Total pages in book: 96
Estimated words: 88613 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 443(@200wpm)___ 354(@250wpm)___ 295(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88613 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 443(@200wpm)___ 354(@250wpm)___ 295(@300wpm)
I was alone, I was a new Marvel, I had lost my younger brother, and to top it all off, I lost my parents too.
This need to create a family when there was none around me led to making some very, very fucked-up choices. Ones that I was still paying for to this day.
I had begun to believe that warm and caring social groups were only a thing seen in cheesy movies and streaming shows. I gave up on ever finding them, instead focusing on keeping my head down and rectifying the mistakes I’d made as a young and lost teenager.
So sitting here, even though I’d only just met most of these people a little over an hour ago, I started to feel an unfamiliar warmth in my body. They’d all been so welcoming (yes, even Maddox, once he put his ice blades away), and none of them batted an eye at me playing cards with them for the evening. It was refreshing, and it made me glad I decided to stay.
But all good things had to come to an end. The cards were all put away, and everyone started to stand, Robby stretching his arms over his head. He said he had date night to get ready for, which Claire said she had the same. Mason had a drag show, which he invited me to, but that one I had to decline. Exhaustion from the batshit crazy day I had began to catch up to me, nipping at my heels and threatening to take me down.
Maddox walked me to the door, some residual giggles escaping as we passed underneath the impressive domed ceiling, a breathtaking scene painted onto the top. I restrained myself from gawking, following behind Maddox as we chatted about the card game. There were framed photos of the family in the hallway we walked through, depicting happy scenes of the siblings with their mom and dad. For being a massive medieval castle planted onto the top of a hill next to the Malibu beaches, it sure felt homey. There were plenty of touches of warmth: portraits, potted plants, little trinkets on display, clocks that seemed like heirlooms. Felt way more lived in than any home I used to call mine.
“Hope you had a little fun today,” Maddox said as we reached the double doors again, red paint still smeared on the floor. It was dry now, crusting and chipping from the foot traffic. “You looked like you needed it.”
“The hell does that mean?” I asked, my arms crossed and head cocked.
“You just looked stressed, that’s all. I don’t blame you. We’ve had a day, haven’t we?”
“We sure have,” I said, feeling like it was the understatement of the century. “I am happy with how the day ended, though. I… it was fun. It was.”
“Alright, good.” Maddox smiled. It was a really pretty smile—no, no, fuck that. It was a beautiful smile. Warm and true. Pulled you in like a campfire crackling against a cold winter’s night. Promising only comfort. I looked away from it, trying not to fall under the ice dragon’s spell.
“See you tomorrow?” Maddox asked.
“Yeah, see you tomorrow,” I said, not wanting to second-guess my commitment to working with him. “I’ll meet you at the museum.”
“Perfect,” Maddox said, and for the slimmest of moments, I felt as if he was about to push in for a kiss.
Maybe it was in the way his snow-blue eyes dropped to my lips for the quickest of seconds and the way those same eyes appeared to light up with whatever blaze Maddox felt inside of him.
He didn’t move in for a kiss, and I didn’t either. I blinked through my hypnotic spell and left before I did anything I’d regret, the double doors shutting loudly behind me as I stepped out into the courtyard, the sun already starting its descent in the sky.
I had left my car at the detective agency. I could Uber, but that would be way more expensive than the three dollars it took to ride the snake-way, so hopping on a massive underground basilisk sounded like the plan I’d go with.
There was a snake-way station a few blocks away from the Blackthorne Castle, but that meant having to walk down the trail that led off their hilltop fortress. Thankfully, going downhill was way easier than going up, so I made the trek in record time, reaching the station entrance marked by a large circular sign with a green snake bordering its edges. I walked down the steps and entered the underground, tapping my phone against the turnstile and walking to the stop that took me close to my office.
I sat down on the cushioned bench and leaned my head back against the clean white brick walls, looking up at the ceiling covered in screens that gave the illusion of a sky instead of a tunnel of cement. I rubbed at the bridge of my nose, wondering how this would all play out. I just wanted things to be okay for me. I wanted to be able to afford a nice place, have a good job, be with a great person, and then call it a day.