Page 2 of Atlas and the Traitor

“Cole, get back!” Atlas yelled, as he slung moss-green orbs past him at their other brother, shattering Evan’s yellow ones and holding him off long enough to get an arm around Cole’s waist and haul him backward.

Away from danger.

He lifted a hand to snap.

Power slammed into them, yellow and awful, a split second before his thumb and middle finger met. The second after that, Cole crumpled in his arms.

Two

Atlas tossed a handful of dirt into the open grave and murmured the blessing his mother used to recite at these things.

“Careful,” came a whispered warning above him. “Someone might hear you.”

He flicked the kick pleat of his cousin’s seemingly demure black dress, briefly exposing the bright pink lining. “Like you being careful in this frock?”

Green eyes dancing, Daphne lowered into a crouch beside him. “Who the fuck says frock anymore?”

He flitted a hand in the air. “Old habits.”

“Like you and these things,” she said, fingering a fold in his kilt. “So scratchy.” She covered her mouth with her other hand and raised her brows, pretending to be scandalized. “And so much leg, Mr. Shaw.”

Atlas lost the battle with his laughter, drawing a disapproving glare from his father who stood nearby chatting with the parish priest and Daphne’s father.

“Whoops,” Daphne said, muffling her own giggle before falling silent. When she spoke again, her voice was filled with the same warmth that reminded Atlas so much of their mothers. “I’m sorry you lost him.”

He swallowed hard, staring into the distance as his mind replayed the past six weeks of hell. The gaping wound Evan’s strike had left in Cole’s side. The sleepless days and nights Atlas had spent by his bed, listening to the ramblings of a dying warlock whose heart wasn’t ready to surrender but whose body could no longer fight. The agonizing two trips Atlas had had to make away from him, the first to dispatch a giant in La Purisima, the second to take care of another one in Yerba Buena. The endless hours he’d pretended to sit caged at Monte Corvo for the sake of intel, given and received. The crushing words Cole had spoken on Samhain, his dying wish to go home. Cole’s soul had clung to his bones another agonizing three weeks, the longest of Atlas’s life during which he’d been too afraid to leave again, sure Cole would be dead when he returned. He wouldn’t let another brother die alone.

“Thank you for finding a reaper,” Atlas said. “I know it couldn’t have been easy to get someone down here.” Santa Maria wasn’t La Purisima, but it was close enough that the local and nearby religious fanatics made life hell for paranormals and magical beings. Unless they renounced their identity like his father had done, like Daphne’s father had done too.

“It’s what Cole wanted.” She tossed a handful of dirt onto the casket below. Then with a tilt of her head to the grave on their other side, added, “And what your mother would’ve wanted.” She wiped her hand on her skirt and slid her gaze to where the rest of their family stood. “Fuck what they want.”

“And yet here we are,” he said. “Pretending to be good little zealots. I can’t believe Cole wanted to come back here.”

“Are you telling me you don’t want to be buried beside your mother when all is said and done?”

He raked his hands through his hair and laced his fingers behind his neck. Of course he wanted to be buried here. For as awful as life had been before he and his brothers had left, this was where his mother would wait for each of her sons on the other side of the veil, hoping they’d be delivered to her and not extinguished. Even Evan, if by some miracle he were to reject Chaos and side with Nature.

Repentwas on the tip of his tongue, and he rolled his eyes at himself. Maybe he was a good little zealot after all. “We’re a fucked-up bunch, you know?”

“Oh, I know.” She bumped her shoulder against his. “But we’re family. Hers.” He didn’t think she was only referring to his mother or her own. Daphne was older than him, closer in age to Canton, privy to his abject devotion to Nature. Same as their mothers’. What would Daphne think if she knew Nature was now a five-foot-nothing slip of a woman with a nose ring, bright green hair, and an attitude as fiery as her brother’s red hair?

Would probably try to fuck her.

He laughed again, drawing her amused, knowing side-eye. “You heard that?” he asked, and at her nod, added, “Get out of my head.”

“I can’t wait to meet her,” she said with a wink before standing.

Atlas shot up beside her. “Daphne, you can’t tell?—”

The light in her eyes hardened, revealing the battle-honed warrior her fizzy exterior hid. “I’ve been doing this far longer than you, cuz.”

“You two aren’t quarreling now, are you?”

Uncle James’s question caught him off guard. He and Daphne had been so wrapped up in their own conversation that they hadn’t noticed the other one winding down or their parents heading their direction.

Daphne tossed a playful smile over her shoulder. “Just reminding Atlas who’s older,” she told her father. “Still.”

Atlas played along with her charade, bending at the waist in an exaggerated bow.

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