“If you ever put him at risk again, I will personally make you peel your own skin off, layer by layer, before having you walk your useless soon-to-be corpse into the ocean. Do I make myself clear?”
Rocko’s eyes were wide as can be now, his body trembling, yet unmoving from where he was kneeling.
“Nod,” Killian hissed.
The Golem nodded almost robotically.
“Good.”
Killian turned back to look at him, and suddenly the wind stopped. The Siren returned to normal as he pulled free from Ender’s hold to wrap an arm around his shoulder, while his other hand started feeling around again. At the same time, the room filled with the noises of people taking deep breaths as the heavy atmosphere finally disappeared.
“Okay…that happened.” Ender cleared his throat as he watched Rocko flee from the room, as if a pack of dogs were on his heels, the Golem stumbling while he went.
“That was certainly…something. I’m gonna go…check on Zenny’s homework,” Soren said carefully as took a few side steps away from them, before just catching tail and running from the room—the fucking coward.
As his exploring hand rested on his bump, Killian stated, “We should go see the doctor.”
“What?! I’m fine!” he snapped. But as the Siren’s eyes narrowed, he let out a hesitant laugh and blurted, “I mean—sure! No harm in…doing that…”
He grimaced.
With his handson his hips, Soren glared at them both with a hint of annoyance. “Neither of you are leaving this room until it’s finished.”
“What?!” Cyrus cried in horror. “It’s not my homework!? Why should I have to do it at all?!”
“Because I said so, and because it’s second grade math and your ass should know it!”
The Fate sputtered, “You can’t be serious?!”
“Oh, but I am. Get to work!” Soren snapped.
“That’s not… You—” The man let out a frustrated growl.
“Welcome to the world,” Zenny sang in an oddly mocking way.
“Brat,” Cyrus grumbled as he lightly nudged the kid with his arm.
The Cupid stuck his tongue out.
“Work!” Soren chirped.
Cyrus stood there, completely zoned out of the meeting going on in front of him. He’d listened intently for a while. For almost two and a half weeks in fact, even if he had zoned in and out at times. But now, it had been five weeks since he'd arrived at Ender’s compound, and he found he just couldn’t anymore.
It was too much of a struggle to hear what they were saying and not step in. Before now, he’d tried to live his life in black and white. Cyrus knew the world wasn’t really that straightforward, but his had been. At least, it used to be, and his understanding of it that was.
Cyrus, honestly, felt…frustrated and lost. Or maybe it was more just out of place, and really, hewasout of place. Not tomention, entirely useless. He couldn’t even fake being muscle, or a bodyguard, or whatever the fuck he was supposed to be, because of his lack of paying attention. So, yeah, his existence was just completely unnecessary here.
And while he tried to not feel jealous, he was a bit at how easily Killian seemed to justbelong… But then, the Siren had always been great at adapting.
At this point, he was barely noticed by anyone there. The others had stared when he first came, but that had stopped after the first week, and they seemed to pretty much just ignore him now. Which was not something he was used to at his height, or at all. Larger Cryptids tended to stand out. So yeah, he could definitely say this was the first time he’d ever been completely ignored.
Fuck…ignored and unnecessary—what a life. His jaw clenched, his teeth grinding slightly at the thought, while his nails dug into his palms as his hands clenched tighter.
Ender mostly didhis best to ignore the looming Fate standing behind him during meetings as much as he could, but the difficulty of that task was growing with the man’s inability to stand still. He honestly preferred the interruptions to this. Though, hewassurprised Cyrus had lasted this long.
Ender hadn’t thought this job would work out for the man, and he’d been right. It had been a few weeks now since Cyrus had stopped even attempting to argue about the shit they were getting up to and planning. Though, that pretty much meant that the Fate was not paying attention, which sort of defeatedthe purpose of him being there. Not that Ender even needed a bodyguard following him around the compound, which was where he mostly was.
He pursed his lips, tuning out the others talking around him as he thought on the matter at hand. The Fate had to do something there. One didn’t even really need to know Cyrus Grimm well to realize the man was not someone who liked to be idle all the time.
