Island hopping transatlantic flights were uncomfortable at the best of times. The awkward tension in the air of the tiny cabin made it all that much worse. They mercifully only had to stop once to refuel, but the eleven hour flight was all but excruciating. Even when he tried to sleep, the turbulence kept Marcus from enjoying even that little bit of relief.
A couple hours from home, he gave up trying to sleep all together. Instead, he dug through the documents in one of the duffle bags to see if he could make heads or tails of anything. It was a decent distraction from the unnaturally heavy air. At least until Victoria grabbed another bag to join him without saying a word or giving him a passing glance.
While he wouldn’t consider himself particularly patriotic, stepping off the plane onto Tennessee soil flooded his body with relief. He wasn’t naïve enough to think he was safe here, but at the very least he had his family.
“Somebody picking us up?” Ophelia hopped off the last stair, her arm up in a sling as she looked around.
“I called Calliope when we stopped to refuel. She should…” Marcus trailed off as a familiar blue sedan pulled through the automated gate that separated the parking lot from the hangers. His sister threw the car into park a few yards away from them and lurched out, making a beeline for him. Whatever punishment he was going to get, he likely deserved. Marcus froze, duffle bag filled hands held awkwardly out to his sides as Calliope wrapped him up in a hug and squeezed him with as much power as her much smaller frame could muster.
“We’re going to have a conversation when we get home,” Calliope growled against his chest. “I’m not going to kick your ass in the middle of what already seems like an awkward situation.”
If the flight had been awkward, trying to figure out the least problematic spot to sit in Calliope’s car was a close second. Eventually, he gave up trying to figure it out all together and scooped up all the bags to load them into the trunk. Whatever was left, he would take, and it definitely wouldn’t be awful because he didn’t have a choice. Ophelia happily snagged the front seat. Calliope fussed over her for most of the drive, thankfully letting him sit in silence as the rolling hills passed.
He’d crossed an ocean to make sure Ophelia was alright. The intention wasn’t some grand romantic gesture. He’d been telling himself that since he landed at Heathrow. There were a few fleeting seconds where that illusion had fallen. A couple of gasping moments where their lips nearly met. Where what he intended, lie or not, didn’t matter.
He turned his head slightly. Victoria had her head back, eyes closed, the braided undercut a complete mess. He hadn’t even thought to ask why she was there. She probably couldn’t tell him even if he did. The whirlwind of a twenty-four-hour period they had was easily the worst of his life….and yet… The corner of his mouth turned up in the slightest smile before he looked back out the window.
“You were under an NDA and you didn’t tell me!” His mother met him halfway across the front lawn, one long, elegant finger extended in his direction and shaking like mad. “Do you have any idea the stress you’ve put me through? I should take you over my…” Cassandra tilted her head as Ophelia stepped out from behind him. “Ophie? Oh my stars, what happened, dear?!”
Saved by the spell carbine wound twice. Nice.
Marcus quickly made his way into the house, Victoria closing in behind him.
“Don’t get comfortable. I need a ride home.”
“Yeah…” Marcus stopped outside the front door and rubbed the back of his neck. “There’s basically a zero percent chance either of us are leaving this house for at least a couple hours.”
“We’re prisoners?” Victoria raised a thin eyebrow at him.
“Sort of.” He grinned and cocked his head. “My family can get a little… well, you’ll see.” Marcus Tenneson never brought women home. Now he was bringing two, which brought a little snort and head shake out of him as he popped open the front door to a whooping cheer from his siblings.
While she wasn’t enthused at first, once Marcus got her inside and mingling, Victoria actually threaded seamlessly into the dynamic. Especially with his dad. It didn’t take long for him to peg her as military and herd her into the kitchen with the promise of beer and stories. He watched the two of them for a moment through the kitchen door before going to find a spot to vegetate.
Once his mother was satisfied that Ophelia was taken care of, her sights set on him again. The bags under her eyes and unkempt hair meant she likely hadn’t slept either, meaning she and his dad had likely been burning the midnight oil researching the contract.
“Give it to me.” She didn’t bother with the niceties this time, holding a hand out to him after he’d found a spot to collapse on the couch.
“Nice to see you too, Mama.” Marcus grumbled under his breath as he heaved himself forward to dig into a bag.
“I didn’t ask for snark, young man.” She popped him in the back of the head.
Marcus winced, but continued searching until he pulled out the contract speckled with Ophelia’s blood. She snatched it from his hand and quickly scanned through it, her eyes occasionally peeking over the top to examine him. When she finished she leaned down and kissed his cheek.
“Mama is going to fix this. You don’t go anywhere.”
She spun around and marched to her office, disappearing down a hallway.
Marcus stretched out on the couch, still running on fumes. The last time he’d slept was his brush with the contract’s consequences, and the leather beneath him was wrapping his fatigue in the safety of this house. The couch jostled just as it almost took him away, and he cracked an eye open to look down at his little brother.
