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To my disappointment, neither took the bait.
"We're here to make sure you don't touch anything," Damien said and I was right, he did sound like he thought he was better than I was.
More's the pity for him.
I was going to like playing this game with him; I only ever played to win.
"And what is it that you think I might be touching?" I asked in a dark voice. "Surely, it's me who should be worried aboutyoubeing in here and touchingthings.Am I right?"
Julian's mouth dropped open in shock. It closed quickly, then flopped open once again, and he looked like a fish out of water. I didn't feel sorry for him a bit.
Damien, it would seem, was made of sterner stuff, and he didn't so much as flinch at the implied meaning behind my words. Not a cheek twitch nor a blush to be seen.
Yeah, I had read his aura correctly alright.
"I have only been in here once before when Ariel was in here," Damien said in an even tone. I was pleased to hear that the haughty was gone and had been replaced with what I assumed was rage. "Admittedly, she spent a large portion of that time without her clothes on, but it was only because she was trying on other clothes to see if they fit her well enough. You see, your beautiful daughter has lived a life where she hasn't had a whole lot of good in it. So," he gestured to the man standing beside him, "my brother Julian and I took it upon ourselves to get her nice clothes. If we hadn't done it when we did, the others would have. There's no guarantee she doesn't already have a whole lot of other things just waiting for her at the big house that the others have gotten for her but have yet to give to her because she doesn't like receiving gifts. She feels like it’s a waste to her to have more than she needs, and she doesn't know how to receive love just yet. If I were any other kind of man I might lie and tell you that was the one and only time I had ever seen her in some form of undress, but, like I said, that would be a lie, and I'm anything but a liar."
I didn't like the way he'd said any of that, not one little bit. I had to fight against my initial reaction to want to snarl at the man. I had better control over myself than that, though, and I managed to keep my emotions off of my face. I had had plenty of practice, and heartbreak had only served to help.
"Damien," Julian said harshly, "don't."
His friend shot him a dark, angry look, but otherwise paid him no mind. This one didn't take orders very well, and did whatever the hell he wanted. Good to know.
"He has a right to know," Damien huffed.
"Not like this," Julian shot back. "Don't do this to her, don't fuck this up for her."
"What is it you think I'm doing to her, Jules? I wouldn't hurt her any more than you would." Damien said quietly and pointed aggressively in my direction. I assumed he didn't want to be overheard by either the girl in the bathroom or his coven members, who were supposedly waiting downstairs like good little boys. Then again, that's where these two were supposed to be, and look how that had gone.
“You could say or do something that would mess this up for her, and it might not even be your intention." Julian raised his hands high in front of him as if to ward off some blow I had yet to see coming, and continued trying to reason with his friend. "This means everything to her,himbeing here means everything to her. All it would take is one tiny little thing being said the wrong way, and the whole thing could blow up in our faces. Rain could disappear from us for forever. We don't know him, we don't know how he might take the horrors that she's been through. What we do know is that, as human beings ourselves, who aren't complete monsters, we wouldn't want that kind of news shared with us in the way you were just going to lay it on him. If he gets pissed and takes off, what's Ariel going to do, Damien? Have you thought about that? It would crush her, absolutely, one hundred percent destroy her. Don't allow yourself to become arrogant and fall back on your old ways, or do something that will hurt our girl."
Vivian had been a spoiled brat before she had been old enough to tell whether or not she'd had magic. It hadn't changed after finding out she wasn't a carrier; father had loved her all the same, and she would have always been his beautiful little daddy's girl had she not stolen my child away from us. I want to say that having been spoiled had ruined her, but it would have been a lie. Some people are just born bad, and that's all there is to it. My sister had been born bad, and no one had noticed until it was too late. She'd been selfish, mean, vindictive, ruthless, and an absolute terror. She didn't like people who were prettier than her, smarter than her, or sweeter than her, and she had resented the fuck out of any female who had magic when she had none to call her own, but had wanted it so desperately that the need had bordered on obsession and madness.
That being said, I’d had absolutely no idea the depth of what she truly had been capable of, and, as much as it made me sound like a coward to admit, I wasn't sure I wanted to know. I wanted to get to know my daughter, and in order to do that, I needed to not go off on a murderous rampage. I didn't want to frighten the girl. Though, part of me worried if there was anything I could do that would scare her off, she seemed just as happy for me to be here with her as I was.
I cleared my throat, chasing back the emotions I was feeling, and suddenly felt ashamed of myself. I had better control over my own body than that, damn it. I didn't want or need these males to view me as weak in any way. What kind of father would that make me? One that was worse than the one I already was.
"Speaking of the spectacular horrors she's gone through," I said in a mild voice. "someone care to inform me of what happened to her face? Marcus sent me a picture he'd taken of her not long after she had moved in with him, and her face had been clear of any kind of markings. What has happened to her in this small amount of time that has caused her such a mark?"
I asked not because I wanted to know, but because I felt compelled to. Every time I heard about something awful she went through, a little piece of what I had left inside of me died. I wasn't so sure I had all that much left inside of me to lose, but I knew that just being in her presence for mere minutes had done a great deal to restore a small part of it.
Both of them looked extremely uncomfortable as a result of my questions. They had forgotten one of them had just been lecturing the other, and the other one had been gearing up to be a grade A prick. Instead they were looking at each other with eyes too wide, and were shooting silent questions back and forth between them that only people who had been best friends for a long time could understand. I wanted to ask them how long they'd known one another, but I wanted my first question answered more than I wanted my curiosity over the longevity of their friendship sated.
Julian licked his lips nervously before nodding his head and turning back to me. "There was an incident," he said.
"It happened right outside this house," Damien told me. He sounded almost like he didn't think he was better than the rest of us now. Almost.
"A kid from the high school who was obsessed with Ariel followed her out here," Julian told me. "He figured out she'd been staying overnight here. What he didn't know was that she'd moved in because she needed a place to stay, and for certain reasons that I'm unwilling to get into at the moment, she does not want to live at Quinton's house. It's nothing on Quinton, mind you. It's just the house."
I did not understand that last bit, and would make sure I questioned them more on it at a later date. Right now, I was getting answers from them, and that worked just fine for me. They were being cooperative. I would wait until they were finished explaining this, then see if they were still feeling up to being cooperative and willing to answer more of my questions before I added more to the list.
"Never mind the house," Damien said as he shot his friend a dirty look. "Seriously, fuck the house." He looked back at me, and his face evened out, going back to the excessively pretty and haughty man he seemed to naturally be. "Anyway, this kid showed up bright and early, and had the balls to knock right on the front door. This being after he had treated Ariel like shit at school, calling her a freak show and tripping her on the first day. Ty told us that he asked her out after that too, that he’d even told her he'd beat up the person who'd bruised her face, which was her fake mother, by the way."
I sucked in a sharp breath and decided to say to hell with it. When it came to my own damn daughter I would allow my emotions to show and not be ashamed of them. She was worth it, she was worth everything. I knew what they were hinting at without coming out directly and saying it because they feared my reaction and I couldn't say I blamed them.
Vivian, my sister by blood and, at one point in time, choice, had marked my daughter's face so bad that people had said things to her when she'd gotten to school.
If she wasn't already dead, I would have killed her myself for that alone.
