“Oh. I sure hope he wasn’t—”
“Dropped? Several times? No. No, no, no, no…” Uncle Niles smiles innocently.
I burst into laughter.
“I heard my name.”
The devil himself enters my kitchen bringing with him plagues, famine, everlasting darkness, and the temptation to end it all right now just to get away from him.
“No one said your name,” Uncle Niles responds.
My arms cross as I separate from the warmest hug. It seems youcansummon evil by calling upon a demon’s name.
“Don’t I get a hug, Spitfire?”
I stare impassively.
“Niklaus,” Uncle Niles warns. “You know she doesn’t like being called that.”
“No, not at all.” I wave my hand nonchalantly, taking two careful steps toward his tall, cocky stance.
Niklaus’s eyebrows raise a fraction of an inch as I hug him stiffly. He doesn’t react right away. There’s a pause in the slow-moving pattern of his brain.
Weneverhug.
Maybe three or four times in my life. Once for my sixth birthday when Aunt Marilynn forced him to. Other times when he was made to apologize for bullying the shit out of me.
But I don’t let go until he hugs back. His lean arms circle my waist. It’s intimate…and my skin crawls at the interaction.
Reaching up to my tiptoes, I hover my lips over his ear, and with a tone so sensual, so soothing, I whisper… “Out of all the sperm to win the race…”
Niklaus pauses before he laughs, tossing his head back as his upper body rumbles against my chest. I immediately pull away from our embrace to walk back to my seat. The sound of his laughter is confusing to me. It’s the kind of wheezing laugh that gets everyone else to laugh. It’s the laugh that you look for when you’re trying to decide if something is funny or not. But unfortunately for me, it’s also the sound I’ve grown accustomed to when he’s getting a classroom to make fun of me.
“Wow. You never laugh that hard at my jokes.” Uncle Niles pouts, finding his place at the table.
“I don’t laugh at all at your jokes,” Niklaus retorts.
I have never understood how he could be so callous toward his dad. It’s always been this way since he was a little boy. My mom assumed it was after Niklaus learned about how his birth father, Aurick Demechnef, died—saving Uncle Niles’s life.
Though Uncle Niles has been such a good father that I would find myself hot with rage and envy. It used to make me wonder what kind of dad mine would have been. Was he funny like Uncle Niles? Was he warm and sweet?
Or was he cold and heartless the way Niklaus has always taunted me with?
I wish I knew.
Uncle Niles shrugs. “It’s not your fault, son.” Following me to my seat, he leans in. “Slippery baby. Long-term side effects. No sense of humor.”
I snicker, giving him a grateful pat on the back.
“When did you two start dating?” Mom’s voice echoes from down the hall.
Did Krimson bring a girl over?
To my confusion, my brother saunters in with a strange look widening his heterochromatic eyes. His giant, muscular frame takes up the entryway as he pauses to communicate something. A warning directed to me. And as his twin, I know I’m about to be sucker-punched.
“Sapphire!” Mom trails in behind Krimson, holding someone’s hand. “Look who’s joining us for dinner!”
Short, white-blonde, baby-blue-eyed, gorgeousMabel Rose.
