Halfling (Black Petals Book 1) (10 page)

“How is a hunter put to death?” Blayk asks flatly, as if he has no emotion.
Do
demons have emotion?

“How is one killed?” I ask, pretending that I need the question clarified. Anything to stall. What’s taking them so long? I thought they had super hearing and super speed. Don’t they know what’s going on down here? Maybe they decided that I’m not worth protecting.

“Mhmm,” he grunts, as if becoming impatient.

“Uh, I don’t know,” I admit truthfully.

“You work for them, and you don’t know how to kill them?”

“I don’t work for them. “

“Uh
huh
, sure you don’t,” he moans, sounding annoying. “Where are they anyways? I’ve been waiting for them to leave your side for weeks.”

I wish I knew. “I don’t know.”

“Do you know
anything
?” he asks me sternly, sounding frustrated and standing up. My eyes bolt up to his, so I can see where the fatal blow will hit me. He looks just as he did before, only his eyes are now black like Landon’s were. I cringe. He doesn’t give me time to answer his question. “You are coming with me. If you won’t give answers willingly, then I’ll use other methods to pull them from you. My father also has a special interest in you. He wants you. I don’t know why, but he does. Those three
goons
have spent enough time guarding you, you must mean at least something to them. If you don’t give me any answers through torture, then I can use you as a hostage.”

A flashy black suburban pulls up to the curb. Blayk grabs my wrist and tugs me up.
Oh, no
. The back hatch opens, and he pushes me towards it.

A loud bang interrupts something that Blayk demands of me, and I look to my right. Bad decision. My whole body suddenly feels like it’s on fire. I scream loudly. I also hear Blayk cry out in pain too. I wonder if the sound was perhaps a bomb, and the terrible feeling is my body being blown to bits.

“
Hey
, it worked, didn’t it?!” Mason muses flippantly.

“Not the point and you know it!” Crispen scolds.

“No? Well she’s alive, isn’t she?” Mason growls, now sounding irritated. “Your plan was to walk out there and be like ‘hey, we’re just going to attack you now, demon, if that’s alright?’ like that was going to work. He would’ve heard us coming and killed her, before we even left the building, just to piss us off.”

“So you threw a homemade bomb full of brass shavings through a window to stun him, knowing that Megan, too is wounded by brass?” Crispen challenges.

I open my eyes to blurred vision and a killer headache.

“Yeah, she’s alive, and that demon is locked up underneath us, so I would call that a success.”

My vision focuses, and I find myself staring up at a white ceiling. My skin aches terribly.

“She’s awake, you two, so you can stop arguing now, please,” Aria chastises in a giddy voice.

I move to sit up and pain erupts all over. I wince and take in the three worried faces in front of me. I’m lying on one of their white couches.

“Megan, are you alright?!” Crispen demands.

I try to speak but nothing comes out. I clear my throat. “It hurts,” I grunt.

“I know, tell us where, and we’ll fix it.”

“Everywhere,” I cry. I feel like I’ve been lit on fire, and all my skin is suffering from burns.

“Let’s start with your feet. Point to the sorest spots,” Crispen suggests. He pulls some tweezers from a purple bag. I assume Aria’s makeup bag.

It takes me a second to mentally pinpoint the sorest spots on left foot as my entire foot is in agonizing pain, so much pain that it feels like there should be blood, but surprisingly there’s none. I then point to three spots, and Crispen uses the tweezers to dig out what I assume are chunks of brass. We repeat this process for every single part of my body. Aria steps in and switches spots with Crispen when it comes to the awkward parts of my body, and hours later, when I’m finally pain free, I pass out. Pain takes a lot out of person.

I wake up in the same place, covered in a thick, pink blanket. I groan to myself and close my eyes tightly, hoping that when I open them again, I’ll be back at my house and everything will be normal. If only, right? It’s nice to dream.

“Good morning, sleepy head,” a deep, male voice coos from behind me. I tilt my head up slowly and see Crispen standing over me. He chuckles and eyes me apologetically. “You slept all evening, night, and most of the morning. It’s nearly noon.”

It sure feels like I’ve slept that long. My entire body is stiff and tired. I’ve basically been in a sleep coma these past few hours.

“Are you hungry?” he asks when I don’t reply.

“No,” I answer in a croaky voice and clear my throat.

“You’re lying. You
must
be hungry.”

