Page 20 of Who Owns You?

“Snakes, lizards—” She begins, holding up her fingers with each example.

“OK, yes, those things exist, but like…they tend to be much smaller than me.”

I shiver and snatch a thick, knitted blanket from a basket beside the chair. I arrange it over my lap, tucking it into the sides of the chair, like sealing myself in will keep the monsters out. Ifeel like a child trying to pull any sort of imaginary defense from my arsenal to protect myself.

“I’m going to send Darius a message now. He and the others of his nest will join us in a moment,” she says, turning her attention to her cell phone.

“What kind of creature groups in a nest? Are they birds? Werewolves or something?” I ask, trying to keep my voice from bubbling up with my laughter.

I cough, trying to dislodge the urge, but it sticks in the back of my throat.

“You’ll see. I promise everything will be fine.” She reassures me as her fingers fly over the screen for a solid minute before she sets her phone back down in her lap. “All done.” She smiles sweetly, like she’s not about to completely upend my world for the third time in less than a week.

JULIUS

I don’t know what I was expecting to find when we entered the room where the witch waited with Eloise. But I can’t say that finding the newcomer bundled under the blanket I made Darius for Christmas last year was on that particular bingo card. I nearly stumble when I see it draped across her lap.

“Ah, and here they are. Charlotte, these are the gargoyle protectors of the castle and, I suppose, part of the world.”

Eloise is always too modest and far too immodest at the same time. Sure, we have a duty to protect humankind, but in recent times, that has scaled way down and left me a ton of time to improve my baking, which I’m thankful for. Though with therevelation that supernatural creatures are living among mortals, I know that things are going to change. However, this witch, is not the change I expected to see.

“You give us far too much credit, Eloise,” Darius says, sweeping into the room with the grace only he can muster at a time like this, tail and wings tucked behind him primly with his head held high to display his massive horns.

He places a swift kiss on the older witch’s cheek before turning his eyes to Charlotte. The witch sinks deeper into our alpha’s chair with a squeak.

It was decided we would go only seventy-five-percent monster to meet this new witch, as she is new to the world of the supernatural and we didn’t want to give her a heart attack seeing the one-hundred-percent version of us just yet. This is the form we most naturally take, but it’s still so odd to see the colors of our flesh contrast against that of a mortal being. Darius is blue, light and powdery and veined with a striking white. Marcus is yellow, bold and as brash as his personality. Atlas is all black, shot through with veins of graying white and darker black. My skin is green like pine needles, with some lighter striations and flecks of black and softer white. I’m very middling in comparison to the brashness of my nest-mates, and it shows.

“My name is Darius Colbéliard, for lack of a proper surname. I am the leader and alpha of the nest of Colbéliard. These are my nestmates Marcus, Julius, and Atlas,” he says as he points to each of us in turn.

“So nest is just a word you use. A nest of gargoyles?” the witch asks from her half-hidden position under the blanket.

She tugs it up to her neck when Darius begins to move closer. His steps carry him almost to her feet, which she has tucked up in his chair. She buries herself in the blanket Julius made until we can only see her eyes.

“Yes, nest is the right word. Yuh know, for the group of us, that is, one gargoyle or a nest of them, like a murder of crows.Cawww.” Marcus’ words are a rapid-fire mess, punctuated with a terrible imitation of a crow.

I bite back a chuckle at how adorable he can be and give a playful wince.

Darius and Eloise join me in the pained motion.

Atlas trudges in behind our brightly colored marigold nest-mate and punches him in the arm. The flash of Atlas’ dark stone against Marcus adds to the intensity of the blow.

The sound of stone hitting stone makes Charlotte jump, and the snarl on Atlas’ face probably doesn’t exactly put her at ease either.

“He’ll be fine, it’s the state of his brain I’m worried about,” Atlas snarks.

His dark eyes are slightly hooded, and in the low light of the sitting room, it’s hard to tell that his eyes even have whites and not just endless darkness.

Seventy-five-percent monster mode means that we get the colors, the wings, the horns, the tails, and killer cheekbones but maintain a slightly human look. Atlas isn’t doing his best to maintain that small percentage of human appearance that would make Charlotte more comfortable.

“Atlas, I’m sorry I took your house. I didn’t know it was your house, but I’ve moved all the way from America, and I kind of can’t go back until I’ve found myself—whatever the hell that means. My aunt wanted me to discover myself and my family since I guess she knew my parents never talked about it, which is really weird?—”

I barely see the witch take a breath as she talks. Maybe she has some type of double lungs?

“Charlotte, all those finer details are for later. For now, let’s just get introductions settled and?—”

The doorbell cuts off the older witch in her attempt to settle the younger one, who burrows back under the safety of the blanket.

“My pizza!” Charlotte wails, followed by a beast growling from under the blanket.

---