Chapter 52
Chapter Fifty-Two
Otis
It was strange being on the outside.
Not that they treated me as anything other than a member of their new pack. In fact, they treated Ilyas and me almost exactly the same, despite Ilyas courting the pair, but I still felt like an interloper.
I watched as Ilyas gave them both chocolates from an exclusive chocolatier in the city. A single truffle was like fifteen dollars, and he’d gifted them a full box each. They were exquisite miniatures of woodland creatures, birds, and squirrels, each chocolate lovingly hand painted.
They were beautiful, and Hailey’s eyes went wide, even as Eric popped one into his mouth and grinned.
“You don’t have to bring us courting gifts, Ilyas,” Hailey told him, even as her eyes ran over the confections with awe.
He shook his head, his expression stoic like it didn’t matter to him.
“It’s customary,” was all he said, but I’d known the stony faced gargoyle for a long time.
I saw his eyes run over their faces, like he was trying to determine if they really liked the gift.
I saw the hopefulness he was trying to hide.
Hailey came to the other side of the breakfast table, lifting up on her toes to kiss his cheek. His pointed gray ears darkened, a surefire indicator he was blushing.
“I love them. They are too pretty to eat though,” she teased softly.
Syke was leaning on the back of the couch. “You should eat them. The store is known for its fillings. They are award winning.”
Ilyas pulled a soft brown squirrel from the box and held it to Hailey’s lips. She took it gently, her eyes never leaving his face, and I saw the moment she tasted the flavors.
“Holy crap, that’s delicious,” she burst out, and Ilyas laughed a deep, rolling rumble, like thunder in the distance. In all our years, I’d be able to count on one hand how many times I’d heard him laugh, and twice had been because of Hailey.
He was smitten with the pair, and while I was sure he told himself it was for practical purposes, I wondered if he was more excited by the concept of courting Eric and Hailey than he was outwardly letting himself feel.
We sat down and talked for a little longer, then I excused myself. Minotaurs were solitary creatures and not made for the herd life, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t want it desperately.
I headed outside, because that was normally where I was happiest. I’d spent time studying the safety concerns of the house, the security we needed to update, gaps in the forest surrounding the house, and the borders of pack land.
I looked up at a tree just behind the sprawling backyard and wondered if I could get a security camera on a closed loop network to sit up between two lower branches. I was already going to put at least four on the blind spots of the house, but a few covering the backyard would be good.
Two hours later, my phone buzzed in my pocket. I looked down at the message from Chet on my screen, and I stilled.
The message was a problem, but not because it was a bad thing, but because it was a hard thing. My ears flicked as I thought about what I should do, but in the end, I knew it wasn’t my choice.
Walking inside, I found Hailey cuddled up on Syke’s lap. The poor demon was beginning to feel left out. We’d have to figure out how he could feed sooner rather than later, or it would become a problem.
“Hailey?” I called softly, but every face turned to me. “Could I talk to you for a second?”
Syke clung to her a little more tightly. “Just put cameras everywhere, Otis. You know she doesn’t mind.”
Hailey laughed, extracting herself from his arms, and kissing him on the lips. “Be right back. Cuddle Eric,” she teased, and then she laughed when the demon pulled the orc into his lap instead. The apples of Eric’s cheeks darkened, but he didn’t move from Syke’s lap.
Jealousy burned deep in my chest. Hailey shook her head when she walked up to me, and I tilted my chin toward the kitchen. Almost all the creatures in the house had excellent hearing, but it gave us the illusion of privacy.
“Syke’s right, you know. I trust your opinion when it comes to our safety.” She laid a hand on my arm, and I wanted to bundle her up against my chest and kiss her until she gasped.
Instead, I said, “Chet texted. He wanted me to tell you that Tiael and Erynan are in Central Valley today and would like to meet up, if you’re agreeable.”
She rocked back on her heels, her lips parted as she stared up at me with wide eyes. “My Tiael and Erynan? My fae neighbors from when I was a kid?”
