“Okay, let me find some clothes, and I'll be out in a minute.” I clambered off Caleb, trying my very best to remain dignified in all my naked glory as I perched on the edge of the bed and looked around for some clothes. Surprisingly, having Wesley still watching me didn't make me feel in the least bit awkward. Quite the opposite.
“Cal, didn't you say you found me clothes last night?” I frowned, seeing none lying around the room. My own dirty, soot covered clothes were probably still in a heap on the bathroom floor.
“Yup, they probably got dropped somewhere in the bathroom, last night.” He winked at me, and I had an intense flashback of the night before with him bending me over the sink and pounding into me from behind.
Feeling my face heating up, I cleared my throat awkwardly and wrapped a sheet around my body before standing up and heading into the bathroom. Despite how happy I was to be sitting in bed naked, it was a whole other thing, in the light of day, to just wander around in my birthday suit.
When I came back out into the bedroom, fully dressed in the yoga pants and stretchy black top Caleb had found for me, the room was empty. I'd needed to recycle my bra from the day before but had decided to ditch the panties, so I made a mental note to pick up some more at the first opportunity I got.
As I headed back down the corridor to the living room, I could hear the raised voices of Cole and Vali, and I took a deep breath. This is going to be interesting.
“Good morning!” I halfway yelled as I entered the room, just to try and stop the arguing for a moment. It worked too, with everyone turning to look at me as though I had just grown three heads. Evidently I was the last one up because all six guys were already sitting around the living room cradling mugs of coffee.
“What?” I asked when they continued staring.
“Vixen, you look…” Cole started, then trailed off with a confused frown.
“Really great,” Vali finished for him, and I raised my eyebrows at them both.
“I think what they are trying to say,” River interpreted, “is that last night you looked a bit rough, like you were coming down with the flu or something, and today you look incredible. You're practically glowing.”
I shrugged. “I feel pretty great. Must have just slept well.” Austin snorted a laugh, and Caleb smacked him in the arm.
“Here.” Wesley handed me a mug of coffee, and his fingers lingered against mine as I took it from him.
“Thanks, Wes,” I murmured, and he gave me a tiny wink.
I think I like this confident Wesley. He's seriously sexy right now.
Pushing aside my dirty thoughts and my confusion over why I was suddenly such a nymphomaniac, I turned back to Cole and Vali.
“Okay, let’s get this settled. We need to get to Alaska today and then work out who the hell tried to blow us up, as well as what the hell is going on with this magic situation. So, who is speaking first?” I sat in the vacant spot on the couch, between the twins, and looked at Cole and Vali expectantly.
When neither of them spoke, River made an angry noise in this throat, drawing everyone's attention.
“Kitten asked a question of you two. Answer her, or I will.” His tone demanded compliance, and it made my stomach flutter.
Vali folded his arms stubbornly, leaning against a wall, and Cole's gaze darted between River and me.
“Fine,” he ground out, his fists clenching by his sides. “River would probably get the details wrong anyway.” It wasn't altogether shocking to find River knew this story, whatever it was, seeing as they had been friends since they were twelve.
Keeping my mouth shut, I waited to hear what he had to say, but my attention flickered to Vali whose neck muscles were bunched tight, the only indication of how tense he was. If not for that small sign, he would look like he didn't have a care in the world.
“Dragomir,” Cole began, and I saw Vali's eye twitch at the name he so clearly hated, “and I share a father.” He paused there as though that was the whole story, and I frowned.
“No shit, Cole. Please elaborate on why you look like you want to rip his head off with your bare hands.” I rolled my eyes at him and took a sip of my coffee. Delicious coffee.
Cole sighed, dropping his head into his hands, but Vali watched him like a hawk. “We share a father, but not a mother. Dragomir's mother disappeared not long after he was born, and our father remarried almost immediately to my mother. Our family was, you probably saw, in charge of a pretty influential crime syndicate. Father was raising Dragomir, his first born, to take over the family business while I was to be his enforcer.” There was a bitter, disgusted twist to Cole's words that made my heart clench. Standing, I went to sit on the arm of his chair, grabbing one of his huge, scarred hands in mine. He glanced up at me, then threaded our fingers together, holding tight while he spoke.
“It was our father’s opinion that in order to effectively give pain, one must first understand pain. Anyway, one day he got pretty carried away with the whole thing. I had made some smart remark to him about how he was already losing the respect of his men to Vali, a goddamn fourteen-year-old, and he flew off the handle at me.” From the corner of my eye, I saw Vali shift slightly at Cole's use of his nickname, but I doubted Cole even noticed he had done it.
“Next thing I knew, he had pulled out this knife and started cutting me. He'd never done that before, but he had this crazy look in his eye.” Suddenly all his scars, covered by beautiful tattoos, made sense. They were from his father. “My mother happened to be home that day, and she tried to stop him but ended up getting caught in between. He stabbed her, then tried to finish me off.”
His mouth was tight, and his hand was clenching so hard around mine that it felt like he was going to break something. Not that I was letting go for anything.
“Your father is a fucking sadist, Cole,” I murmured, placing my other hand on the back of his neck and rubbing small circles with my thumb, intended to comfort him. “I met him briefly and wanted to rip his head off myself, and that was before I knew this.” Cole grunted, but his jaw was still clenched tight and his gaze was on our hands, joined together in his lap.
“So, what does this have to do with Vali?” I asked tentatively. “You clearly hold a lot of hate for him, but it sounds like your father was the asshole in this?”
“I let it happen.” Vali's velvet voice startled me as he answered for his brother. “I stood by and did nothing while my little brother was beaten and tortured for years and then again did nothing while our mother was murdered in front of my eyes.” The bitterness to his tone suggested he hated himself just as much as Cole did for not doing anything to stop it.
“Vali, you were only a kid…” My voice soft, I had no idea what to say to help these brothers who were holding so much animosity for one another.
“I was old enough to take over the family when our father had a mental breakdown after he saw he'd killed our mother.” His chin was tilted up slightly, and I could see it wouldn't be an easy sell to talk him out of his guilt.