Page 34 of Blood Magic (Ariel Kimber 3)

My giggles turned to out and out laughter. I laughed so hard I had to wrap my arms around my middle and I was bent slightly forward. My body shook uncontrollably, and I had no desire for it to stop any time soon.

Served Quinton right. If I had to have it on my face because he had insisted, then he should have to suffer right along with me.

Seemed only fair.

Chapter Eleven

I had gotten my laughter under control and managed to get them all out of my bedroom. All of them save for Quinton that is. Big surprise there.

I knew why he didn’t leave with the others. It was because of that phone call I made for Tyson. The phone call where I actually hadn’t gotten around to telling him why I had called in the first place. Something, judging by his calm demeanor, he still wasn’t aware of. That meant it was still up to me to inform him. I had been eager to take the burden out of Tyson’s hands earlier. I wasn’t feeling so eager to now.

I crossed the floor to the loveseat and parked my butt in the space Addison had vacated. The wicker creaked as I sat down. I wasn’t worried about how sturdy the loveseat was. If it could hold up under Addison’s weight, then it could certainly hold up under mine. He had to have over a hundred pounds on me, probably more. And I wasn’t a teeny tiny girl either. Although, admittedly, I did weigh less than what I had a month ago. Some people ate when they were stressed out. I wasn’t one of them.

I crossed my legs at the knees and patted the cushioned seat beside me with the palm of my hand in an invitation. I didn’t know why, but I felt this would go so much easier if we were sitting down. Like, somehow, he’d be a lot less hostile if he learned the news while sitting down.

Call me crazy, but I thought getting bad news while sitting down was so much better than getting bad news while standing up would be. What if you crumpled under the weight of the news you’d just learned, and your knees gave out from under you? If you were sitting down, then you wouldn’t have to worry about that happening to you.

I eyeballed Quinton as he casually strolled across the bedroom as if he didn’t have a care in the world. He looked so confident, so self-assured, I didn’t think his knees would buckle under any kind of pressure.

Perhaps, it was really me who I had to worry about. Perhaps, I was worried it would be my knees that buckled after I gave him the news and he lost his mind and his outburst exploded all over the place.

Good thing I was sitting down because this would likely go over badly.

Quinton sat down gracefully on the seat beside me. I had never realized just how gracefully he moved before. He moved lithely, fluidly, like rushing water or a stalking cat. Always a predator, never the prey, was Scary Uncle Quinton. I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I was. I had always payed attention to him while he was standing still, and his mouth was, unfortunately, moving.

Sometimes I hated Quinton when his mouth was moving. Unfortunately, for me, there were other times when I thought I loved him. Only recently, that is. And I still wasn’t comfortable with it.

If you weren’t comfortable with something? I felt it was best to ignore it. So that’s exactly what I did, I put my feelings for Quinton aside and I blatantly ignored them. And I did it with everything I had.

Quinton turned his hips in the seat in my direction. His legs edged closer until his right knee was only mere inches from my crossed ones. He crossed his arms over his chest and glared at me in an attempt to stare me down.

I wanted to squirm in my seat under that glare he had aimed at me but by some miracle managed not to move an inch. His scrutiny aimed in my direction made me feel a whole lot less braver.

I didn’t like that.

As a result, I took the offensive.

“You hung up on me,” I said in a low, quiet voice.

I winced as soon as the words had left my mouth. That had not been what I wanted to say. I was being a coward and I knew it. This was not who I now wanted to be.

Quinton frowned at me.

“Baby,” he murmured, and his eyes had warmed considerably. He was back to being nice and sweet. Probably only towards me, everyone else would have to fend for themselves. “Ty covered everything with me downstairs. I only hung up on you because you weren’t responding, and I needed to concentrate on driving so I could get here and get to you.”

I frowned.

He already knew? I had stressed so much in the last few hours about him knowing this information and he just goes and tells me that he already knows?

What the?

This bugged me. Tyson hadn’t wanted to tell him about Chucky and the Council freeing him. So much so, he hadn’t tried to fight me for the cell phone I had snatched away from him. In fact, he hadn’t put up much of a fight at all. He’d protested a little, but not much. So why had he just gone and given it up to Quinton as if it were nothing? And why didn’t Quinton seem angrier about it when Tyson had seemed so sure his Uncle would be enraged at the news?

“You seem rather calm about it all,” I noted hesitantly.

“Nah,” he said. “Annabell is a sore subject for us all. She brings out the worst in us, and, honestly, I’m not surprised those two came to blows. Tyson is always looking for a reason to hit Julian and Damien in the face. I wouldn’t say he hates them because we’re a family and we all love each other, but that doesn’t mean we can’t fight amongst ourselves at times. We do, fight that is. But those three…” He paused to shake his head. “Those three have intense history that can only be brought on by the addition of a girl. They tried to add a girl to the mix the first time and it backfired on them because she’d been the wrong girl for us. They lost their cherries, well, all except for Damien, and unfortunately gained a whole lot of hostility towards one another because of it. It’s not what I wanted for my family and, if I could have chosen differently for us, I would have. But I’m not capable of doing so and this is what we are left with. I’m just sorry that you had to be there for their little episode. They won’t do that in front of you again. I promise.”

If I wasn’t so bothered by what he hadn’t said, I would have rolled my eyes at his promise. I didn’t do promises. They were made to be broken and I didn’t want to set myself up for that kind of disappointment.

---