“Why would you think that?”
“Are you kidding? You were wanted, Mace. You were planned, and the entire family helped to make sure you were conceived. Wraith didn’t even know I existed until I was shoved into his hands. He didn’t even know my mother’s name. It’s Swatha, by the way. I found her. She tried to kill me. Again.” He let out a bitter laugh. “It doesn’t matter. The past is the past.”
It didn’t sound like the past was in Talon’s past at all. But this was the first time in, oh…ever, that he and Talon had talked about anything substantial, and Mace wasn’t going to ruin it by pointing that out.
But there was something hecoulddo. It sucked, but it was probably overdue.
“Hey, uh…I’m really sorry for being a shithead.”
“You?” Talon gaped, being overly dramatic in Mace’s opinion. “Youare apologizing?”
“Miracles do happen,” Mace drawled.
“Yeah, well, you’ll need to be more specific. You’re a shithead a lot.”
That was probably accurate. “At the hospital,” he clarified. “I shouldn’t have stirred the pot.”
“What makes that time different from any of the other times?” Talon’s voice was wry, matching his sardonic smirk.
Mace’s first instinct was to stir shit up again, but a strange flutter on his neck, right where his eagle perched on the sword, stopped him. No idea why. But it suddenly felt important to make Talon know he was sincere.
“That’s fair.” He shrugged. “I guess I’ve just always felt rejected, and it’s fun to get back at you by riling you up. You have to admit, it’s easy as fuck.”
Talon had taught him a lesson about rejection. Mainly, that it sucked. Sucked so much that he kept relationships casual and kept hisheart behind a wall of impulsivity, fun, and a fuck-off attitude.
At least, until Scotty and Blade. They’d bonded over the fact that they all had brainiac siblings who were giant pains in the ass.
“Blade was close with his brothers,” Mace continued. “Back then, anyway. I wanted that with you. I didn’t know you didn’t feel the same way. Not until you broke my model planet.”
He hadn’t merely broken it, either. He’d smashed it against the wall and then stomped it into a million pieces, all the while telling Mace how he wished he wasn’t his brother and to stay away from him.
Talon’s head whipped up, then he looked back down at his drink. “I was pissed. You brought it over to show off to Dad when you knew I was trying to get him interested in my biology project. Instead, he was all about helping you paint your plastic planet.”
Mace stared. “Talon, I didn’t bring the model over to show him. I brought it over foryou. I thought it would help you with your project.”
Talon frowned. “Why would you bring a model of a planet to help with a biology project?”
“I was six years old, man. Give me a break. You were what, eleven? I didn’t even know what biology was, but I heard you say you needed something round to make a virus. I thought you could paint it however you wanted.” Mace shifted on his chair. Demons didn’t believe in comfort. “It’s no big deal. I screwed up the bottom of the model when I put it together, anyway.”
“Ah, fuck.” Talon threw his head back and ground the heels of his palms into his eyes. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know. Shit was so messed up back then.” He looked over at Mace again, his eyes bloodshot and swimming with regret. “It’s still messed up. My relationship with Dad feels so forced when it’s always been so easy for you.”
The thing was, Talon was right. Mace and Wraith shared the same interests. They had similar personalities. But Talon and Wraith had clashed a lot, and it made sense that Talon would have grown resentful of Mace’s relationship with his father. Especially if he hadn’t felt as wanted as he had been.
Years of conflict ran through his brain like a movie, and so much was making sense now.
“Maybe we could…” Mace began, but Talon wasn’t listening. He was staring at his comms, the color draining from his face. “What is it?”
“It’s Scorn.” Talon looked up, shock glazing his dark eyes. “She’s dead.”
Holy shit. Not that Mace was all that surprised. She’d probably hada million enemies. But very few of them would be capable of killing her.
“I’m sorry, man.”
Talon didn’t appear to hear. Gold flecks began to swirl in his eyes as anger stirred. “She was murdered.”
“Yeah, that’s rough—”
“Whoever did it is going to die,” Talon growled. The gold flecks turned red as his fury built. “I swear.”
