said quietly. “I’m sorry I upset her.”
“I think this was more about her work thing than some stupid video. Don’t worry.” He shot Zay a small smile. “I’m gonna go check on her.” He got up, knocked on the table a couple of times, and headed after her down the hall to the guest bedroom.
I looked at Zaos. “Sooooo…”
He sighed. “Yeah, that was… not cool. I thought we were just having a discussion about it. I never meant to make her upset.”
Reaching over, I rubbed his back. “It’s alright. I know you didn’t mean to upset her.”
“Why does she care so much? It wasn’t her video.”
I shrugged. “No idea.” After a moment, I added, “Well, maybe she was feeling a little left out. I mean, we weren’t trying to leave her out, and she didn’t seem eager to jump into the conversation when we tried to include her, but…
she could’ve been jealous that we know Key so well or something, and then when she pulled out something for everyone, you… well, you told the truth, but… yeah.”
He blew out a long breath, rubbed his hand over his face, and sank down in his chair. “Shit. You’re right. I totally fucked that up.”
“You’re fine, Zay. I’m sure she’ll be okay in a little while. I didn’t say that to make you feel bad.”
He sent me a tired smile. “I know. This night has just been really weird.”
I couldn’t disagree with him there.
It took two hours for Phia to finally emerge from the bedroom. Zaos apologized, but she brushed him off and acted like he was an annoying fly on the wall or something, as if he wasn’t even there.
It hurt my viramore’s feelings, which made me glare at her myself. But she either didn’t notice or she was ignoring me as well. I didn’t really care. She was being ridiculous, rude, and immature, and I didn’t like it.
And to top it off, Kian was acting weird. Almost subdued. I could tell he was holding things back and not saying what he thought, which wasn’t like him at all. Normally, we couldn’t get him to shut up.
It was worrying me.
And it was definitely worrying Zaos.
His worry was bleeding into mine and vice versa, so both our worries kept amping up and up and up.
So I took a deep breath and tried to release as much of the emotion as I could because this was only making matters worse.
Luckily, my viramore was awesome and realized what I was doing, so he joined in, doing the same.
After a minute or two, we both felt calmer. The worry was still there, but not nearly as strong as it’d been. Our worries rubbed off on each other, but so did everything else, including our calmness. I’d definitely take it.
“Ready for our movie?” I asked as I walked into the kitchen to grab the two giant bowls of popcorn.
“Yessss,” Kian said, grinning at me as he took one of the bowls. “Can’t wait.”
I smiled back. “Good.”
“Come up with any bets yet?”
“Nope, but I came up with a drinking game.” I reached over and grabbed a giant bottle of wine. “Every time the main character gets shot at and a bad guy misses, we take a sip.”
Kian’s eyes went wide. “We’ll be drunk five minutes in.”
I snorted. “Exactly.”
Kian cackled, grabbed the other bottle of wine off the counter, and headed into the living room.
Hopefully movie night would go better than the board game.
Since I wanted to make things work, I asked Phia, “Do you like action movies? Is the movie we picked okay?”
She sent me a smile that seemed genuine and actually kind, and I figured that my earlier assessment that she was just uncomfortable was right. Maybe she wasn’t too bad after all. “I like action movies.”
“Awesome. Have you seen this one yet?”
She shook her head. “Nope, but it’s been on my list, so I’m excited to see it.”
I smiled and finally felt myself relax as I sat beside Zaos on the couch. He automatically put his arm around me, and I leaned into his side but still said to Phia, “Wanna join our drinking game?”
She laughed and held up her empty wine glass. “Sure.”
Kian said, “We’re all gonna regret this.”
I snorted and poured the wine.