Page 59 of Tempest’s Torment

"You owe me twenty."

"I said it'd take three days," Savage yells. "It's been over a week."

"Still counts," Venom says loudly.

"It really doesn't," Savage snaps and the argument continues without either of them sounding particularly invested in winning.

I look at Tempest. "Are they always like this?"

He nods once. "Pretty much."

I find myself smiling again when another man walks over. He's tall, broad-shouldered, older than Tempest by a few years maybe, and there's something steady about him.

"Lilah?" he asks and I nod. "Hades," he says introducing himself.

It takes me a second to place the name. The phone call to the man Tempest trusted enough to stay with me the first night. "It's nice to finally meet you," I say.

"You too." He glances toward Venom and Savage, who are still arguing across the room. "Sorry about them. They're always like this."

I smile. "Don't apologize. It's nice."

He nods once, like he understands exactly what I mean. "Evangeline wanted to come," he says. "Lily's under the weather, so she's at home with the kids. She asked me to tell you she's sorry she missed you. She'd like to meet you properly."

I look at him. "She knows who I am?"

"Hades knows who you are," Tempest says, from somewhere to my right. "Which means Evangeline knows."

"The flowers," Hades says. "I don't think they stayed in one place for more than an hour. Wherever she was, the flowers ended up."

I remember the phone call, the deep voice telling me his eight-year-old wanted flowers for her room. "Does Sophie still want her flowers?"

Something shifts in his expression; it’s warm and full of surprise. "She talks about it every morning."

"Bring her in when things have settled down," I say. "She can pick whatever she likes."

He looks at Tempest like he's checking something but Tempest doesn't react.

"I'll tell her," Hades says.

Natalia finds me about half an hour later with a mug of coffee in each hand.

She passes me one before taking the seat opposite. "Better?"

I smile. "Much."

"You're doing better than most people do their first time here," she says.

My brows knit together at her words. "Is there a usual way people do it?"

She laughs a little. "Either terrified or trying very hard not to seem terrified." She wraps her hands around her own mug. "You're neither."

I let my eyes wander around the room, Jinx, one of the prospects, I was introduced to him a little earlier, is sitting at one of the tables with his laptop open, completely absorbed in whatever he's doing.

Somewhere beyond the doorway, I hear one of the women laugh, followed by another voice telling her to stop before she burns something. More laughter follows, easy and familiar, and the smell of whatever they're cooking drifts through the clubhouse.

It doesn't feel like a clubhouse.

It feels like a home.