Dark Promise by Annika West

57

After the Geneva hearing, things went mostly back to normal. With a few changes, of course.

Oz stopped by at least twice a week to purposefully start arguments with Hux, embarrass August with sex jokes, steal my candles, and generally annoy Willow to death.

Sometimes, he helped us with recon. Most of the time, he ate our food.

A man truly made in my own image.

Mom and Dad were usual visitors to Vulcan Corp. as well, and it seemed like Dad and Hux really got along with their quiet-but-content personalities.

Mom threw the skillet again, aiming for Hux’s head in retaliation for his trapping me in the I.E. contract.

After that, she settled for glaring at him.

Even Mr. Creed stopped by once. He was looking freaked and angry, but after his meeting with Hux, he left the skyscraper, relieved and completely alive.

Things were beginning to heal. Which was pretty fucking awesome.

The rest of December flew by quicker than those creepy horse flies in the summer.

Did that metaphor make sense?

No one can be sure.

The Riverside rune stone operation was still underway, but it seemed like even the crooks were taking a break for the holidays.

But one thing was for sure.

Tonight, on the very eve of Christmas Day, someone was going to die.

Painfully.

Embarrassingly.

Wearing really gawdy slippers I wouldn’t be caught dead in.

Mr. Bougard shook his fist in my face, practically frothing at the mouth. “What is the meaning of this?!”

“Well, every year, a month called December happens. That’s when something we call Holiday Season approached, where people do things like celebrate. A mystery to your dusty ass, I know.”

Leave it to this poor excuse for a meat suit to actually get me to defend Mom’s weird human holiday habits.

Mr. Bougard tightened his pinstripe robe and shuffled in his designer slippers, wielding a rolled-up newspaper. “One day! One day I’ll kick you and your human-loving parents out of this neighborhood! Trash drags in trash, as they say.”

“Do they?” I asked, unconvinced.

What Mr. Bougard didn’t expect were the two scary murderers that approached him from behind.

I waited, bored, while the killers trapped Mr. Bougard in their clutches and tore his throat out.

Okay, not really.

Hux was holding Mr. Bougard by the salon-ready hair. Oz’s dragon talons kissed the hateful man’s neck.

“Can I have him for dinner?” Oz begged evilly, drinking up the fearful whimper Mr. Bougard gave as he dragged his tongue up the warlock’s cheek.

I gagged.

Hux kicked his brother in annoyance, and said, “I’d advise you not to attack my mate with any weapon, warlock.”

Bougard finally looked over to see Hux for the first time and went positively bloodless. “You… it’s you… you’re… him. The Butcher of Rimini!”

He stared at me again, this time with pleading in his voice. “Make him let me go!”

I crossed my arms. “Am I a bug, Mr. Bougard?”

“A what?” He was totally losing his cool, now. Especially when he looked over and saw Oz, the exact replica of the Butcher.

“Focus, Bougard,” I scolded. “Am I a bug?”

“No.”

“Says the man who just tried to attack me with a newspaper. That was very rude. Very rude indeed.”

As Bougard’s spine turned to jelly before my eyes, I realized that yes, I would like to get drunk on power every now and then. All I needed was some sort of scepter, a cloak, and those boots with the curled-up toes.

Focus, Aster.

I cleared my throat and said, “You may release the swine!”

Hux’s right brow quirked up.

Oz had a confused puppy dog expression, complete with a gaping mouth.

I sighed. “Let him go, I mean.”

Hux’s little smile let me know that he’d understood me perfectly and had just wanted to give me shit.

They let Mr. Bougard go.

As the man fell to his knees, scrambling behind me, as if I was the person who’d protect him from the dragon shifters, a car pulled up to the curb.

Willow and August got out, along with two newcomers.

Marni Humphries climbed out of the backseat.

Bee Redford followed her.

I didn’t have the emotional capacity to address them at the moment, since Mr. Bougard was currently hugging my leg.

“Get off me!” I grunted, trying to shake him off without hurting him. The new Immortal Aster King II was still getting used to her newfound strength.

“Don’t kill me!” Bougard wailed. Then, he caught sight of the vampires and sobbed, “No… don’t bring the night rats here, too.”

Night rats. The nice way Mr. Bougard refers to ‘vampires.’

“Okay, that’s it, you stupid bigot!” I kicked hard, and Bougard went flying.

His fancy robe got road burn, and a slipper shot away, falling down the storm drain.

Then, he finally seemed to hear it. Scrambling away from me, now, he asked, “Wait, did you say mate? Did he say mate?”

Head whipping from between Hux and I, Bougard finally seemed to absorb the situation.

I flipped my hair behind my shoulder, feeling very fancy. “Yes. And the first Halfling-Cut Inter-Realm Ambassador. I’m a very important person, Mr. Bougard. And I might just have to report you to the local Council for attacking me with a newspaper, and for touching my leg without consent.”

Mr. Bougard sniffled and whined, “You can’t do this to me! How… why? Why in my neighborhood?”

Oz rolled his eyes. “For the love of mistletoe, can I just kill him?”

I crossed my arms. “Ozias Cayne, do I look like your mother? Stop asking me for permission.”

Bougard’s arms flailed as he stood and ran, one-slippered, back to his property.

Oz was ginning like a maniac. “I haven’t had that much fun in decades. He’s like a creepy little mouse just waiting to get crushed.”

Fucking immortals.

Hux was giving me those smoldering eyes that made my stomach flip, which meant I completely missed everything Oz said until Mom slammed the window open and hollered at us to get inside before the food got cold.

We trudged in, me under Hux’s arm while Oz chattered.

Oz also pulled me into a hug, which left me in a Cayne sandwich that no one asked for.

I poked Oz’s ribs while Hux started to puff with possessiveness.

We all paused when Dad appeared in the doorway. He had a kind smile layered with steel. “It’s our holiday dinner. We will be behaving, won’t we?”

“Of course,” Hux answered.

“Absolutely, Mr. Aster King’s Dad,” Oz gushed.

I shook my head in disappointment. “I’m sorry in advance.”

His worried smile told me he was more stressed than usual. Mom really needed her holiday dinner to go off without a hitch.

And we invited literally the worst people.

There was no guaranteeing that I wouldn’t chop off Marni Humphries’s finger. I wasn’t sure if Hux could make it through the night without brawling with Oz, who seemed to be the one person capable of making him lose his cool.

Besides me, of course.

Willow tended to fight with Oz more often than I did, too.

The air hissed with electricity behind me.

Shit. There it is.

A blue-rimmed portal appeared, and out stepped Adair in his horrible outfit. With a grand, sanctimonious smile, he announced, “I have arrived for the pine celebrations!”