“By the Light, Marcus, I wasn’t trying to seduce Tessa with a kiss to the hand.” Cadmus sounded exasperated, but he turned to me with a wink. “It didn’t work, did it?”
I couldn’t help sharing his grin. His lightheartedness made it easy to be around so much weirdness. But Marcus didn’t seem to feel the same.
He placed a protective—or was that possessive?—hand on my shoulder, standing behind me. “No, it didn’t work.”
Aerolus raised a brow, an eerie likeness of the Marcus I knew at the office. But he didn’t comment on his brother’s words or aggressive stance.
As much as I wanted to sit around and goggle at three gorgeous men, I couldn’t ignore what had happened last night. I needed answers, some way to make sense of the unreal creatures we’d fought.
And a way to explain the near-perfect lovemaking I’d experienced with the office wunderkind, who was way more than what he seemed.
I glanced over my shoulder and up at Marcus, and my entire body throbbed at the challenge in his turbulent gaze.
Aerolus took a seat next to Cadmus, and I turned back to the others, determined to focus. “I think it goes without saying I want some answers. This has been the strangest weekend of my life. And trust me, I know strange.”
“Explain that.” Marcus finally eased around me and sat on the arm of the couch so I could face all three brothers. “What was that vague explanation you made in my office? How is your ability to move things with your mind my fault?”
Nervous because no one outside my family knew of my abilities, I had no idea what to say. I’d never trusted anyone enough to share my secret. Yet as I studied the Storm brothers, I understood they had more to hide than I did.
“My family has been steeped in the paranormal since the early 1800s, when my great-great-great-grandmother was run out of town for practicing the Dark Arts,” I ended in quotes.
Aerolus nodded. “Sorcery.”
“Yeah. Sorcery, witchcraft, hocus-pocus. It all boils down to magic of the mind, if you ask me.”
“Your kind doesn’t understand magic. Not really,” Marcus said.
“I—”
“Marcus, let her tell it,” Aerolus chastised.
To my surprise, Marcus flushed. “Apologies. Continue.”
I stared at him a moment. “In any case,” I said slowly, “my entire family has flashes of insight and mental abilities that would make most people uncomfortable if they knew. We keep it quiet and live our lives as best we can. Unfortunately, we don’t always see what’s right in front of us.”
My thoughts strayed to the untimely death of my parents ten years ago, something for which my brother continued to blame himself. As if he could foresee everything that happened to us.
“We’re not supposed to see everything,” Cadmus said. “Some things are meant to happen without our interference.”
He surprised me with that bit of insightful observation. “That’s what I tell my brother. Tom’s the one in the family with a gift for precognition.”
“Cadmus also possesses the ability to foretell the future,” Marcus said.
“And what about you?” I asked. “What exactly can you do besides move things with your mind and drown people in the middle of a dry room?”
Marcus looked uncomfortable.
Silence settled over everyone.
Then Aerolus sighed. “You might as well tell, Marcus. It’s not as if Tessa hasn’t seen you use your elemental powers.”
“Elemental powers?” So Marcus’s ability was linked to water, I guessed.
“I—we,” Marcus corrected, nodding to his brothers, “are the last remaining Storm Lords, along with our brother Darius. We are the Royal Four, identical princes with the powers of the elements.”
Storm Lords? Princes? That explains the arrogance.
“We come from a sentient land called Tanselm, from the fae realm. A land that, as we speak, is under siege from evil. Those creatures you met last night and worse are bent on annihilating us all.”