Inclining my head, I pulled out a stool for her so she could sit down.
“Chet saw a friend of a friend, who got in touch with them. Needless to say, they never forgot you either, but it’s entirely up to you if you want to see them again, or if you want to leave them in the past. I know it’s painful for you. ”
She blinked up at me, and I could almost see the thoughts whirling around in her brain. The guys must have heard, because there was no way the feeling of her unsettledness in the bond wouldn’t have drawn them in here otherwise.
“Today?” she asked, her voice an odd squeak.
I nodded again. “If that’s what you want, but it doesn’t have to be. It could be in a month, a year, or never. It’s up to you, Hailey.”
She gnawed on her bottom lip. “I think…” She let out a shaky breath. “I think I’d like to see them. Would you come with me?”
I held her hand, and it felt ridiculously small in mine. “Of course.”
* * *
I’d been surprised when Hailey had insisted the rest of her mates stay behind, giving vague excuses about not wanting to overwhelm the fae couple.
It seemed unlikely that she ever could. Tiael and Erynan had been around for more centuries than I’d care to know in the way of the fae.
They had long lives, but fertility was nature’s balance.
Children among fae were rare, and most couples only ever had one child in all their long centuries. Some never had any.
“Will you tell me about them?” I knew a little from vague snippets from Chet and small windows into her childhood from passing comments from Hailey, but there was a story here, something greater than a fondness for your neighbors.
It had stuck with Chet, and he must have done a thousand calls in his time as a crisis responder.
She nodded, even though she continued to stare out the car window.
“They were my neighbors when I was four or five. I’d just started school that year, and I guess my parents got used to the school feeding me, because when I was on summer holidays, they just forgot.
They were in the grips of a new street drug, though I can’t remember exactly which one it was, and they’d locked me outside in the backyard all day.
Sometimes they remembered to let me back in, other times I’d end up sleeping on the back stoop.
“Tiael must have noticed though. Their backyard connected to ours, and one day, she gave me a basket of food and told me that tomorrow they’d come back and we could have lunch together.
Looking back, I was so lucky it was them and not some other kind of predator, either human or creature, but they took me in, fed me, and bathed me.
Every afternoon, they’d put me back in the backyard like a borrowed puppy so my parents wouldn’t know I was gone.
I’d been so scared they would. Even back then, I knew what kind of monsters my parents were.
” She let out a long breath. “They’d proven me right.
My parents got some of their humanity buddies to burn down Tiael and Erynan’s house, all because they were kind to their kid—the kid they forgot existed for six weeks. ”
It struck me how she called her parents monsters, a word that had once been used to describe creatures, but that was the trouble with monsters. It wasn’t the outside that made a monster, it was the darkness within.
“My parents abandoned me at a fighting ring when I was weaned, so honestly, shitty parents aren’t relegated to one species.”
She looked over at me, raising an eyebrow. “You win the shitty parents award, but I feel like I should get a highly commended runner-up prize,” she teased.
“I’ll give you half my abandonment issues with a side of control freak.”
“So kind!” She laughed, her eyes dancing.
“I’m generous like that.” I didn’t even remember my parents’ faces, but I did remember crying out for them for days.
That pain wasn’t one I’d ever forget. It took years for my aunt to find me and my uncle to extract me.
I had a feeling that perhaps they bought me back from the fighting ring, but I doubt the cost was much.
I wasn’t a great fighter. All I had going for me, even as a scrappy kid, was the fact that I was big and hard to take down.
I didn’t like fighting. I felt nothing but sadness when I looked into the faces of the other young boys who were left there by people who were supposed to protect them, and instead they had to fight for scraps—scraps of food, attention, and praise.
It taught me that I was better off alone, that if you didn’t love people, you couldn’t be hurt.
It was lonely, but minotaurs were made to be alone.
As if she could sense the dark direction of my thoughts, Hailey rested her hand on top of mine. She didn’t say anything more, and I wondered if she was lost in her own bad memories, but with her warm skin on mine, I didn’t feel quite so alone anymore.