"I heard of someone holding a party like that once," Ares said with a smirk. "They served the fingers of their enemies."
I frowned at him. "That didn't really happen, did it?"
He shrugged one shoulder. "I don't know. It probably did. Are you going to invite your father?"
This time I couldn't suppress the wince. My biological father, Samuel Bell, also didn't get along with Reuben. It'd be more accurate to say they were mortal enemies. Although Reuben's brothers, Hunter and Parker, were in a relationship with one of my sisters, Lila.
Yeah, the situation was complicated.
"Are you thinking of having a sit-down dinner or finger food brought around on trays?" Chelsea asked carefully.
"Definitely not sit-down," I said immediately. "It would take approximately a hundred years to figure out the table plan so no one was sitting next to someone they wanted to poke in the eyeball with a fork."
Literally.
"That would be a good way to get rid of some of them," Ares said.
When we both turned to stare at him, he smiled. "What? You both know it's true. I know: why don't we place Reuben next to Samuel, and give them both a sharp knife each?"
"I don't think that's in the spirit of Christmas," I said.
"It's in the spirit ofsomething." Ares seemed to like the idea the more he thought about it.
"Let's not have bloodshed at Christmas," I said.
Now it was Ares' turn to stare at me. "It wouldn't be Dusk Bay if there wasn't bloodshed."
"That's what worries me.” I sighed.
THREE
KENNEDY
Five boxes now sat in the corner of the living room, tucked away where no one would fall over them. I recognised them as the boxes Ice carried past my office.
They were sealed with packing tape. Several layers of it. Whoever placed it there didn't want anyone peeling it off easily.
I scraped at a corner of tape with my fingernail, hoping to ease it off. It didn't budge. A good look at all the side of the boxes showed no labels saying where it was sent from or who sent it. Nothing to indicate what was in it.
Luckily, the smell of rotting flesh or blood wasn't coming from them. Bonus.
Of course, that didn't mean there wasn't something or someone dead inside, but they weren't dead recently.
"What are you doing?" Ice's voice made me jump and turn around.
"Nothing," I said innocently. "I'm curious about these boxes. You didn't think I wouldn't look, did you?"
He stalked toward me, smiling. "I knew you'd look. Has it crossed your mind those might be a decoy?"
I opened my mouth to say something, but closed it again. That hadn't occurred to me, but it should have. If anyone wasgoing to put a distraction in plain sight, and be up to something where I couldn't see it, it'd be him.
"Did you?" I asked.
"Maybe I did. Maybe I didn't," he said evasively. "Do you know what patience is, little mouse?"
He hadn't called me that since the night we first encountered each other. I'd slipped out of a ball to take a walk through the trees, only to accidentally stumble on him, Mannix and Ares killing a man. I ran. For the longest time, I didn't realise it was them. By the time I found out, I was terrified, but already head over heels for all three of them.
"I've heard it's a virtue. But I don't know if any of us knows too much about virtues," I said.
