I inhaled, bringing some clarity to my mind as I tried to answer the question honestly. Were these men worth the risk? Could I let myself fall and hope they would catch me? Would I be okay if they said no? Could I be okay if some said yes and others said no? My past screamed ‘no,’ my heart whispered ‘maybe,’ and my wolf screamed ‘yes.’
“Once you figure that out, you’ll know what to do,” Mom said, folding her hands and reclining as if the problem was so simple and I’d just misread the map. “And remember—if it fails, if you get hurt, you’re never truly alone. You’ve got your siblings, your dads, your grandfathers, and me, who’d tear the world apart for you. All you need to do is ask, and they’ll come running.”
She glanced at the door where a muffled voice snapped, “Move! Some of us are trying to listen!”
She rolled her eyes and threw her thumb over her shoulder. “Or just show up crying and you won’t have to say a damn thing.”
The image of my ridiculous, murderous family circling my mates like vultures made me laugh, a real, breathy kind that pushed out a little more of the darkness in my heart.
Daddy Lex’s voice came through the wood. “This isnotme asking, my rose, but Falcon said that he wants to talk to Nova about the substance, which is more important than your girl talk about stupid boys that we will just kill anyway.Hiswords, notmine!”
“I’m going to fucking shoot you and melt your face off!” Father Falcon yelled, the sound breaking his usual iron calm as Daddy Lex gasped in shock.
“But that's my best attribute! That and my dic—” His voice cut off with a loud bang against the door, and a scuffle sounded on the other side.
Mom rolled her eyes but stood up. “I guess we have to call your siblings and talk about business. Are you okay with that?”
I nodded. The hollow that had sat under my ribs loosened enough to let me stand tall. “Yeah. I wallowed long enough. Time to sort this shit out.”
She gave me a soft smile, winking at me as she opened her mouth. Another loud bang came from the door, followed by sounds that said the scuffle had escalated to a fight.
She snapped her head toward the door, voice whipping out in a queen's command. “All right! You can come in, but no talking about killing or chopping people’s balls for her, okay?!”
It was silent until a chorus of muffled ‘okay’s and a grumbled ‘yes’ leaked through before the door opened, which had my sides bursting. My mom was a boss. Always had been and always would be.
I let the ridiculous warmth of my parents in, both the armor and the absurdity. For the first time in days, I felt like I was able tobreathe. Whichever way it went, I was definitely going to be okay because I had some crazy people who loved me at my back.
28
NOVA
“I didn't really have all the lab equipment that I wanted, but I made do with the stuff here in Ireland, and Calix did some testing and sent me the reports. This, partnered with what we’ve been finding on our travels, was interesting enough to bring to your attention,” Father Falcon shared.
After my conversation with Mom, my dads came in, each of them flickering to life with their own hologram, then we patched in my siblings for a family discussion.
Calix butted in first, of course. “Let's talk about this substance.” He shuffled around mountains of paperwork on his desk. “Hold on.”
Father Falcon's mouth tightened as the shuffle grew louder and more papers fell off his desk.
He finally exploded. “Calix! How is your desk in such a state? How many times have we had this conversation?!” His normally neutral features were wide and tight.
Calix didn’t look up. “I know where everything is.” He switched to the other side. “It's fine.” He went deeper, still digging around.“Just—ah, found it!” He held the paper up high, triumphant, as though he’d just pulled Excalibur from a heap of forms and documents.
Father Falcon groaned, his body visibly shaking as he tried to keep his normal ninety-degree angle posture. “Where did I go wrong?”
Daddy Lex leaned back, hands behind his head. “Cheer up, old man. Kids will be kids. At least they’re out of the house, right?”
Every hologram turned to him. He smiled and shrugged, enjoying the attention. “What?! That’s what I hear lots of parents complain about.”
Ezra quickly steered the ship back on course. “Calix, we know that this substance attaches to supe DNA and amplifies powers. Right?”
Calix quickly went into intellectual mode, lifting the paper in his hands as his proof, forgetting that we hadn’t seen it. “That’s what I thought… at first.” His words began to come out faster, layered with the thrill of discovery. “But as I started to do a more in-depth study, dissecting the data, I noticed some irregularities.”
He moved his chair closer to the video reader. “Human DNA rejected it immediately. Without any magic to use as a food source, the foreign cells quickly became dormant. But when I tested it against supe DNA, it latched on tight like a parasite. After the attachment, its behavior became more like a steroid, artificially pumping up the host’s magic, but once it reached max potential, it burned out, consuming the host’s magic until there was nothing left.”
His eyes scanned our parents’ holograms. “I asked our parents to look at it, see if they’ve run into this before. That was when theysaid we all needed to talk about what they’ve been dealing with overseas.”
Mom nodded and leaned back, fingers interlaced, the picture of grace sharpened by danger. Her wavy ash-white hair and golden pink eyes matched mine and my siblings, though her gaze was shadowed with the years she’d experienced. While she looked like she wasn't a day past thirty-five, her mannerisms were that of an experienced gangster.
