Their Little Blessing, they’d called him since he’d been literally left on their doorstep by his father.Pfft. Robin was nothing like them. All of them far too old to be raising a child his age, some of them with children who had fled the town and coven and never looked back. But maybe that was why they’d been so loving and careful with Robin in what time they’d had.
Marise, not even a blood relation, had died in March, and she’d been the last of them. In the months since, none of the ones who’d left over the years had contacted Robin or shown any inclination to come back.
Robin returned to the sink for his forgotten cup of water and leaned against the counter to sip it. Thunder, much, much closer, shook the window behind him. He hoped the roof would hold up. There was no one around anymore to take care of that sort of problem. There hadn’t been in far too long, and Robin on his own did not have the resources to pay for a whole new roof.
Banging from above made him jerk his head up to look at the ceiling, then scowl when a headache began to throb behind his eyes.
“That is not helpful,” he muttered, putting the cup down. Robin had never been good at any of the more practical aspects of the house or the business, like plumbing or taking care of the sheep, although that side of the business had already been phasing out when Robin’s grandfather had died and then had ended completely after Phillip, Marise’s husband, had injured his back. Robin sometimes missed it, if not the labor involved, but there was a fiber mill a few hours away happy to do business with them, and local and semi-local farms that did some pretty colorwork.
The knocking continued despite Robin’s remark.
“I forgot to get groceries, that’s all,” he insisted loudly to the noise from upstairs and went over to the tiny desk and chair by the kitchen entrance to back his claim with a grocery list.
Except he couldn’t seem to find one, and flipping through the blank notepad made his head swim. Needing groceries was really the sort of thing someone should have predicted and prevented through entirely practical means. Robin could see the stacked household bills clearly, some still in their envelopes because he had switched them to automatic, online payments years ago to let him focus on the business accounts.
Next to the desk was the fridge, the magnets holding up old to-do lists and several menus from places in town. Some of them would deliver out here for an extra charge. He’d have to tip well for coming out in a storm but a delivery might be necessary unless he waited until morning. He hoped he had cash.
He reached for the menus and felt something heavy and sad settle in his bones when most of them fell out of his hands to thefloor. He thought, if he bent down now, he would end up on the floor with them and he wouldn’t want to get up again.
He shut his eyes although the kettle was starting to puff.
The banging started in again.
“Yes, I’m aware things are not ideal, thank you,” he said testily to the ceiling, voice barely more than a scratch.
A short series of knocks followed only the smallest of pauses.
“That’s just being rude.” Robin clutched the remaining menu in his hand but didn’t bother to shake a fist at the air. He stared for another moment until the stinging in his eyes made him blink several times. Then he sighed. “I’m sorry,” he added, the rasp in his voice getting worse now that he’d noticed it. “But what else do you want me to do?”
He had his mouth open to tell them what they could do with their knocking when he realized the knocking was not coming from upstairs. Notthisknocking.
“Oh,” he exhaled, then glanced up to the clock. The numbers kept moving, the slippery bastards. But he didn’t need a clock to know it was late for a delivery unless it was some sort of Christmastime exception. The drivers might knock to warn him the packages were there. Even on the covered porch, if the wind was strong, packages would get wet. The drivers on this route used to like his family. These days, Robin didn’t have time to make them treats, but it had once been a familiar, friendly ritual.
He frowned his way down the hall, more for the pain in his head than the thoughtfulness of some harried driver interrupting Robin’s efforts to get himself some food. The rack by the door offered coats and hats and scarfs to help protect Robin from the cold, but putting on a coat seemed like a lot of effort to receive a package.
Robin swung open the door without remembering to switch on the porch light and the menu in his hand dropped to the ground, landing beside one black work boot.
Always black, Robin thought with illogical irritation, his heartbeat an excited rush in his ears, his chest hot despite the chill in his fingers.
The sky was darker than even those worn boots, clouds of gray and black lit only by electricity, the rain almost blue in the light shining from behind the too-tall figure in front of him.
“Merlin’s tits.” Robin tipped his head back and let himself exhale when he met Lucas Greysmith’s eye.
“Merlin’s tits?” Lucas echoed, his amber and vanilla voice even warmer and softer with his confusion.
That felt like something, confusing someone like Lucas. Robin wasn’t sure what, butsomething. Maybe Robin would figure it out tomorrow when he went to the Greysmith’s house to… to do whatever it was he had been going to do there.
He stared at Lucas, unblinking.
Lucas stared back, his eyebrow and a half both raised in question.
Rain was indeed soaking part of the porch, but Lucas didn’t seem to notice. His coat, as black as his shoes and probably just as sturdy, must have kept the cold out. The scarf around his neck wouldn’t have—a flimsy, store-bought thing. Ingray.
Lucas’ eye was brown like bourbon held up to the light. Some color in his wardrobe might have suited him. But Robin would at least say that the black—plus that touch of gray and whatever color his jeans were—were striking with Lucas’ hair, which was dark, dark brown except for the swatch of silver-white that someone only two months older than Robin should not havebut which Lucas had always had. The hair was also long, either from Lucas’ unwillingness to cut it or just Lucas forgetting to, his mind full of more important matters.
The old scarring around his sightless and slightly clouded left eye only added to the imposing image. As did Lucas’ height and size; a trait shared by most of the Greysmith family, which was funny since only half of them were blood relatives and the rest had been adopted or taken in by Mallory Greysmith, Lucas’ mother.
The coven, often obsessed with power and bloodlines and tradition, found the Greysmiths baffling and maybe even a little terrifying for that reason.