“I know Mom has been on your case about finding a girl, but I don’t think this is what she meant.” He leaned in conspiratorially. “Not that I’ve got any problem with polyamory, you’ll probably have a hard time explaining it to Mama though.”
“Dude,” Marcus grimaced and looked down at him. “It’s not like that.”
“Do they know that?” Nick smirked at him. “You’ve got two girls giving you lingering gazes.”
“You’re a real pain in the ass sometimes, you know that?” He rolled his eyes.
“I know.” Nicky patted his knee and got up. “Callie wanted me to tell you to meet her out front.”
Marcus shook his head as his brother wandered off to talk to Ophelia about how cool she was going to be now since she got shot. He shifted his gaze to the bay window facing the front of the house, where his sister was leaning against the porch rail smoking. History told him that conversation would result in him feeling better at the end of it. The process itself had about a fifty-fifty shot to be incredibly painful, though.
Glancing to the kitchen, he caught Victoria’s gaze. She stared past his father, who was animating his own bowel being dislodged, right at him over the beer bottle pressed to her lips. She sat the bottle down, maintained eye contact with him for a couple more seconds, before focusing on his father again.
Marcus had just returned from the other side of the ocean. He came out mostly on top in a battle against a multinational corporation. Literally saved a woman from death. He recognized he’d done none of that by himself, but they were accomplishments most people would never dream of. Why did he feel so small?
He let out a sigh and grumbled as he pushed himself off the couch and walked out the front door. Calliope glanced over her shoulder at him, but didn’t say anything as he walked over to lean against the smoothed log railing with her. He held a hand up to refuse the joint she offered, and she took another long drag before she spoke.
“You okay, Baby Brother?”
Marcus’ eyebrows rose, and he turned his head to look at her. To his surprise, the question did not have the hallmarks of a trap. She looked up at him with a smile that spelled out genuine concern. He blinked back a few tears that snuck up on him and shrugged.
“I honestly have no idea.” He let out quietly.
His sister wrapped her arm in his, leaning her head against his shoulder. He’d walked out here expecting to be peppered with questions he either couldn’t answer or didn’t have the answers for. He’d been prepared for most of them. Easy ways to deflect that would both irritate his big sister and accomplish the goal… That was not one of them. The silent comfort after sent him reeling back to his teen years. Times when something she was the only source of stability he had.
“You’re an ass.” He mumbled, swallowing against the lump in his throat.
“I’m your big sister,” she whispered. “It’s in my job description.”
He stood with his sister, letting the worry and stress waft off of him in the warm breeze, long enough for the sun to disappear behind the elms and the sky to turn a soft orange. They both headed inside just in time for a door down a hallway to slam open with the sound of splintering wood. Quick footsteps followed the sound, then his mother slid to a stop at the threshold of the hallway, staring right at him.
“Ma?” He croaked, eyes wide. She looked absolutely feral, wild black curls flying off in every direction and a manic grin plastered to her face. With a gait somewhere between a hop and a march, she moved like a monster from a horror movie and snatched him by the collar to drag him back the way she’d came.
“Mama? What’s going on?” He stumbled to keep up with her, calls from his family coming from behind them as he was led to her office.
“I’m cleansing this curse from my baby.” Her voice was hoarse, and the statement felt less like she was answering his question than projecting it to the universe.
The much smaller woman dragged him into the room, only letting him go when his feet hit the center of an enormous ritual circle she’d carved into the wood floor, moving every bit of furniture to the side just to fit it. The smell of burning herbs filled his nostrils, and his mother took several calculated steps, avoiding specific runes until she got to the nearest desk she’d rearranged.
She pulled a jet black dagger from the top drawer and was on him in what felt like the same instant. Snatching his hand, she dragged the onyx blade diagonally across his palm before tossing it away and squeezing his hand hard, blood trickling onto what had once been immaculate wood floors. Marcus could only watch as his blood seeped into the carvings and spread unnaturally through them, lighting up the runes in a vibrant crimson.
Clearly having lost all concern for the beauty of her home, Cassandra Tenneson let go of his hand, took a step back, and struck a match. Marcus watched it, horrified, as it dropped to the floor. The blood filled circle went up in flames as tall as he was. His mother was chanting something in Latin, so even if he weren’t in full panic mode, he wouldn’t have known it.
The fire grew around him, only tamed by his mother’s voice getting louder and louder. He could just make out the crowd of worried faces beyond the doorway. None of them dared cross that threshold.
The heat was becoming too much. The scent of his burning hair overcame the burning herbs and blisters formed on his hands and forearms. “Mama! Stop!” He tried to call out, but the chanting was unrelenting. The flames grew dark, and he could barely make out her silhouette on the other side…that’s when he started to feel it again.
Whatever pain the flames outside could produce, were nothing to the boiling beneath his skin. The feeling of his bones and joints being set aflame. He screamed. Muscles tensed. He wanted to run. Get out of the circle. This wasn’t working. His mother was killing him.
“Mama! Please! Stop!” he cried, reaching through the flames in the direction he’d last seen her.
Then everything stopped.
The flames vanished.
Marcus toppled to the ground.