“I just want to go home,” I admit. “I’ll eat when I’m at home.” I expect to be covered in blood and scabs from the brass, to my surprise, I’m totally fine. Did it even slice me up? Was it just on my skin?

He’s silent for a moment. “Megan, you can’t go home. It’s not safe. You’re safest here with me and my brother and sister. You’re a smart girl, and I think you know that.”

He’s right. I do know that I’ll have to stay here. I know that it’s not safe for me at my house, but I still want to go home more than anything. I need something familiar.

Something moves slightly near my feet, and I screech in surprise, sitting up. At my feet, sits an orange kitten no older than probably five weeks old. My heart immediately melts. I have a huge soft spot for kittens, and Crispen knows it.

“That’s Rhino. Mason named him that stupid name. There’s three more in his bedroom. His cat, which is stupidly named Lint, just had kittens a few weeks ago. I’m sure this little guy’s momma is looking all over for him.” Crispen comes around the couch and picks the kitten up in his hands, cradling it gently. “Mason brought it out to you. He thought it might cheer you up when you woke up. I think he feels bad for what he did yesterday. You know, with the whole knocking you unconscious with brass shavings thing?”

“Good morning, love,” Mason chimes in a sing-song voice as he enters the room, interrupting my thoughts. He has a grey and white kitten perched on his shoulder like a parrot. Mason pours himself a glass of juice, downs it, and then comes over to where I am on the couch. “Sorry about that whole incapacitating you thing. Think fast or suffer from the consequences that’s my motto.”

“It’s going to be your motto until you get someone killed,” Crispen grumbles and sets the purring kitten down onto my chest. The kitten lies down and closes its eyes as if it’s completely content.

“I’ve saved more lives with that motto than I’ve lost. We didn’t have time to sit down and come up with some elaborate plan last night. I acted. I saved Megan’s life, and I don’t regret it. I feel bad for causing her pain, but if we were to do the whole thing again, I wouldn’t change my actions.”

“Crispen, enough with the bitching and complaining. We all know that Mason saved her life last night. We let our guards down for a few seconds, and she almost died. If you’d have followed her out of the building, none of that would have even happened,” Aria mutters, entering the room with tousled hair and purple, fleece pajamas. “
You
owe
him
not the other way around.”

Crispen scowls.

“I came here to help you, Crispen, and Mason is obviously also trying to help you,” Aria mutters while biting into a sandwich. “We’re not the enemies, remember?”

Crispen’s shoulders fall as if in defeat, and he sighs. “Yeah, I know. I’m just a little protective, okay?”

Both Mason and Aria turn their heads to look at Crispen as if this statement is completely obvious.

“What?” Crispen asks, sounding confused.

Aria and Mason exchange looks.

“Well, Crispen, you have a pretty big track record of being
protective
. Especially with Aria, as I’m sure she can refresh your memory,” Mason mutters.

I struggle to sit up a bit, because my back is becoming sore from lying down for so long.

“I don’t think it’s a bad thing to be protective,” Crispen gives in.

Aria smiles. “You can’t put everyone you love into a bubble, Crispen.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know, Aria. I’m sorry if I’m a little over protective, but if you haven’t noticed, everyone we get close to
dies
.”

Aria shrugs. “Yeah, I’m aware, but that’s life. You can’t hover over everyone that you love. You have to let them live their lives, otherwise, they don’t really live at all, now do they?”

Crispen sighs and shakes his head. “Yeah, okay. Enough with the lecturing.”

Aria look turns smug, and she switches her attention to me. “How are you feeling, Megan?”

“Better than the last time I was conscious,” I assure her with a fake smile.

Aria finishes the food in her hand, then she closes in on me and smiles when she sees the fur ball lying on my chest. “I think Rhino likes you.”

Mason scoffs. “He might
like
her, but he
loves
me.”

“Don’t you have somewhere to be?” Aria snarls at Mason playfully.

Mason fakes a cringe and then shrugs. “Not really. I work from home, remember?”

“How long do you think I’m going to be staying here in Toronto, Crispen? I was hoping to be back in Australia before the end of the month,” Aria asks flippantly.

Crispen sticks his bottom lip out a little bit in thought. “I’m hoping that we can get this problem resolved within a week or so. We have that demon down in our cellar now. If we can get him to tell us who else is after Megan, then we can hunt down all of those demons, and it’ll be safe for her here, then you can resume you world travel. Are you already tired of us, or what?”

