I rise from my seat. But a ginormous hand lands on my shoulder to keep me from moving.
“Who the fuck taught you to speak to a woman like that?” A gravelly, masculine voice slices through the tension in the air. An alpha presence. A booming tone of authority.
It reminds me of what everyone says my dad was like.
But of course, it couldn’t be him.
It’s his best friend.
I whip my head around to see Uncle Warrose standing behind me, burning his stare into Niklaus like he’s about to beat me to that steak knife. He’s still in his raven-black General’s uniform. Sleek feathers, weapons strapped across his body, and ferocious tattoos trailing up the sides of his neck.
“Hello, Uncle Warrose,” Niklaus purrs like he isn’t sweating his ass off at the size of the great oak behind me. Like he isn’t contemplating leaving the dinner early.
“Don’thellome.” My uncle turns to the right. “Niles, that’s some real parental authority you’re exhibiting right now. I walk in for two seconds and already hear the immediate disrespect spewing out of your kid.”
For a moment, I feel bad for the way my Uncle Niles opens and closes his mouth. He looks just as helpless as I feel in his son’s presence.
“What’d he do now?” Aunt Marilynn walks in with Aunt Ruth coming up behind her in that beautifully carved chair.
“Just insulting Sapphire again,” I mutter in her direction.
Aunt Marilynn casually walks around the table, lifts her milky white hand, and smacks Niklaus on the back of his stupid head. Exactly like how Grandpa always does to Uncle Niles.
“Apologize,” she says calmly, with radiant blue eyes that puncture through him.
Niklaus cracks his neck, redirects those deceivingly beautiful ocean eyes toward me, and smirks. “I’m sorry, Spitfire. I’m sure you’re very good in mathematics.”
But oh, that stare is communicating a thousand other insults.
With just my thumb, I trace the carvings on the table again.
The carvings my father made with a steady hand.
How different from him I feel as mine isn’t steady at all.
It’s trembling.
2. Mabel Rose
I turn to Uncle Warrose, throwing my arms around his waist in relief.
“Hey, kid,” he breathes.
“Missed you,” I grumble into his massive shoulder. He smells like a winter storm and a heated cabin.
“Feeling a little neglected over here,” Aunt Ruth announces.
Uncle Warrose and I both chuckle. But Krimson leaps from his chair to rush to her with wide, open arms. He hugs her so hard and so fast that her wheels roll backward a few inches. She lets out that beautiful fairy laugh I love so much.
Everyone rises from their seats to greet them. Grandpa trudges in shortly after, bringing in firewood as DaiSzek moseys in to casually nudge his nose against his house guests. I scratch his head as he passes by.
I tune in and out of the conversations, my eyes trailing over anything else in the house to mentally escape the two individuals I want nothing to do with at the table. I look to the stone hearth in the center of the living room. The mantel’s lined with trinkets Uncle Warrose and Aunt Ruth brought back from Vexamen. Dried herbs hang from the fireplace, filling the house with the gentle scent of lavender and sage.
For a while, I watch the fire dance absently, wishing I was alone in the woods. To cry over a ruined friendship. To process the knife to the back I just received.
The dinner carries on with stories of the prison or the asylum, and it all sounds dramatized for our entertainment. We’re old enough to hear some details now, but they still manage to hide most of the horror we learn about in school. Their adventures together as a group sound like a grim fairy tale.
“The only dining party I wish I could seriously attend was Meridei’s little get-together…” Uncle Niles reminisces. “God, she was a psychopath. Hey, Ruthie, didn’t you have a run-in with her mother?”
