AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Cackling wickedly, Willow escapes from the group and grabs his arm. A violent shudder wracks the large man’s bones. Stiff, he dares to look down at the absolutely tiny woman in black platforms. Her smile. It’s evil. Her eyes. They unnerve me.
“Where do you think you’re going, Pollux?” she murmurs.
“I have not faced sudden discomfort at this level in a long time. I am going away from it.”
“I don’t think so.” Practically dragging, she plants him and Andromeda firmly on the couch facing a large flat-screen TV. “Seat of honor.” She points. “I made a cake.”
Pollux glances at the multi-tiered pink masterpiece taking up the central space of a coffee table overflowing with snacks.
Grumbling, he clings to Andromeda and says, “I believe I am growing nauseated.”
“Sucks to suck,” Willow supplies. Turning toward me, she beams. “Let’s get some humanity out of the way. My people, meet Kass. Kass, this is Brittny.” A bouncing, trim, and tall woman with beautiful long light brown hair beams. “Her sister Alana.” A shorter, stouter, stoic-er, woman with a dark pixie cut offers a single wave. “Their husbands, in order, Ollie—” He blows his noisemaker again, and I swear I’ve seen him online somewhere… “—and Cael.”
My heart jumps as I fix my attention on the prince.
Prince is definitely the word I’d use to describe him even if I weren’t aware of the way people around him seem to address him. He’s wearing robes. Actual white robes with flowing sleeves and a hem of scattered petals that match the occasional strands of glistening gold in his mid-length black hair. He looks outstandingly regal.
This is the leader.
Their leader.
If he’s here, that must mean they are a single, unified, and relatively small cult.
I let my fingers plant against the weight of my pepper spray, just to make sure it’s still securely in my poodle pocket, while I smile. “It’s nice to meet you all. Than—”
Pollux swears, cutting me off abruptly.
Cael blurts a laugh. “We don’t do that here, little one. You’ll give one of us a heart attack if you tempt the rest with your thanks.”
Right. Cult. Weird—happy, but so far not like chillingly happy—cult.
“Sorry.”
“It’s quite well,” he supplies. “We’re happy you were able to make it.”
“Do I not get an introduction?” A tall man with long dark hair and heterochromia—one blue eye and one green—strides out of the kitchen balancing three bowls of popcorn and a pout.
Willow sinks into her love seat and tosses a hand his way. “That’s my husband. Zylus. Sounds like stylus. You can really tell he shed his given name and picked his own some odd millennia ago.”
“Oi.” He gives her a bowl of popcorn and starts handing another to Ollie and Brittny as his eyes meet Andromeda’s.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers. Immediately.
Something silent passes between them. My nerves go taut the longer he stares, deathly grave, at my little student.
Willow tosses a popcorn kernel at Pollux’s head, and it bounces off onto the cushion beside him. “Hey. Pick that up,” she says. “I don’t want it in my couch.”
Pollux’s eye twitches, but he obliges.
“What is with both you and Cael and sending me entire letters in regard to movie night?” She tosses another kernel.
This one, Pollux catches.
She tsks. “It wasn’t even a funny letter.”
“Funny?” he grumbles. “How would you have expected me to deliver the information I had to in a funny way?”
“You could have asked for child support. You can lie in text, so you could have gone on about demanding child support instead of attempting to explain how sad and lonely you’ve been. We all already know that you’ve been sad and lonely.” She chucks another kernel that he catches. “Stupid.”