“No, but you are both rather annoying. The last couple days have reminded me why I don’t visit more often.”

Mason rolls his eyes. “You’re so dramatic, Aria.”

“Well seriously, Mason. You’d think that after how many years you and Crispen have been alive, you’d know how to clean a dish or do some laundry. It took me forever to get this place back in living condition, and you’ve already begun messing it up again.”

“Oh, Aria, why do we need to do the dishes and laundry when we have a housekeeper for all of that nonsense?” Mason argues. The cat on his shoulder leaps off of him onto the counter in the kitchen that he leans on.

“If you have a housekeeper, then where the hell has she been?!” Aria demands angrily.

“Crispen demanded that she stay away for a while until we got this sorted out. He didn’t want the demons sneaking a bomb in with her or something since they know where we are living.”

“And you listened to Crispen? Why? You never listen to Crispen.” Aria questions him curiously.

“Well, he had a point. I didn’t really want to get blown up.”

Aria rolls her eyes and shakes her head at the same time. “Whatever. Why don’t you two stay here, and Megan and I go back to her place and stay there?”

“We should stick together. There are probably more of them than us.” Crispen says this as if it’s not up for debate. “Who knows how many will come looking for Blayk.”

Aria nods in agreement to this. “You’re right,
but
if they haven’t tried to kill us yet, then they don’t know how to kill us, and we know how to kill them.”

“
Yes
, but Megan is basically human. As far as we know, anything that can kill a human, can also kill her. It only takes you being distracted for a moment for her life to end,” Crispen argues.

Aria must give in because she locks eyes with me and smiles. “
Well
, what are we doing today then?”

“I was hoping that we could do some testing on Meg—” Mason starts but doesn’t get to finish because a nasty glare is sent his way by Crispen.

“
No
, now is not the time to further our knowledge on halflings. It is the time to plan and protect,” Crispen grunts in a gruff tone.

I stretch my legs, moving just enough to wake up Rhino. The kitten stands, stretches, and lies back down comfortably before yawning and falling back to sleep.

“You bring a girl with demon blood into our house and expect me not to experiment? Do you know me, Crispen?” Mason asks dubiously.

Aria speaks up. “Mason, I think you know that this
girl with demon blood
is more to Crispen than just a
girl with demon blood
. She is a good friend of his. I would hope that you’d respect that.”

Mason looks saddened but nods in agreement. “Fine.”

“Megan, Mason is the brains of the family, and his head is always buried in a book of some sort. He doesn’t mean anything by wanting to
experiment
on you. He’s just overly curious about everything. I am the peacekeeper around here obviously. Crispen is the fighter. We all excel in different areas, and we make a pretty good team most of the time. Mason comes up with our elaborate plans, I make sure that the boys behave rationally and humanely, and Crispen kicks ass when it comes to fighting.”

“You’re making yourself sound useless, Aria. You’re a lot more than a peacekeeper. Peacekeeping hasn’t kept you alive all of these years, it’s definitely your fashion sense,” Crispen mocks her.

I sit up further, causing the kitten on my chest to dig its claws into my skin. I clutch it carefully and pull it gently from my shirt. I place it on my lap, and it easily drifts to sleep again. I wish I could be like this kitten and just sleep. Sleeping takes us away from reality. That would be nice right now, because my reality is really screwed up.

“Aria came here from Australia, because Mason called and told her that he was worried about me. He told her that I had an obsession with protecting you, and I wouldn’t leave your house and come home,” Crispen explains Aria’s presence.

“You left my house a lot. It’s not like you were there all of the time,” I remind him.

He shakes his head embarrassedly. “Yeah, actually, Megan, I
was
there
all the time
. I was just outside to give you a break from me and make it look like I was working. Like I said, I quit my job.”

“So I haven’t been left alone at all the past few weeks?” I wonder aloud.

Crispen’s lips twitch, and he shakes his head. “Not for a second. Not since I came back from work one day and someone was watching you through the patio doors. You remember, when you heard the crash on the back deck and the flower pot fell? Someone was out there.”

I’m not sure whether I should be flattered, creeped out, or thankful. I’m not dumb, and I know that if he weren’t around the past few weeks, then I would probably be dead.

“She’s sure quiet. I expected her to be louder. To get along with you, I thought she’d have to be a loud one,” Mason teases while skimming through a newspaper, still leaning against the far counter.