Page 36 of Sound
“You did.”
I hate that he is right.
“But I’d already seen you and spoken to you once before. They haven’t.” Seeing his determination wavering, I push my advance, lifting on my knees and clutching the covers like a safety blanket. “I promise I’ll listen to everything you say. I won’t twitch a finger unless you tell me to. Please.”
Heart hammering in my chest and lungs burning from holding my breath, I watch his lips part and wait for his decision. My body lifts a foot off the bed, and I shriek like an idiot when a fist thumps in rapid fire on the door.
“Can you two have this conversation downstairs?” Lucien grumbles from behind the closed door. “We can hear every word, anyway. At least we won’t feel like creeps if we can see you.”
“Oh my God!” I whisper breathlessly, staring wide-eyed at Étienne. “They heard everything …”
I toss a pillow at his face when he throws his head back and laughs.
29
Étienne
My mind is still reeling from Melody’s arguments to join us to rescue her friends. Keeping an eye on her as she sways her hips in front of me down the hallway, I fight my own logic to find one good reason to keep her hidden here in the house until the magic user and everyone she works with are dead. It sounds like a solid plan in theory, but the fact that she will be alone while I’m across town doesn’t sit well with me. Her hair moves across her back as she looks around at everything like a child in a candy shop, her brown eyes alight in wonder. Warmth spreads through my chest because she seems to like what we have done with our home.
All contentment leaves my body the moment we enter my office and find the solemn faces of my brothers watching us. Melody stops in her tracks as if unsure whether she should enter or bolt back to hide in my rooms. I can see from her body language that she wants to run. Not giving her time to do that, I place a hand at the small of her back and guide her inside, closing the door behind me just in case she changes her mind. Moving my reluctant mate through the office and around my desk, I wait until she gingerly lowers in my chair, and only then do I step behind it to lean on the backrest behind her.
“Hello again, Melody.” Moël breaks the silence, his features all apologetic as he addresses my mate. “We didn’t have a good start and it was my fault. I didn’t mean to sound like I didn’t want you here, or to imply that you will turn against my brother.” With a sigh, he shakes his head, but it’s more to himself than anyone else. “I’m not used to having others around when discussing things with my brothers. I was simply stating facts that I have learned.”
“You don’t have to say sorry to me.” Melody’s voice is hesitant at first, but each word she speaks gets stronger until the woman I met the first time I saw her comes to the surface. “You didn’t make up crap just to say bad things about me, I’m sure. The fact is that neither the three of you nor I know anything about what I am and what I can do … apart from killing people when I play, that is. I’d be wary, too, if I were you. Is Salmon…” her voice trails off before she grimaces shaking her head. “Is Alto okay? The cat.”
“He is well, yes.” Moël assures her. “After Lucien healed him we left him to rest and recover in my room. He is much safer there than around any of us at the moment.”
My mouth opens to tell her that she has nothing to worry about, but she cuts of my words before they even form on my tongue.
“Thank you, both of you.” There is no mistaking the sincerity in her voice. “What I can promise you is that I have no intention of hurting any of you. As I said, I’ll never play the violin again. Not if I can help it.” My heart breaks at the sadness she is trying to hide.
“I don’t think that’s an option, little demigod,” Lucien grumbles where he is leaning on the wall with his arms crossed across his chest.
“I swear the next person who calls me ‘little’ will have that violin broken over their head, and then I’ll have nothing to play even if I want to.” she snaps at both of them, and my lips quirk when my brothers gawk at my mate. “I’m notlittle, and it’s not my fault the three of you are huge, okay? We don’t make people that big in America, not unless they play basketball. So stop being an ass. And if I don’t want to play, no one can make me. Not unless they do it against my will like Seraphina did. But I’ll never let that happen again if I can help it, so that is not an option.”
“I like her.” Moël grins at me over her head, while Melody and Lucien glare at each other.
“The blood of a Muse runs through your veins,” Lucien snarls at her, his upper lip curling above his fangs until his eyes flick my way. At my scowl, he schools his features and speaks to my mate with more respect. “Tell me, when you didn’t play your precious violin, did you feel like yourself? Or did it feel like a limb was missing and you moved through life like a tumbleweed drifting in the breeze?”
“How could you possibly know that?” Melody whispers, her face blanched and hands fisted in her lap. My body stiffens like a rock hearing Lucien’s words.
“It doesn’t take a genius to know this.” Shifting uncomfortably when we all stare at him, my middle brother shrugs as if trying for nonchalance. “Just like we are if we don’t take blood.” This is said while he looks at me pointedly, reminding me of our regular argument about me not feeding. “So would you be, if you didn’t play music. You are a descendant of the Muse of music, so it makes sense that you will need the sound to function properly.”
“Are you saying I have to kill people to feel normal? To stay alive?” Jumping off the chair, Melody turns her frightened gaze my way. “I can never live with myself if I have to do that, Étienne. Just kill me and get it over with, please.”
“No one is killing anyone.” Taking her hand, I tug her under my arm. My chest swells when she comes willingly, molding to me like she belongs there. “When I heard your music, every time it only lured me to you. It was like a call I couldn’t resist, but apart from that it did no harm.” A white lie since I almost walked into the daylight many times while hearing it in my dreams. I would walk in the daylight now without the music calling me for her. “It’s with good reason to believe we can hear you play the violin without any harm coming to us at all.”
“I wish I could kill Seraphina with it. That death wouldn’t make me lose sleep at all,” my fierce mate mumbles, and I can’t help but chuckle at that. “What are we going to do now?” Peeking at me from beneath her lashes, she blushes when my hungry gaze devours her beautiful face, my skin buzzing through the clothing where I feel her softness pressing against me. “When are we going after Vi and Harmony?”
“Are they descendants from the same Muse?” Moël’s question is as if someone pressed pause in the room.
I never even thought of that. Are my mate’s friends the same as her. Going on a hunch from what little we remembered of my father’s words, all of us assumed that all three females were the same. We are brothers, after all, and regardless of our different personalities and our unique trades, we are very much alike in many ways other than our uncanny resemblance. With that another thought comes uninvited, and my eyes lock first on Moël’s, and then on Lucien’s. How are we going to find the other two females if we don’t hear them play? Racking my brain, my blood chills in my veins when I remember that last night after I finally allowed my mate to sleep. I didn’t hear any music.
Not even a note.
“What is it?” Melody steps away from me, her concern-filled eyes never leaving mine. “What’s going on Étienne?”
“I heard nothing,” Moël says under his breath before scratching at the scar on his face, and Melody’s head whips in his direction.
