Stolen Sign

Chapter 6

~Jaxon ~

I drive in silence, processing my thoughts.

Eight years in the military and two as a merc—all in the Mundane world—have taught me that feelings are best suppressed. At least at first.

I've also learned that 'feelings' serve a purpose, that they aren't signs of weakness, and that they don't just go away.

I wish someone had taught me that sooner.

Glancing at the guy riding in my passenger seat, I take a quick inventory of what I see.

His hair is chin-length, with a slight wave, and shines black as a raven's wing. His skin is pale in a 'never seen the sun' sort of way, and his features are almost too pretty for a guy. He has a stronger jaw and thicker brows than his sister, but otherwise, they might as well be twins.

Inhumanly beautiful, naturally seductive twins.

It feels like he's put a spell on me. From the smoothness of his skin to the darkness in his eyes, to the delicate shapes of his face, everything about him makes me want to protect him and keep him safe. More even: to earn a smile, or a kiss from his softly curved lips.

My brother was right about me. I like men, and this one, it seems, is just my type.

Given his state, I can't imagine he's doing it consciously. It must just be his Lovecraft blood. I'll have to keep my guard up, I think.

"So, what happened?" I ask, as we leave the upscale, residential side of the city and enter the industrial area near the docks. "How'd you end up with Griffin Spellwright's Relic as your Sign?"

He tells me, in half-whispered sentences interspersed with frequent shivers, how, after my brother accosted and nearly assaulted him, he'd fled and sequestered himself in the safety of the nearest room; and there, how he'd found his Sign.

When he finishes, he lapses into silence, and I don't break it for another twenty minutes, lost in my own thoughts.

I hadn't loved my dad. He'd abused and manipulated my brothers and me, playing us against each other for his own amusement.

Aurelio, the first-born, was his favorite, and the most like himself—intelligent, talented, ruthless, and ambitious. Marcus, the youngest, was a close second, though too short-sighted and impulsive to be Aurelio's match.

Then there was me, the middle child.

Lacking the mental acuity of my brothers, and with so little talent for magic I might as well be Mundane, I could barely play checkers to their three-dimensional chess. Eventually, I'd learned that the only way to beat them was not to play their games.

While my brothers were sent to the best schools, wherever those might be, I attended a local one. While they got into top universities, I joined the army. While they'd come home to kiss our father's ass and worm their way into his good graces—and thereby into a lot of money—I'd done the opposite: been a thorn in his side, lived mostly as a Mundane, and worked against his interests as best I could using the skills that I have.

I'm not sorry he's dead, but he was still my dad, and somebody killed him.

Despite the fact I'm convinced Sylas had nothing to do with it, I'm also convinced that it wasn't an accident he came across that Relic when he did.

Somebody took it from the Relic room and put it in the library, and then somebody cursed my dad with a siren call.

People curse my family all the time. Our Relics protect us. Griffin Spellwright's Relic, in particular, has always protected the head of our line. If Sylas hadn't been at that party, if my brother hadn't scared him, if he hadn't come across the Relic and—somehow—taken it as his Sign—then my dad would probably still be alive.