There was a long moment of
frozen shock then, as if they had rehearsed the move a hundred times in some
distant past, both men lunged forward and began grappling. Lily and Katy dodged out of the way, meeting behind
the sofa, wide-eyed at the sudden turn of events. Taurin started toward Valentine and Cantrell,
but Mickey put out a hand to stop him. “Let
them be, Warden.” He smiled broadly as
he crossed his arms over his chest, eyes sparkling. “Grant me this, if you please. I haven’t seen a good donnybrook in a long while.”
Wincing at the sound of slamming
fists, low grunts and hissed insults, Katy grabbed Lily’s hand, though didn’t take
her eyes off the two men who were now brawling in the hallway, both trying to
force the other into the wall. “What’s
going on, Lil?” Katy asked. “Who are
these guys?” Her gaze darted toward
Mickey and Taurin. “And why is your
grandfather here?”
“I hardly know where to
start, but first we need to stop this ridiculous fight.”
“Are you all right?" Katy asked, then said in confusion, "Why are they fighting?”
“I'm fine. Mostly. And I think they're fighting because there’s some bad blood between them, though I doubt Daniel realized just exactly how bad.”
“But, Dom told me he doesn’t have
any siblings.” Katy jerked at a
particularly hard punch Dom took to the midriff, reacting painfully by tightly squeezing Lily’s
hand.
Pulling free before Katy crushed
her fingers, Lily flexed her hand, then said, “Daniel was raised as an orphan. I’m sure neither of them expected to hear
they could possibly be related.” She
glanced at Taurin. “If it’s true.”
“Granddad!” Lily yelled as Daniel took a sharp right cross to the jaw that snapped his
head around and made him stumble and fall to one knee.
She started around the
sofa as blood ran down Daniel’s chin. Absently
wiping it with the back of his hand, he surged to his feet, tackling Dominic
around the waist and plowing him into the front door. At the loud crack that echoed through the
apartment from the much abused door, Lily glared threateningly at the two Wardens. “Stop this.
If you won’t, I will.”
“Lass, tis better to blow
off the steam than wait for the kettle to explode,” Mickey said.
Lily growled with anger at the
folly of men, and marched toward the fight, though before she’d taken three
strides, her grandfather barked, “Hold girl.” With Taurin at his side, they quickly stepped
past her and managed to pull the fighters apart and drag them into opposite
corners of the living room.
Chest heaving, Daniel roughly shrugged
out of Taurin’s grasp and again wiped the blood dripping off his chin. Eyes hot, burning with the promise
of more violence, he glared across the room at Cantrell, pleased to see the
same heavy breathing and a nasty purple knot swelling over the bastard’s left
eye. Dom returned the look as he shook
out a hand with bruised and painful knuckles, then started to spring forward at
the come on gesture Daniel made with his
fingers.
Taurin spun Daniel around and
pushed him toward the kitchen as Mickey slapped a hard palm against Dom’s chest
to hold him back. “Enough lads, enough. Time to settle things down now.”
“Everyone into the kitchen,”
Lily ordered. “I’ll get the first aid
kit and Katy, can you make a pot of coffee?”
Mickey smiled as Lily brushed
past him on her way to the bathroom for the medical supplies. “Just like your Gran,” he said quietly, “efficient
and effective.” He chuckled when she
shot him a black look. “Aye, just like
her.”
Daniel stood apart from the
group in the kitchen, and kept his back to the room as he stared at the wall of
family photos. Now that he had time to
think, to catch his breath, he couldn’t keep his mind from racing. Was it true?
Could Dominic, of all fucking people, be his brother? If what the Wardens said was true—that Cantrell
was a demon lord named Razeph—what did that make Dominic? Shaken by the direction of his thoughts, he closed
his eyes for a moment. What did that
make him if there really was a
connection?
Before she said a word, Daniel
knew Lily had come into the room. He
turned from the happy, smiling faces of family and watched her set a wooden
box on the table, the size of a small suitcase, then walk to the sink and dampen
two clean washcloths. Giving one to
Katy, she went back to the table, opened the box, and handed Katy bandages and
a small blue jar. Lily slid the box down
the table, gesturing impatiently for him to come and sit down. Daniel would have smiled, but his lip had
finally stopped bleeding.
The two men sat at opposite
ends of the long table glaring at each other whenever their eyes met. Lily snorted and pulled on his shoulder until
Daniel swiveled on the bench away from the view of Dom. “Your lip is swollen and the cut is pretty
bad, but at least your teeth are still in your head,” she murmured as she
carefully wiped the blood off his chin and neck. “And your shirt is ruined.”
His face was lifted to hers as
she worked, eyes focused on her face, so he noticed the curl that flashed at the
corner of her mouth for a brief second. “Are
you laughing at me?” he asked softly.
Meeting his gaze, she answered
just as softly, “You seem to have trouble with your shirts, Daniel.”
“Only since I met you,” he
replied. When she grinned, he couldn’t
help grinning back, then hissed at the pain when his lip began to bleed again.
“Sorry,” Lily said, reaching
behind him to grab a gauze pad from the first aid supplies. “Press this on your lip for a few minutes,
and don’t talk or smile.” When he opened
his mouth, she glowered. “I mean it. Nod your head if you understand.”
When he narrowed his eyes, she
laughed. “Just behave. Your opponent is doing a much better job
of it than you are.”
He turned his head at her words
and frowned down the length of the table.
Dom had also been cleaned up. He
had a patch of gauze taped above his eye, bandages across a few knuckles, his shirt
was ripped and hanging off one shoulder and he had a long scrape across his jaw. Daniel really wanted to smile. Until he watched Dom pull Katy onto his lap
and possessively wrap his arms around her.
Lily noticed when Daniel
stiffened and followed his scowl. She
gently turned his head back toward her and dabbed a sweet-smelling salve into a
small cut on his chin, one on his temple and another on the edge of his
cheek. She told him to carefully lift the
pad off his lip, then lightly touched the cut with a drop of something that
stung for a moment, then seemed to numb the pain. Leaning very close, Lily whispered in his
ear, “I don’t know what to do. Is this
man with Katy a demon? Half a demon?” She pulled her head back and met his gaze,
velvet brown melding with mossy forest green.
Her breath softer than a whisper, “Do you think he’s really your
brother?”
Daniel could see the strain on
her face, the worry in her eyes. “I don’t
know what to think,” he murmured. “I
know I hate the guy, and we just found out his father is some kind of evil
demon freak, but I just don’t see any way we could be related, no matter
what Taurin says.”
The coffee maker finished
perking with a series of soft, perky chirps.
Dom stood with Katy in his arms and walked to the kitchen counter before
setting her down in front of the machine.
As she told him where to find the mugs, Lily moved the first aid box and quickly wiped the surface of the table while Mickey grabbed the sugar bowl and
took a small creamer out of the fridge. In short order, everyone was back
around the table taking their first sips of the strong, mellow coffee.
Katy and Dom sat across the
table from Daniel and Lily, Mickey sprawled at Lily’s side and Taurin sat next
to Katy. For several moments no one
spoke, then Daniel took a deep breath, lifted his head and locked eyes with
Dominic. “Did you always know your father was a
demon?”
When Katy gasped, then
sputtered in outrage, Dom lifted her easily onto his lap, never taking his eyes
off Daniel as he slowly ran a hand up and down her cheek as if he were stroking
a cat, or taking comfort from the silken warmth of her skin. The kitchen clock sounded too loud in the
taut silence.
“No.”
Dom settled Katy tighter against him.
“Not until I was a man. When I
was a boy, all I knew was that my father murdered my mother.”
