Page 73 of Haunted Nightmares
I know I did not hear him correctly, I must have had a stroke.“Did you just saybuggies?”
The twit nods, not looking at me while he centers the podium. “Mosquitos, gnats. Horse flies. I don’t really care for dragonflies, Sadie thinks they’re pretty but I think they’re freakish and I’d rather not have them flying at me.”
“You’re serious?”
“Have you not seen a dragonfly? The long arse, clear wings, big, bulging eyes. And the sound they make, it’s—hey!”
Slapping him upside his empty head, I finally gain Archer’s full attention long enough to get him to shut the hell up. “No fire.”
“That’s all you had to say, sir dickhead. I was trying to be helpful since I don’t know what the fuck else I’m supposed to be doing.”
“He’s right,” Zephyr giggles in my ear. “This is his first Purist meeting as your… well, whatever he is to you now, and I can tell Archer is trying pretty hard to impress you.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose and squeeze my eyes shut. “I know. I bloody know, I just, my gods he saidbuggies.”
My mate cracks up as I watch Archer storm off towardhismate, trying to deny the way he lumbers the way I do.
I hate that we share so many similarities while he also shares them with his biological parents. Not because I’m all sentimental or weepy over the fact that the lad didn’t sprout frommynutsack, no I’m secretly praying to whatever or whoever will listen that if I have young they are nothing like me and favor my mate tenfold, so I’ve no feelings like that about it. It’s downright confusing and frustrating, though, and it’s weird as hell. It’s probably how Xenith felt when he looked at Kadoc since he had to use a physical vessel for his rather divine creation.
Using the Gods of Old who fornicated against all odds, helped plant the ultimate creators seed instead of their own, and were then unlucky enough to incubate my grandfather for the duration of the surrogacy? That isnotwhere the majority of my genetics come from but they are what gives us the more human qualities in our appearance and I’m sure Xenith was rather conflicted about it. Which, if the long destroyed history books were correct, is actually a blessing to my bloodline since theystated Xenith essentially looked like the lovechild of a gargoyle and a wolf on steroids.
I’m quite fond of the way I look and though grateful for my origins, I’d be pissed if I woke up to that every morning.
Sharing physical markers or personality traits with someone who has no true and natural genetic connection is still very bizarre.
Especially since I’m beginning to grow fond of the eejit myself.
It doesn’t help that everyone keeps pointing out how alike we are, of course I can appreciate a heartless arsehole, but the fact that my mate took to his female instantly and the couple have weirdly imprinted on Zephyr the way ducklings do, it’s just as bothersome. Her maternal instincts are very strong, she is ridiculously caring by nature anyway, I just prefer she’d wait to mother our young instead of the egotistical musician who is actually a few centuries her elder. Alas, that is a battle I know I won’t win, especially now that Archer has embraced our unnatural bond by truly trying to learn from me.
Frowning, I do my best to ignore the way I’m compelled to go over to where the lad is standing and… dosomething.I don’t know what I want to do, or why I can’t shake the feeling, but it’s there and I absolutely despise all of this.
I forgot how much I hated the various emotions that come with mating my gentle breeze.
“I finished,” Jerome says as he scares the ever loving shite out of me. “Sorry, my lord, I thought you heard me walk up.”
Waving off his concerned expression, I nod. “Everything is in position?”
He points to the willows behind me, toward the various trees that litter the bayou, behind the seating the rest of my inner circle has been setting up, then taps the front of the podium.
“Good.” I lean in toward the tiny camera, no reflection to be seen in the microscopic lens.
“If something is happening tonight, we will catch it.” Jerome adjusts the button cam on my collared shirt as I straighten up. “Your friend is watching the live stream, and everything is being recorded.”
“I don’t like him calling meyour friend,” Zephyr pouts through the earpiece. “It’s wildly inaccurate.”
Rolling my eyes, I can’t help but chuckle. “Protection, love. Those who need to know, do, and that is all. I will take no chances with your precious life ever again.”
I grin as my mate sighs rather dreamily in my ear then let Jerome finish up before I take my place on the small stage.
Zephyr is watching the live stream instead of participating in the first Purist meeting I’ve held since she died because I decided I did not want anyone outside my inner circle to know she is back.
My mate did not appreciate that, nor did she appreciate that I forbid her from touching the finger pulled out of the troll to attempt to get a read on my mother’s plans or whereabouts. Zephyr has been rather annoyed with me the last few days and while that’s always been par for the course, I’m not going to budge. And quite frankly, things will get worse before they get better.
Besides, I didn’t need my gentle breeze to confirm what I knew.
It was her finger, there is no doubt.
I knew by the traces of her blood I could smell, the color of nail polish on her pointy little digit, and the indented scar shaped like the letterbin the middle of the pad. A gift from when I was teething, I already despised the female who birthed me and I took a chunk out of her, so I knew it was my mother’s finger.
