Page 34 of Daemonium

“Because her pops is a cheater? Isn’t that half the board?”

Carol snorted, the first sound she’d made since she last spoke. “That’s certainly a common theme, but certainly isn’t something everyone does.”

“All of our parents are solid,” my brother said. “And if Dante—our dad--cheated our mom would simply watch as we buried him in the garden.”

“I get it,” Dion stated, keeping the conclusion he came to unspoken and off-camera.

That was an expectedly smart decision. It may have been news to all of us, but Melantha’s mother being some unknown woman didn’t change anything nor did her father having multiple affairs.

We had a history with these women that went beyond the quiet moments we’d shared inside this game of wit and bloodshed. It no longer mattered who they did or didn’t hail from. No one on their side wanted me with Sunshine. They couldn’t fathom a Vetis mixing with her unblemished bloodline. Or another Serpine spitting out half of a Belair. Decades of history would change if we created an army of them.

I wasn’t sure that would come to be.

We would make it out of here and do what we had set out to. That was not a question. What our family would resemble after wasn’t so clear. Things between us were no longer like they used to be. For me, it was a foreign kind of torment. Sunshine may have remembered me, but she didn’t remember us.

Not fully.

I blamed myself for that in the same way Ciaran did for his own supposed failures.

Charon. Maverick. Brody.

We all had some degree of guilt we’d never sat down to face or acknowledge. Now it was too late. It was hanging over our heads like a fucking guillotine. Everyone who knew the truth understood the havoc that would come once it was brought from the dark. No one understood that better than Ciaran. Lana was a ticking time bomb and when she detonated, it wouldn’t just destroy him, she’d implode and destroy herself.

One by one we’d follow.

There was nothing we could do but wait for the inevitable.

CHAPTER NINE

It had been a while since I’d seen them look so exhausted, a type of tiredness that couldn’t be cured from any amount of sleep. If my heart ever stopped breaking for the people I loved, I wouldn’t have anything left.

“The blanket is soaked. Where did he cum at?” Lana asked, eyeing the deep brown bedspread. “Because while I approve of this relationship, I don’t love it enough to bask in baby gravy.”

I felt my face screw up. “Ew, Lana!”

“Does Kyrous strike you as the type to let a single one of his children fall to ruin and not make it home?” Mel countered, peeling back the blanket and carefully positioning herself on my right.

My face warmed and I gently nudged her with my shoulder. “We didn’t do anything like that on the bed.”

“You were moaning his name for practice then?” Lana asked, taking the other side, still eyeing the comforter as she did the same, revealing the soft sheet underneath.

“I got him off,” I admitted with a shrug. “Then he did me.”

“He got her off,” Mel repeated. “She’s so cute. You’re growing up on us, Gracie.”

“Stop.” I laughed. “You two do know I’m still a virgin, right?”

Lana gave me a look. “As if that wasn’t already blindingly obvious, we’re your best friends. We know.”

“It’s obvious?”

“Oh, my sweet summer child,” Mel sighed, gently patting my arm.

“Grace, if Kyrous had popped your cherry there’d be no mistaking that. I’m impressed with his restraint, to be honest.”

“Okay, but how can you tell?” I looked at each of them. “I guess you two don’t exactly have a virginal appearance.”

“That’s because we’re sluts,” Mel deadpanned.

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