My father was gone, and I took over his office as the resident authority on poison and torture. Sometimes, I wonder if he knew that I liked boys all along and simply chose to never address it, to offer me glimpses of freedom in the dark.
He would have despised my conduct last night regardless.
Excited voices rise all around me as my family exchanges stories of previous Christmas hunts, but despite our underground trophy room being so vast, I feel like the carved wooden panels making up the ceiling are about to collapse over me. There are no windows here, since we’re underground, and the textured wallpaper seems to havealmost too much depth. The leafy trees pictured on it hide something in their shadows, something that feeds off all the offerings my family has gathered here over the past century.
Great-great-grandfather had this room decorated in the opulent style of the grand estates from the Old World. The rugs are plush under my feet, the furniture—as pristine as the chandeliers, but the trophies on the walls are what makes this space special.
Any man with a gun could put down a wild animal and have its head mounted on the wall. Only us Van der Horns decorate our home with the skulls of our enemies. They sit under glass domes like biological specimens or exclusive taxidermy.
I often sit in the leather chair in the corner behind the billiards table and contemplate the trophies my father collected. One of the skulls has a crack running along the entire side, as well as an indentation in the cheekbone, and lacks several teeth. It belonged to an assassin meant to eliminate my grandfather. But he got caught, became prey during the hunt, and put up violent resistance. My father had to beat the bastard to death with the stock of his crossbow, once he was out of ammo.
It’s my favorite trophy in the whole collection.
I exhale, focusing on the smell of the wood polish used here before the family’s arrival for Christmas. It has the faint aroma of lemon, but the other note I sense is eerily similar to formaldehyde. Too bad that without windows, more time needs to pass before the unpleasant odor fades.
“Do you have a main target for the hunt?” I hear Killian ask my cousin Damen from the billiard’s table where they’ve laid out the photos of all eleven men sentenced to death by the Van der Horn judge and jury.
I let my gaze glide over Killian’s green hair, the cozy black sweater with a reindeer in a pentagram, the nose ring, and note how close he’s standing to hishusband. I played the violin at their wedding last year and yet I still can’t believe that it took place at all. Damen is the second son of our family’s head, Karl van Der Horn, and despite the drama that unfolded because of his choice to reveal his sexuality, he’s not only allowed to take part in the hunt, but also accepted, along with Killian, in thissacredspace.
My whole life is built on not just thinking— butknowing—that a Van der Horn man cannot be gay. It’s tradition that to take part in the Christmas hunt one needs to be married. And last year, Damen spat in the face of all that, brought home a husband, and stomped all over tradition.
I resent it as much as I admire it.
Coming out was not something I ever considered. Even in my rebellious teenage phase, the plan was to do my thing on the side and never marry. It’s a scary part of me. A part no one taught me to handle. Despite there now being an out gay couple at the top of the Van der Horn food chain, I don’t want to step out from the safety of my closet. So much change is at stake I don’t want to deal with any of the implications. Especially since I’m not planning to date.
And yet here I am, watching my handsome cousin whisper to his husband in French as he points something out and strokes the back of Killian’s head. Would I ever even desire to share this kind of familiarity with another person? Probably not.
While Damen is family, I’m not blind, so I can assess that he’s extremely attractive. The man is like a dark prince from a gothic romance novel with his gently waved hair, long eyelashes, and beauty spotsscattered over his face like a constellation of stars over a cloudless sky. He is the kind of person Ishouldbe interested in. Elegant, refined, a skilled horse rider, a man with good taste, and someone who matches my wealth and education. If I met someone like that, someone appropriate, maybe I could bring him over without defining the specifics of our relationship? This way, I could have something without stirring the pot the way Damen did.
Schrödinger's boyfriend.
But as I rise from my armchair, the pleasant ache in my body reminds me that I felt truly free under a man who possesses none of those qualities. I approach the billiards table just to get one more glimpse of Dalton, since his face must feature among the photos of today’s prey.
I stir the iced whisky in the glass I cradle to my chest. I’ve opted for a black turtleneck under my suit jacket today to obscure the proof of what I did yesterday. I might sleep in it too, to hide the truth from everyone, including myself.
“That one’s hot,” Killian says, biting his lip. I don’t need to see the photos to know he’s talking about my single-use lover.
My mother, who’s perching on the corner of the table in a red and -green sweater dress showing off her curves, leans over to tap her long nail against Dalton’s face. “Oh, you’re right. You boys always have such good taste!”
I don’t know if she means Killian and Damen specifically or the vaguegays, but I clear my throat, annoyed that even this conversation reminds me of last night.
“But dumb like a pile of rocks,” I add, squinting at Dalton’s face. It’s a shame I didn’t get to suck him off last night. What a waste of perfectly good dick. Can’t have it all, I suppose.
Killian looks up at me, lips parting, and when he whips his head around, it sends a wave of sweet floral aromas straight in my face. For a man, his taste in fragrance is rather unusual, yet the perfumes he chooses aren’t sickeningly sweet, and the scent of his skin transforms them into something unique. Whenever I enter a room Killian’s recently been in, I can always sense it. “How so?”
Damen puts his arm around his husband’s shoulders. “He lost over a million in one of our casinos. He should have stopped playing while he was ahead, but of course the maggot got greedy.”
Several of my relatives chuckle in response from their spots on cushy leather sofas, and while I agree that few things are as pathetic as a gambler who believes their luck never runs out, there is something fishy about Damen’s story.
Dalton might not have a high school diploma, and he wouldn’t score high in an IQ test, but Killian’s a high school dropout and hardly a brainiac. I don’t like them laughing at Dalton, when I am reasonably sure that no one here bothered talking to him.
He didn’t try to kill any of us, didn’t steal from us, or undermine our business in any way. He just had a massive debt with us.
“Who let a bouncer borrow this much cash anyway? He couldn’t have paid us back if he tried,” I say, meeting Damen’s gaze.
He shrugs. “He did that to himself. Simon Kemper was at the casino that night, so he must have had reasons.”
Out of all the people I don’t want to see today, my cousin Aspen is at the top of the list. I bristle when he gets up from the sofa to join theconversation. He’s eighteen, but already growing tall, and going by the size of his arms, he’s been putting in extra time at the gym this year. But what confuses me is the head-to-toe brand-new tactical gear he’s dressed in and the crossbow in his hand, because he isn’t married, so he’s not taking part in the hunt. Even his mop of blond hair is hidden under a helmet.
