My ears picked up the conversation of Levi and Charlie outside despite the walls and glass door separating us.
“Violet’s going to be fine, Levi. College is where kids can explore and get life experiences.” My adopted father’s calming voice threaded through the sounds of wind rustling uncut grass.
“She could have done some of her classes virtually. She had that option.”Ah, yes, Levi’s possessive nature in full force,I thought as I eased down my senses, careful not to eavesdrop unintentionally again.
It had been five years since I’d woken up in this boy’s body along with its heightened hearing, and I still caught details I didn’t want. The boy had lasted only a few months before he’d killed himself to escape the Godsblood curse of heightened hearing. The constant noise drove him to swallow a bottle of pills that the hospital pumped out of his stomach even as his soul was passing on. The trade-off?
Me. Someone not of this time, who died struggling for his last bit of freedom to escape a rigged deal between a mortal and a demon. A free fucked up ticket of reincarnation through claiming the boy’s emptybody as my own. Where the boy had failed, I’d made it this long only because I had already survived far worse in my first life. Learning to control my heightened hearing and somewhat enhanced sense of smell had felt like child’s play.
I took a sip of beer as I walked from the kitchen out to the patio, taking a moment to stare at Levi’s phone. I was unable to stop the chuckle that escaped me. Violet Shaw, all spit and fire wrapped in privilege that she didn’t even see she had—a princess. I called her that because she was the kind of girl who could tell me to go fuck myself, yet make it sound aristocratic.
“Or avolchok,” I said, the word slipping out in thick Russian, a language close enough to the one from my homeland, the Wastelands, that my tongue moved comfortably in without thinking. There were brief moments that her spitfire reminded me of a wolf cub, malicious and lacking in domestication. Not that I minded. I preferred strong women.
“Rowan?” Charlie’s voice pulled me back to the patio where he and Levi sat with their barely touched burgers. Both men were a reflection of the other, one light and the other dark. Charlie wore his standard polo shirt and jeans, blonde hair tousled against piercing blue eyes. Levi, like his dark twin, wore a black t-shirt and jeans with shortened raven hair and amber eyes.
From the unique and bizarre experience of each of them being reincarnated over a decade ago, these two men had forged a powerful friendship with one another. . . and thatfascinatedme. Partly because—unlike how I’d been thrust into a stranger’s body in a time very different from my own—they had simply reincarnated as younger versions of themselves. But even more than that, it was just how vastly different they had been from one another in their first lives.
Adversity makes for strange bedfellows. Was that the expression?
I set Levi’s phone on the table between them, watching both men tense. Having spent so much of the past five years together, they knew the look that must have been on my face. The one that said their comfortable suburban afternoon was about to crack at the edges.
“Easy there, you two,” I said, placing down my beer and settling back into my chair, hoping my tone was calming enough. I looked pointedlyat Levi. “Your faux life is still intact. It was Violet. She wants to come home this weekend.”
Levi’s distrustful eyes locked onto mine, the hardened look of assessment sliding across his youthful features. We had been dancing this dance for years—him treating me like a threat to catalogue, me trying not to give him any reasons to be right. It was only thanks to Charlie’s word that Levi tolerated me despite how often our families were together. Like a pod, our two families were ingrained with each other.
“Why were you answering my phone?” His gruff voice carried an edge that meant he was already mapping out exactly how he planned to hit me if this conversation went poorly.Daddy’s little princess needs him to save her,I wanted to say, but I knew it would start a fight I wasn’t ready to give up my burger for.
Levi only ever had a violent streak when it came to something related to his family, which left a sour note. . . the knowledge that he would never consider mefamily.
Joke’s on him, I thought. I actually enjoyed it when we came to blows.
As for Charlie?“No open wounds,”he had eventually conceded after one particularly bad argument between Levi and I.
After we fought, I like to think we both felt so much better.
“Thought it was the work phone,” I lied. The truth was, I’d seen Violet’s name and could not resist the urge to answer. There was something about her voice when she was frustrated that I found alluring. Her irritation was a blanket of solace, reminding me that noteverythingin this soft world was bland comfort and willful ignorance, that noteverybodywas a docile sheep.
Disbelief was plain on Levi’s face, but he had no way to prove me wrong. Through the noise of his increasing heart rate—one hundred and twelve beats per minute and climbing—I caught the sound of keys jingling and grocery bags rustling. Violet’s mother, Sloane, would be inside in thirty seconds, and she’d notice Levi had left dirty dishes in the sink in about forty-five.
“Your wife is home,” I said, taking a deliberate sip of beer. “You may want to tend to the pots and pans.”
“You’re lying.”
“You could wait to find out,” I said, my voice carrying a big ‘fuck you.’
Levi’s face went through several interesting colors before he pushed back from the table and rushed inside. The man had learned exactly how much his wife’s anger could cost him, and he treated her like a queen now because of it. While I appreciated his loyalty, there were a few transgressions I couldn’t forgive, so I held Sloane on a higher pedestal for her strength more than I did her asshole husband.
Charlie, ever calm like a quiet sea, waited until the door closed before leaning forward and saying, “You really need to stop antagonizing him, Rowan.” While his tone was of stern admonishment, his eyes crinkled. “How did Violet sound?”
“She sounded like herself. Angry. Exhausted.” I paused, remembering the atypical sound of her voice. “Possibly stressed about something.”
That got his attention. Charlie might play the diplomat between Levi and me, but he had developed a real affection for Violet over the years—the daughter he’d never had, perhaps.
“Did she say something to imply she was stressed?” he asked as he set his own burger down.
I shrugged, though my jaw tightened. “She barely gets full sentences out around me.” I shrugged, “It could be the move? Or possibly she is scared—”
Charlie interrupted, “Scared?”
