Page 53 of April's Fool
Still nothing.
Basil was almost at the door. I re-checked the clip. Full.
Mori laid his hand over mine, pushing the gun down so it was pointed to the floor. “It won’t work. The spells prevent guns from firing.”
“Fuck!”
The demented witch escaped through the door completely unchallenged. Mori wrapped his arms around me as I raged inwardly for not expecting this. Basil had completely blindsided us, and we’d let him.
Fucking magic.
Aftermath
Amorandes
Damon stood stock still,his anger palpable. It tainted the air, once full of laughter and joy for a new chapter for Heatwave, now poisoned with the rot Basil left behind.
Finally, after a full minute where I feared Basil had ruined everything, Damon softened against me. He clumsily returned his gun to his pocket, then wrapped his arms around me so we were holding each other tight.
“I just wanted it over,” he muttered against my chest. “Wanted to just kill him so no one else has to. Thyme shouldn’t have to kill his brother. Cody is too innocent to take a life.”
“I am not!” Cody cried, advancing on Damon, who raised his head to look at his friend. I was gratified when Damon didn’t move away from me. “If it’s between us and him, I’m picking us. I won’t lose sleep over it, either.”
He wrapped his arms around us both, before Toth appeared at his side and whisked him away to safety.
“Should we close the club?” I asked.
“No. He’s made his point. There’s no show when it’s just shifters around. He came tonight just to show he could.” Damon eased out of my hold, kissed me softly, then took my hand. “Come on, we need to tell the others what he said. Then we are getting back to your party. You did all this hard work—“
“We did,” I interrupted. “Both of us. As partners. This is partly yours, too.”
While I knew it made Damon uncomfortable to remind him, I’d put his name on this place along with mine. Some of that was because of human laws not recognizing demon ownership of property, even as a royal.
“Okay. We did all this work, so he isn’t going to spoil it.”
The Northarbor witches, along with the Sweetwater Alpha and his security, gathered together. They looked shell-shocked.
“I can’t believe he had the audacity!” Oak shook his head.
“Oh, I can,” Thyme said, swirling the remains of his cocktail in his glass. “This is on brand for him.” Thyme cast his gaze, which caught on Damon, narrowing slightly. “What exactly did he say to get youso rattled?”
Damon recounted all Basil had said, even the confusing words about him. How was Damon a complication? Had Basil sensed the other in my lover? Parker had searched for Damon’s past. Until he entered the foster care system, there were no records of him even existing. They weren’t sure if Damon was even his real name. It didn’t matter, it was his chosen one.
Deep in my heart, I knew my lover wasn’t all human. I was still leaning towards the fae. It wouldn’t have been outside of their nature to switch a baby or birth one with a human and abandon them both. Perhaps his other nature was further back and his mother just couldn’t cope. She had surrendered him rather than let him suffer. He should have had a wonderful life with caring parents, but people let him down, over and over, they gave up on him, or changed their minds. It was like he had been cursed.
The word cursed rang inside me as truth. I didn’t understand where the sense came from, it just reared up sometimes, never in time to stop me making some truly spectacular mistakes in my life, though. As long as it was there to help Damon, I didn’t care.
Thyme seemed hung up on the part about Damon. I recalled some of the times I’d caught Thyme studying Damon closely. Was he aware of what Damon was?
“Say that again, but tell me exactly how he said it, his face, everything,” Thyme demanded, voice harder and more serious than I’d ever heard it.
Damon huffed, but went to repeat himself.
“No,” Oak cut in. “This is getting us nowhere. We need to get you all somewhere safe.”
“Nope.” Damon’s expression dared Oak to suggest that again. “We’re not letting him ruin all Mori’s, I mean, our hard work. The club is safe. The apartment is as safe as we can make it. If Basil comes again, I’ll be ready for him.”
“How?” Oak challenged. “Your gun didn’t work.”
