Page 5 of Eight Embers

“He’s still a monster though,” Shelly spits from behind the bars. “He ruined my life.”

“Sorry, my bad,” I interject. “Forgot I was supposed to be keeping her mute. She can’t talk anymore, Zac. Go ahead, man.” I forgot I was showing off my skills, I got pretty into Zac’s story.

“You know how it’s somewhat rare to inherit magical skills from both parents? How it’s more normal for a child to more or less show attributes of one parent, and maybe they’ll have a quirk or two from the other? Yeah, well my quirk turned out to be pretty bad. With all my honing of the naga skills, I hadn’t spent any time on the witch side of me, because I hadn’t realized those abilities were there.

“I was trying to show off but ended up opening a portal and shoving my parents through. I don’t know where they went to, but they’ve been gone ever since. All I know is that it was full of rainbows and glitter? So that’s my big shame. I spent years trying to figure out how to do it again, obsessing over any sort of tidbit I could gather to help me with the portal, but I’ve never been able to reverse the action. So that’s why I ended up mostly raising Shelly, because I took her parents away from her. I am a monster.”

Delaney is silent for a minute, likely processing. But I’m not entirely sure why he felt so nervous about telling this particular story.

“Thank you for telling me. First of all,” Delaney says slowly into the phone, “I don’t know how long you’ve been keeping that to yourself, but I hope you feel a little bit lighter with it off your chest. Second of all, I don’t think you’re a monster. Magic is… unpredictable sometimes. The goddess likes to play games and tricks, and it’s not always intuitive to figure out how talents work. Look at me, how long did it take me to realize how to keep my magic under control? Do you have any idea how many orgies I’ve caused in my life? I feel like that’s more alarming than you accidentally sending your parents somewhere. Wait a minute; in theory, they could still be out there somewhere, right? Like, alive? And could potentially be pulled back?”

"I guess so, but time always works differently in other realms, and I don’t know anything about the realm I sent them to. It could be the most dangerous place in existence for all I know, and they could have been killed within minutes of landing. They could have been biologically incompatible with the atmosphere, they could have—"

“Deep breath there, Zacky. In this moment there’s clearly nothing we can do, you've been… fighting this for a while on your own now. You have help now.”

“Still don’t think a group of college students is a flex but thank you.”

“I mean, if you don’t want our help…” she taunts.

“No, no, I would appreciate that. I’ve been so scared for so long about this getting out. It’s…freeingto let it go.” He turns to his sister. "Shelly, I’ve done a disservice to you. I’ve let you get away with too much instead of disciplining you and trying to shape you into somebody respectable. I just got mated and I really can’t deal with you right now. Maybe that makes me a shit brother, but you’re a pretty shit sister for trying to attack mymate like that. Not to mention it seems like you were trying to reenact a curse that she worked so hard to break? Yeah, I think you’re going to spend the night here and we can talk tomorrow. I’ll get you a mattress and some blankets and stuff, but I need to do a better job of teaching you the consequences of your actions.”

He starts walking away and I follow, because ain’t no way I want to be stuck down here without him. It’s creepy and gross, and I grew up in literal Hell.

When we get outside, I rock back on my heels, wondering what to do now. There’s an expectation that Zac will go back to Delaney since she actually chose him, and I guess I could blip myself back down to dear old dad, but it’s kind of depressing to spend my first actual night of freedom alone.

“You coming?”

“Nah, you go ahead.”

He stops and looks at me, then walks back to me. “You should try to date her. Maybe this started out as an arrangement between your parents, but if you’re fated like you say, you guys could be something special. She just needs a chance to get to know you. Maybe without pretending to be somebody else this time.”

“I’ve just been waiting so long, I had this sort of dramatic idea in my head about how things would go down when I finally got to talk to her, you know? That was dumb. And Leo…”

“You love him, too?”

I rub my chest. “Is that what this is? It feels weird. Being a tree was easier, no messy emotions.”

“I’ve got an extra room at my place if you need somewhere to crash. I could even hang out with you if you want?”

“I’m pretty sure Delaney needs you, but I appreciate that.”

“I need to get my sister squared away, then I can bring you over there and get you comfortable. Honestly, I don’t know where I’ll be sleeping tonight, but I’ll sleep easier if I know you have somewhere comfortable to be. I get the feeling you just went through a huge transformation, and it doesn’t sit right with me you being by yourself right now. You’re going to need help. You know what? Just come with me. If nothing else, you and I can sleep on the couch in Delaney’s living room or something. There’s been too much of us all being scattered.”

“You don’t think she’ll mind?”

“Only one way to find out,” he says.

Chapter Two

Delaney

“Did I mention how hot you looked out there earlier, taking all your mates like that?”

Even after all this, August still finds a way to make me blush. Though I'm sure if he were to pull me up against his chest in this way and whisper just about anything with his warm breath raking against my skin, I’d react the same way. Ooh, idea. “Do me a favor. Whisper something completely ridiculous but do it in the same tone and manner you just did.”

August pauses for a beat, no doubt used to my weirdness by now. “Um, okay, how about, zebras zigzag a zillion times while eating zucchini.”

I feel my face scrunch up. Maybe it was the delivery. “Er, never mind. I just dried way up.”

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