“Bram,” he nods to Nellie in his version of introduction, ignoring the animalistic warning sound creeping free from my chest.
His hands are folded behind his back, his suit the only perfect one amongst us, a tie, waistcoat, silver pocket watch, everything pressed and ironed to perfection.
“Nice to meet you, I’m Nellie,” she replies quietly, her big eyes momentarily flicking up to mine.
Bram offers her a rare but genuine small smile, before backing himself away into the shadows, evaporating with the shade like he’s not here at all.
“You ready for tonight?” Tolly asks, grin wide, he and Rune, sitting upright now, both on the end of the chaise lounge. “New year.” He grins wider, Rune’s head cocking to the left at the same time my brother’s does, their collective gaze flicking to my girl when Tolly says, “Newsacrifice.”
Nellie flinches, it’s subtle, but it’s there, my grip crushing her now as I pull her into me even fucking closer.
“Listen here, you fucking shit, I’l-”
“Not tonight.” That’s all it takes for Gore to silence us, our future leader, a low rumbled order.
He’s ten years my senior, I’m to be his second, Bram our third, Tolly our fourth. We are brothers in blood, sharing the same father, but it’s loyalty that binds us above all else. I love my brothers fiercely, more than anyone or anything, despite our competitive upbringing. I kill for them, would die for them, but holding Nellie beneath my arm, her heart clattering in her chest, the drumming of it spilling down my ulna into my wrist, her rapid heartbeat vibrating along each finger, I realise that’s not entirely true anymore.
It brings my gaze up to my brother. Gore’s dark green eyes not on me, not on anything in particular, but they’re still hard, like they always are. Unreadable. And I think about Gore’s Pair, the things our father did to her, the trouble she has now, sometimes, being lost inside her own mind for long stretches of time.
I wonder how he hasn’t retaliated, hasn’t murdered Milus, hasn’t exacted revenge on the god who hurt her. Taken off his head and stuck it on a pike. That’s what I would do if Milus -father, leader, god- ever put his hands on my Penelope.
And as I glance down at her, her heavenly demonic eyes already on mine, I worry, not for the first time, what Iwouldn’tdo for her.
It is a foreboding, this omen that could possibly be our love.
Chapter 4
BILLY
Terror.
That’s what clenches inside my chest as the night wears on. Drinks are placed in our hands, one, another, then another, but Nellie doesn’t drink, she doesn’t smoke, she doesn’t dabble in drugs. So her hand remains empty, not unsurprisingly, she doesn’t want a non-alcoholic beverage either, because she doesn’t trust anyone.
Anything.
She never has.
Not even me.
When we were children, she was drawn to me just as quickly as I to her, but she kept her distance, her suspicious eyes tracking my every movement until I approached her. Her hands balled into fists at her sides, her dark hair hung in her face, but her jaw was set, her eyes narrowed. Nothing but suspicion flooding off of her. And then I offered her my hand, a smile on my mouth, my blue eyes twinkling. She took one look at me, justa few feet before her, and spat on my shoes, turning and running away.
That was the first mistake, even back then, the primal instinct in me told me to hunt and kill. It became a game of cat and mouse, she ran, I chased. Until one day it just stopped. Something bigger than me, with more teeth than me, something justmorethan me, scared her, and she came to me to save her. We were inseparable after that. Until the year was out and I was summoned home.
Left her.
“Nellie,” I breathe her name against the top of her head, her wavy hair shifting with my breath. We’re looking out over one corner of the manicured gardens, standing on one of the many stone balconies as we wait for midnight. “Do you want something to drink, Little Lamb?” She tilts her chin, her eyes blinking up at me, and in the dark, they are the same as everything else in my life, obsidian. “You think I would let someone poison you?” I arch a brow as she licks her lips, giving me a single shake of her head. “What do you want?” She shrugs. “We have everything, and if there’s something you want that we don’t have, well,” I dip down, turning her so we’re face to face, the cold October wind blowing around us, my hands curling around her biceps making her shiver, I grin. “I’ll just have to kill the bartender.” Giggles peal out of her, shocking the fucking shit out of me, but I don’t let my surprise show on my face, revelling in the sweet sound as it rolls through my head. “You think that’s funny, huh?” My grin morphs into a smirk, my eyes dragging down her goosebump smattered chest, her skin bright as the moon in the dark. “Tell me what you want to drink.”
She bites her lip at the same time I bite mine, both of us hiding our smiles, and I’m not sure I like that, if I want her to hide her happiness, the very minute amount she’s going to get in this new life. I don’t think I want to hide mine either, but I will,to keep her safe. She moves even closer, eradicating the sliver of space between us, her small hands coming to my chest.
“Just water,” she whispers over my mouth, her bitten smile pressing to my own.
“Just water?”
“Ice cold.”
“Ice cold it is.” I beam, drawing back, fuckinggiddywith having her here, something I never thought I’d see happen, well, certainly not as my Pair.
Turning back towards the doors that let us out here, still thrown open, welcoming in the Novus night, our hands linked, I find my brother standing in the opening.
