He didn’t answer. He’d never been very open about his love life, but he’d been gone for a few nights about a week ago, with only a few grunts for an explanation. Clearly he was getting some action with his new lady of choice.
A pair of green eyes flashed through her mind, accompanied by a flare of heat.
She shook herself out of it. Those dreams were incredibly disruptive. She wished she’d stop having them. Hell, after four years, sheshould’vestopped having them. She needed to find a lobotomist.
“What time is training later, do you know?” she asked, pulling out some grapes.
His silence drew her focus. When it came to training, which directly related to her safety, he wasn’t the silent-treatment type. Even if he was mad at her, he usually answered.
Currently, he had no reason to be mad at her. Not yet. Not until later, when he got a taste of her newest booby trap. It was a fun little game she liked to play, and he hated to be part of. He’d then try to pound her during training. Sibling rivalry. They might not be blood, but they’d been raised in really hard times and for long enough to act like it.
Mordecai didn’t look up, bowed over his phone. His black, tightly curled hair was mussed in spots and his dark skin was dry and flaky. He wasn’t taking care of himself like he usually did. At twenty, he was something of a (very sweet and respectful) lady-killer. The girls thought him handsome and a gentleman, not to mention rich andverywell connected. He could essentially get anyone he wanted, even with this sad-sack disposition. He went to great lengths to live up to the family name, elevated to the world of Demigods eventhough their roots were as humble as a gutter rat’s. This situation with him was…unusual. Worrying, even.
Frowning, she closed the fridge door and wandered closer, stopping beside his stool. She popped a grape into her mouth as she kicked the stool leg.
“What’s your problem?” she asked. Soft light filtered through the kitchen windows in the residence they mostly called home. They could multiply their old house four times and it still wouldn’t be as big as this one. Neither of them had ever taken their turn in fortune for granted.
He didn’t react, continuing to doomscroll on his phone.
“Hey.” She kicked the chair harder this time.
“Would you stop?” He cast her an irritated glance. Dark circles lined his red-rimmed hazel eyes.
Not taking care of himself and not sleeping very well. Only danger to their family or girl trouble usually created this. Given she would’ve been apprised of any danger, it was clearly the latter.
“What’d she do?” Daisy demanded, yanking at his shoulder to get him to turn and face her. “Tell me.”
“Nothing. It’s fine.”
“What’s fine?” Jack asked as he sauntered into the kitchen holding a brown grocery bag with something green sticking out the top. He was one of about a dozen people she thought of as uncles, brothers, nieces, a mother figure, or a stepdad type. None of them were blood. She’d been abandoned by blood when she wassmall and then shuffled around the Chester “care” system, the social services for magic-less orphans. Lexi had found her in the dual-society zone, the crack between the magical and non-magical societies where people struggled to coexist in order to escape their respective governments or law enforcement agencies. She’d been starving and half dead, ready to do unspeakable things for a meal, just to stay away from those horrible and abusive care homes.
Lexi had been her miracle, and Mordecai with her. It hadn’t mattered that Lexi’s house was beyond tiny, or that they lived in poverty, or that they had to scrape and steal just to eat. Lexi and Mordecai’s kindness, their love, had felt like heaven.
So when Lexi had gotten into trouble and needed to move into the magical zone so a Demigod of Poseidon, who was at the peak in power of their magical world, could protect her, Daisy hadn’t balked. She’d marched right into the fire alongside her family, ignoring the fact she was the only non-magical person allowed here. This was where she belonged, regardless of blood. Regardless of magic. It was where she’d stay, the dangers inherent in being a magic-less “Chester” in this brutal world be damned.
Besides, when Lexi had then gotten a magical upgrade, Daisy had finally taken the blood magic. Lexi’s blood magic. Being tethered to Lexi was a comfort, and the benefits from the magic were sensational. She was faster now. Stronger. Able to healmuchmore quickly. She wasn’t nearly as breakable. It didn’t close the gap between her and real magical people, but it lessened the danger just a touch. Enough to keep Lexi from forcing her to live with people of “her kind.”
Because of that Demigod, now Lexi’s fiancé, their family unit had grown. First with Kieran’s Six, the guys who’d pledged a blood oath to protect their Demigod, and then Bria and Dylan, Amber and Jerry—their crew. The people she’d fight beside until her dying breath.
Daisy ignored Jack while shoving Mordie this time. “What’d she do?”
“Leave it alone, okay? It’s none of your business,” Mordecai said a little too loudly, his face creasing in misery.
“Oh, his woman?” Jack lifted his dark brows as he set the grocery bag on the island. His bronzed arm, thick with muscle, stretched his shirt as he lifted out a carton of milk.
“Whose woman?” Donovan walked in next, lean and blond and very good-looking. All of Kieran’s original Six were.
Zorn entered right behind, dressed in a button-down shirt and slacks. His wavy brown hair had been freshly cut, and his gray eyes were their usual sort of intense and piercing. His gaze swept the room, taking stock of the surroundings and assessing for any danger. He did it constantly and had taught her to do it, too. Very little escaped his notice.
“Rumple Sad-Sack here has girl problems, it seems.” Daisy put a hand on the edge of the counter so she could lean over Mordecai to see his face. He’d gone back to scrolling through his phone. “Hey. What happened? I can help.”
“Do not let her help.” Donovan smiled as he reached into a cabinet and grabbed a frying pan. Oh good, at least they planned to make breakfast.
“Why?” Daisy’s brows lowered. “What do you know?”
It was Jack who answered. “We know it doesn’t matter what that girl did. You’d slit her throat for it if Mordecai let you.”
Jerry, whom the magical world referred to as “the Giant,” walked into the kitchen behind the rest. The nickname wasn’t because of his size, though he topped out at six-foot-six with a large breadth of shoulder. It was because of his abilities with rock. He could literally move a mountain, bit by bit.
