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A heavy, pompous sigh filled the room. “Let's just get this over with. She seems determined on this and wont let up.”
All of us inhaled as we started to search the room for clues, not knowing what they hell we were looking for.
All I knew was that once we were done, I was going to make that pale, perfect bottom of hers as red as a cherry for subjecting me to this. It was my only solace as I searched with men I barely tolerated.
Chapter 5
Don’t think about it,Avery, and you should be fine.
We were all looking around this crappy, dirty little pretend hotel lobby room trying to find something that resembled a clue to get out of this hell hole. A piece of me wanted to throttle my beautiful and amazing mate, but even as I thought about it, it took me five seconds to turn it into a sexy escapade. It made the whole angry side of me calm down just as my dick was kicking into hell yes gear.
Then another part of me felt like we deserved this. Especially with how we acted yesterday. Usually, it wasn't all of us acting like a dick at once, but yesterday was that day, and my fierce girl felt the need to dole out a punishment that was also an attemptto get us to get along. I lifted my nose and grimaced at the light above that was flickering inconsistently. Seeming not to bother any of the others, but partnered with the gross dead cells that covered this whole room, it was just icing on the hate cake.
I knew Rayla was having a hard time when we got nasty to each other, poking at each other’s hot button issues. Most of the time, I tried to not cause any problems with the others, being the easy-going one, especially since I noticed her starting to fidget during the meetings and having a clenched jaw when we argued or spat out jabs at each other. Yesterday was just a particularly bad day for me.
The plane was late, I was irritable about not being near my mate, and whenever I left, I got a mad case of jealousy, which was a feeling I was not used to. I was so jealous of those that got to stay home with her when I couldn’t. You would think with how open I was in the bedroom that I wouldn't have the capability for such feelings, but for some reason, it was different with bedroom activities.
When it came to sex, it was more about making her happy, getting her to scream out, making her feel things that she’d never felt before, and that seemed like a multi-mate job. I wasn't jealous when they touched her, hugged her, or kissed her like normal mates would when another male was around their mate. No. It was only when I was away from her for an extended period of time that this needle stabbing feeling filled my heart, and I got restless. Antsy and irritated.
It felt like someone turned on the heater, my left side warming up more than normal when I heard a gruff voice speak. “You know it's hard for me to connect that the big, smooth-talking,playboy fairy isscaredof dust.” Ax sneered out loud enough for the others to hear as he leaned against the wall.
My back went straight as I slowly turned to face him, glancing at the place where his back met the wall before focusing back on him. “It's not that I’m “scared” of dust. I just don't like it.” I looked around in disgust. “Especially from some random strangers. Do I need to explain what dust is made of again? Was that hard for you to compute?” Ax growled in my face, trying to intimidate me, but after you fuck your mate side by side, the bark and bite don’t seem so tough. When all he got was me dusting off my clothes as I ignored him, he stomped off.Avery, forty seven, Ax, nineteen. Suck it, dog man.
I turned back to the corner I’d decided to look in. It had the least amount of surfaces, and I felt it was the cleanest corner of the room. The plastic fake plant in the corner looked suspicious, and I leafed around there, trying to find something, anything out of place. “It would be nice to know what I’m looking for?”
Grunts circled the room until Falcon pointed at the door without looking at it. “We are looking for five keys to open that door.”
I jerked my head to the door, only seeing a key hole where the handle was. Before I could bring that up, he blew out in frustration, “Look at the four corners.”
I rolled my eyes at his attitude but did as he said, and sure enough, that dick hole was right.Well, shit.I'm starting to be glad Falcon was around to figure this all out for us. With that in mind, I continued to look around my space. Over, under, and behind the small side table with new enthusiasm.
“So, were you really as big of a playboy as you were rumored to be?”
I hesitated before I stood up and faced Lex, who was in the center of the room grinning at me but the look in his eyes said he was genuinely curious. I was starting to learn that you only really needed to be worried about him when he stopped smiling and laughing about everything. That's when he turned off all thoughts and did what he felt like doing. Or what he thought would be in Rayla’s benefit.
