Page 19 of Blood Magic (Ariel Kimber 3)

And wasn’t that the honest truth. Pain and I were old friends. Sometimes I even relied on her to get me through the day. Feel like crying? Dig your fingernails into your palms until they are almost bleeding. Problem solved. She never failed me, my old friend pain.

I think there was something seriously wrong with me.

“I always let him fix me up,” Ty said. “I know Dash is stubborn and usually won’t let Julian anywhere near him, but I’m the exact opposite. I don’t ever want to be in pain. Do you know why Dash won’t let Julian anywhere near him?”

I shook my head in the negative. If someone had told me, I didn’t remember it. Too much information had come my way recently and I feared I’d already forgotten half of it.

Tyson took one of my hands resting in my lap and laced our fingers together in a sweet gesture.

I looked up and was immediately lost in the depth of his dark brown eyes. If he smiled at me right this second, I would likely quit breathing. That thing could be used against women of all ages as a lethal weapon. I could only imagine the things the ladies would hand over if he flashed that smile in their direction. Here, take the keys to my car. And the pin number to my debit card. How about my virginity, you want that as well? Take it, it’s yours. And my cash. And the jewelry. Vivian’s jewelry, of course, I didn’t have any.

Tyson squeezed my hand gently and I blinked, coming out of my thoughts.

Ty smirked at me, as if he knew some of what I had been thinking. At least the gist of it with him being exceptionally lovely to look at and everyone taking notice.

Thankfully, he left it alone.

“You know Dash grew up in this house, right? With his grandmother and his mother. He’ll never leave this place because it’s the only place where he remembers his father. Anyway, that’s not important. Forget about that. What’s important is that he was raised with two women who called him evil for being what he was. Having magic made them hate him and they tried to make him feel like it was wrong to ever use it and that he’d be going to hell if he did. He tried to hide what went on in this house from the rest of us. It’s kind of hard to hide that kind of violence for a long period of time and that much damage to your body. He tried, put a decent effort into it, but he failed. We found out. I think he was around thirteen before we found out about his back. It had already had some pretty serious scarring by that time and I honestly have no idea how he hid it for as long as he did. But by the time we found out, Julian had already learned a great deal about healing from his father. It’s a calling for some people, healing is. I could never do what Julian does. If I tried to grow a plant, it would certainly die. I’m good with my magic but I could never make what he does. Never. The rest of the guys couldn’t do it either. All those jars in the basement at my house, in the greenhouse room? Those are all his creations. He put all those together.”

I squeezed his hand to let him know I was still listening to what he was saying. I liked that he was talking so freely with me about Dash and Julian and their lives before me. And I had rightly assumed Julian had created all those concoctions in the jars in that strange room in the basement in the Alexander house. A room I never ever wanted to return to.

“Well it can sometimes be like a compulsion for Julian. Like, it’s almost painful for him not to heal someone when it’s a person he cares about. Dash was so afraid of those two horrible women and what he thought they might do to him if he allowed Julian to heal him or help ease his pain that he wouldn’t let Julian anywhere near him. Dash continued to suffer in silence and, because of his nature and his need to heal, Julian suffered in silence as well. It could have easily driven a wedge between the two of them, but it had the opposite effect. They are incredibly close, those two. They would probably live together if Dash would ever be willing to leave this place, which will never happen. Instead, Julian lives with Damien because neither of them wants to be alone but they also don’t want to live with a bunch of other people either. It’s funny because Damien’s loaded but they live in this ridiculously small house. You’ll have to see it for yourself soon. Seriously, girl, it’s so small that Damien has to keep most of his clothes in his bedroom at our house. And he hasa lotof clothes. Uncle Quint is always harping on him to just move in because most of his shit is already at our house, we’re just missing the person the clothes belong to.”

I wasn’t surprised to hear that Dash and Julian were close. The reason why was incredibly sad to me. I could imagine a young, thin, pale red-headed young man beaten down by the people who were supposed to love him the most and hiding it all from the people who actuallydidlove him, hisrealfamily. Pain was Dash’s old friend as well. Sadly, we had quite a bit in common. And Julian… Goodness. I didn’t know what it would do to me to know that I had the tools to help take away the pain of someone I cared about, but I wasn’t allowed to. Instead being forced to watch them suffer. I think something like that would make me into an extremely bitter and resentful person.

“What happened to them?” I asked out of a curiosity I could not keep to myself. “Dash’s mother and grandmother, what happened to them?”

Nobody had mentioned what happened to them, where they’d gone off to. I wanted to know. I wanted to know everything about all of them. I feared I would never even learn the half of it.

A heavy glass clonked down on the table directly in front of me and I jumped, startled at the noise and its sudden appearance.

“Dash’s mother and grandmother are gone,” Julian said in a harsh voice. “His grandmother is dead, thank the Gods. That old bitch dropped dead of a heart attack one day while she was whipping him.”

Tyson cleared his throat. “Don’t lie to her, Julian. If we want her to stay with us, to trust us, then we need to be honest with her and she deserves the truth from us. It’s the least we can give her, honesty. I’m not going to sit here and allow you to feed her a line of bullshit. You might get away with that in front of my Uncle, and he might even approve of it, but you should remember something about me, Julian. I may be an Alexander by blood, but that does not make me anything like my Uncle or my grandfather. I’m not going to be content with the woman I plan to spend my life with being mistreated in any capacity.”

Tyson raised his hand, silencing Julian before he could argue with him. “Stop. I know what you’re going to say, and you’re right. Uncle Quint isn’t like his father when it comes to women. I know that, and I don’t need you to tell me it. Quint would never lay a hand on her in the wrong way. But he would lie to her if he thought it was for her own good. My grandfather was a liar. He did it just because he could. I know Quint is different, I can see it in your eyes that you want to spit on me and defend him. There’s no need. I’m not trying to shit on my Uncle and try to make him look bad in front of Ariel. There’s no point, she knows what she’s buying into with him. But you and I both know he’d be cool with lying to her if it suited him best. That’s the honest truth and you damn well know it. What you’re trying to pull now is exactly the same thing, and you damn well know it.”

I looked from Tyson to Julian, then back again. Julian looked furious with both his hands balled into tight fists at his sides. Ty’s lips were pursed in an angry line and his eyes appeared to have turned as black as a moonless night. Normally, they were so dark a brown in color that they could be mistaken for black unless you got up close and personal with them. Right now, they were hostile and entirelyblack.

I had never actually met a person with black eyes before. With the dark venom they were spewing out in Julian’s direction, I wasn’t certain sure I ever wanted to see them again.

Tyson was standing up for me and, in a way, my place amongst them. I appreciated it, but I didn’t want him to do it in such a hostile, aggressive way. I felt it could be handled so much better.

“Tyson-” I said but got no further due to the fact I was cut off.

Ignoring me, Julian snapped, “I’m not lying to her.”

“You’re not being entirely honest with her either.”

“Guys-”

“You don’t need to be here for this, so I suggest you get out,” Julian growled at Tyson in a low, dangerous voice. “I give you my word that I will be entirely honest with her from here on out and I won’t skirt around the truth. But you need to get out of my sight and allow me to do my fucking job without forcing me to have to look at you or I won’t be held responsible for what happens to you.”

I sighed. That didn’t sound good. They looked like they were ready to punch each other. Not a pretty picture. Julian was supposed to be healing people here, not causing further injuries.

“Guys-” I tried again, hoping I could talk some sense into the two of them. No such luck, they both talked over me.

“Do not tell me what to do,” Tyson gritted out between clenched teeth. “You do not get to order me about and expect me to follow your orders. Not even Uncle Quint gets away with that when it comes to me.”

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