Page 2 of Eight Embers

“Seriously? I didn’t meanher! Freeze her. Please.”

“You’re awfully bossy.” But I do freeze the witch, this time right before she could hurl a ball of energy at my lovely bride to be.

Now that that’s all taken care of, I stroll up to a very irate Delaney, peck her on the cheek, and look around at all the men that want to tear my head off with their bare hands.

“So, I’m Rush,” I explain with a smile on my face. “As you can probably surmise, me and our lady have a history. You could say she was mine first, but who’s keeping track?”

"Him?” The Adam fellow asks. "Seriously, Delaney?”

“Hey, if you would have shown up to that party forever ago, maybe we wouldn’t be in this position.”

“Um, I know you’re not trying to hold me accountable for something that happened so fucking long ago I can’t even remember it. What do you want with her?” this guy asks, turning to me.

I extend my hand, as is customary for humans. A handshake for starters and a name. “I’m Rush. I know she called you Adam a few minutes ago, but it would make me feel incredibly good about myself if you said it with your own voice.”

“Adam.” He throws an arm around Delaney’s shoulder and pulls her into him, giving me a strange look I can’t decipher. “What do you want with Delaney?”

“The right to marry her, of course. Darling, we’re going to design the most lavish of gowns, just you wait and see. The designers we have in Hell are top notch. You should see this new technique they’ve devised to sew spikes into gowns. Have you ever seen a gown covered in titanium stiletto spikes? They’re just simply precious.”

“We will not be doing any of that,” Delaney says like a total buzzkill.

“Fine with me. If you want to get married in the nude, we could arrange that, too. In fact, I know of a wedding venue where that’s the schtick; no clothes allowed. Let’s go around the room and get to know each other, shall we? You should all get in a circle,” I suggest, infusing my words with a little bit of charisma to get them to do what I want.

Soon enough, they're all standing in a circle around the frozen witch. I manifest a ball and throw it across the circle to somebody. I’m trying to pay attention to everything happening, but really all I want to do is gather Leo in my arms and makesure he’s okay. And then maybe have some fun with Delaney. Maybe I’ll branch out and try something freaky with maple syrup?

“Name?” I ask the gentleman.

He gives me a few slow blinks before answering. “I’m very confused right now. I’m Jackson, I like puppies. Never had one, but maybe someday.”

He passes the ball back to me and I smile in encouragement. “Very good Jackson, thank you for sharing.” I throw the ball to somebody else.

“Okay, I’m Ash, and I teach shifter history. Sometimes when I’m in the shower alone I like to pretend my wiener is a puppet and I give him funny voices.” He passes the ball back to me and I can’t help a little bit of a giggle.

“Why are they saying weird things?” Delaney questions, narrowing her eyes at me. “You did something to them. What did you do? Why haven’t I punched you in the face yet for lying to me and getting in my pants?”

“Don’t you know the rules of truth circles?”

“Obviously not,” she says.

I throw the ball to her because I’m so curious right now.

She pinches her lips together to try and prevent words from flowing out of them, but it’s no use. The magic is in full effect. It won’t be satisfied until we’ve all told some sort of truth. Eventually she blurts out, “I’m Delaney and I like to eat ice cream cones from the bottom up.”

The ball’s back in my hands and I nod at her. “Thank you, Delaney. That was delightful. Odd, but delightful. Who’s next?”

“Ooh, do me, do me!”

I toss the ball to the curly haired cutie who’s bouncing up and down. “I’m Cory, and when I was a little kid, I wanted to grow up to be a jellybean. It took entirely too long for the adults in my life to break that specific dream.”

I get the ball back and thank Cory, the magic propelling me to keep the game going.

“I’m August, and I think about my brother’s ass far too much.”

Delaney giggles and goes for a high five, but I find this entirely unsettling and almost wish to end the game there, but August passes the ball on, bypassing me completely.

“I want to make it clear I’m only participating because it seems I am magically compelled to do so. My name is Adam; Delaney, I definitely saw your boobs a whole bunch of times in high school. No further comments, thanks.”

“Um, I’m Leo,” the next one says, testing the elasticity of the ball. “To be honest, I don’t really know much about myself other than that woman right there is the whole reason I am existing right now and I’m pretty sure we’re going to have a pretty epic love story.”

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