I shrugged, not really wanting to talk about that with my mate's mate. What's in the past was in the past, right? “I don't know all the rumors, but I know that before I got to know Rayla, I didn't believe that love and loyalty was in the cards for me.” I didn't want to see the expressions from everyone, so I pretended to feel around the side table that I already checked out.
When no one said anything, I saw Lex was still looking at me expectantly like I hadn't answered his question. I growled out before thinking, “Look, not everyone had parents that loved each other like all of you did.” I ran my hands on my pants, trying to pay attention to something else.
“How do you know that our parents were in love, huh?” Ax tried to play devil's advocate, but I cruelly laughed at his attempt.
“The funeral. Ternin, Manic, and Easton all looked crushed, half dead, even. While my father was upset, he was perfectly fine greeting people at her coffin, never looking at it once.” My jaw clenched as my mouth continued, even as my mind told me to shut up. “He had the same impassive face when we took herashes to the land of fairy, and it was the same look he gave her when he saw her lovers leave the estate while she was alive.” I ran my hand through my hair, old emotions were bubbling up inside of me, and I was having a hard time keeping it down. I have kept it buried for all these years, but after what my father told me a month ago, all that stuff started to come back up again.
I gave a broken, sad laugh. “Even as a young kid, I noticed this behavior from my parents . . . how their relationship was more of a business deal. He never took on a lover while they were married, but my mother always had a new flavor of the week. When she died, my father fell into a depression. I thought that he had finally figured out what she meant to him, but I was wrong.”
Shoving my hands into my pockets. “I found him blackout drunk one night, murmuring, professing his love to some woman I never knew he loved. I knew I didn't want to be like that.”
I laughed, full of empty humor at my old self. “When I realized that no woman had awakened any need for more than just sex, I thought maybe, maybe, I was more like my mother than I thought. I both loathed and loved her for it, foolishly grasping at a distant memory of her to connect to. Then I met Rayla, and all of that changed.” While I did fall in love with the woman, my heart tugged at an old memory from way before. When I first saw that white ashy hair and golden-pink eyes. My six year old brain thought she was a little fairy goddess at first, that was until she started wailing on Ax. Remembering how my heart thumped against my chest and how transfixed I was on the little demented pixie girl in the sandbox. I was a goner for her even before I officially met her as an adult.
“It might be weird to say now, but I think I fell for her that day at the playground when she yelled at Ax, pounding into him as she told him snitches get stitches.” Ax and Lex snickered in agreement as Falcon's lips twitched from his normal frown, and the corner of Cosmo's lips tipped up hesitantly. I keep forgetting that he wasn't there for that time in our lives, even when he knew her as a child as well.
Lex’s chest puffed out as he boasted, “Oh, that's not weird. I knew the moment she sucked the blood off my finger that we were meant to be, no matter where our life took us. I was devoted, obsessed, in love . . . whatever you want to call it, but all in for my rose.” His eyes took on a gooey, love puppy look as he clutched at his heart. He was really annoying when he got like this. Ax chucked a book at his head, which he dodged, and almost hit me!
“The fuc-” A clink sounded on the ground where the book hit.
Lex shushed me before he pointed down to the floor and kicked over a rug to reveal a black, steel metal box in the floor. “I found a safe. Do you think that's important?”
Falcon was the first to jump up and examine the safe like it was a bomb. We all circled around them until Falcon got up and investigated the door. After a minute, Falcon turned and smiled, which was creepy. He pointed at a corner of the safe that Lex found, and we all looked down to find a small heart shape. “This shape is the same shape of the upper left hand key hole. I think this safe has that key, which means that we have four other safes to find. Then the real puzzle starts.” He moved back to the corner he was inspecting as he threw over his shoulder, “We need to each find a safe, now.”
