“Dad?” I called out into the room. I found my father sitting by the fireplace. It wasn’t time for the pride Christmas party yet, but I’d asked Santa for only one thing this year— I’d asked him to bring back my mom. I knew I should have waited until Christmas morning, but I had to ask my dad if he’d gotten him the letter, just to double check.
… Alright, I may also have wanted to ask if he thought Santa would bring mom back.
“Hey bud,” he offered me a tight smile.
“Is Santa coming tonight?” I asked quietly. Pain filtered through his gaze as he motioned me forward. A feeling in my gut told me that whatever he was about to tell me was going to be bad.
“I have something I need to talk to you about. Your brothers and I have talked about something similar,” he sighed.
“He’s not going to bring her home, is he?” I blinked back tears.
“There is no one to bring her home, bud.” He squeezed my shoulder as I froze. “Your mom isn’t coming back. It’s just us.”
“But Santa--”
“Santa isn’t real.” His words were soft, and I felt my entire world break apart. Santa wasn’t real? What? I blinked at him and felt tears fall down my cheek as I tore away from him. A sob built in my throat as he called after me.
I was running up the stairs as fast as I could, and I threw myself down on the bed, sobbing and feeling awful. Mom was gone, and Santa wasn’t real. He was lying. Neither of those were true.
Tomorrow morning, my mom would be back. I just knew it.
“Rhett?” a soft voice asked from the door. I used my suit sleeves to brush my eyes and turned to find Lorcan in her green Christmas dress. She looked like a little angel.
Seeing my tears, she ran over and threw her arms around me. I buried my nose against her neck. She smelled like home. If I could live with just my best friend and brothers forever, I would. I would never want her to leave, and I would make her so happy that she would never leave like mom did.
“What’s wrong?” she demanded, looking furious as her nose twitched like a little bunny rabbit. We had one in our classroom, and it had the same pretty, bright hair like her.
I wanted to tell her Santa wasn’t real, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t hurt her like my father had just hurt me. “Dad told me Santa isn’t bringing Mom back.”
Her face broke as tears welled in her eyes. “Oh, Rhett. I’m so sorry. I bet Santa will bring an even better surprise. I promise, he would never let us down.” I nodded as she gave me a hug, knowing that not telling her had been the right choice. Eventually we would have to… but not yet. Santa may not be real, and my mom may not be coming back, but… I think I already had the best present in the world. My best friend.
Once the sting had subsided from that memorable and horrible moment, I had decided that I would do whatever I fucking could to make sure she would never leave me. I could handle a lot, but her leaving that first time killed me. I thought for sure I’d done something wrong, and now that she was back? I would do anything to keep her. Especially once I realized why she had left. My little bunny had somehow gotten it into her head that we couldn’t love her. If anything, we loved her too much for it to be healthy.
“You okay?” Everett grunted as I nodded, realizing I must have looked like a fucking emotional sap.
“Yeah,” I sighed, “just something on my mind.”
“How bad was it? In the Demonic realm?” he asked quietly after a few minutes of comfortable silence, looking like he was calculating something. This guy struck me as a bit of a nutjob, but oddly calculating at the same time. Weird bastard.
“Bad,” I hissed out after a drink from the cold beer in my hand. “Really fucking bad.”
He swore and ran a hand through his hair. “I really wish she didn’t have to go down there.”
“Any chance of you convincing her to stay up here? It looks like Lorcan and her are getting along,” I said softly.
Everett chuckled. “No way. She’d cut off my balls if I tried to pull that shit.”
“Convincing her not to do something?” I asked curiously.
He smirked and offered the woman outside a look I understood well. “Yeah, something like that.”
“Everett,” Fox called, “we should grab Nova and try to go as soon as we can. It sounds like this place fucking sucks.”
“I’ll let her know to head in. I need to talk to Lorcan anyway,” I threw out as I walked towards the patio door. The space around the house pulsed for a minute with magic I recognized as Zander’s. Was he done with his meeting already? The bastard was so odd. I didn’t like him around, but I had seen the soft way Lorcan looked at him.
What the hell did I even do with that situation? I would follow Lorcan’s lead. Her emotions towards the situation were far more important than anything else. I couldn’t help but smirk at how much she got off on being watched—it was hot as fuck. I would watch her all day long. Better yet, I would just screw her randomly throughout the house so that the entire place would smell like sex and goddamn magic.
I nearly groaned at that thought, remembering the taste of her on my lips. I needed more of that. Now. I also needed to fucking remind her how goddamn crazy I was about her.
17
Lorcan
“She don't care what kind of wounds she's inflicted on me
She don't care what color bruises that she's leavin' on me
'Cause she's got freedom in the 21st century.”
-Freedom at 21 by Jack White
“So long story short, we found out my ‘father’ has been draining people for magic. Cool, right? Well, apparently it’s a bit of a thing, because in the Horde they had the same issue. The Queen and her men had heard a rumor of something similar happening in the Demonic realm. Did you experience…”
I zoned out, feeling a small creeping chill of panic go over me. I tried to ignore the ghostly feeling of my magic being pulled. I tried to not remember the feel of those torture shows, the acid, the pain… oh god.
“Lorcan?” Nova’s voice sounded concerned as I snapped my attention back to her.
I could feel my scalp tingling, and I felt like I was going to pass out. I tried to form words to confirm her thoughts, but frankly, I had no idea how to speak without letting out a scream of pain or panic. I hated when I was caught off guard like this. I should have expected a question like this, but it felt like it came from out of nowhere. What the fuck did I do with this…
“You don’t have to,” she shook her head, leaning forward. “I had just heard you’d been down there, but I get it if you don’t…”
“It’s not that,” I spoke softly as her words crystallized in my head. “You said this has become a problem?”
“That’s what we are gathering,” she shrugged. “I know the guys wanted to ask Desmond about some other stuff as well, but yeah, that is the main reason we are here.”
I inhaled and felt like I owed her some type of answer. “Something very similar did happen. Sorry, it initially caught me off guard, but you're not wrong. The Demon who owned Broken House, the place I’d been imprisoned in during my time down there, was draining power from those he kept hostage in his ‘hotel of horrors.’ I thought it had been more of a feeling or just some bullshit, but if what you are saying is true then that would mean he is killing them for...”