House of Slide Hybrid (20 page)

He stared at me, his face pale and sickly looking before he swallowed, inhaled deeply, then stooped to begin piling crockery, organizing the mess in the tablecloth so he could right the table, smoothing the surface with his shaky hands, like he was making sure it would stay where he put it.

I tightened my hand on the knife as I took one breath at a time, watching him move, unable to speak as he worked rapidly organizing the broken crockery and glass. I looked up and saw the jagged remnants of the bulbs in the chandelier. When had I lost control and blown that up?

“Lewis? Are you all right? Did I cut you? I must have accidentally shattered the light. I guess I shouldn’t kiss you like that.”

“You tried to lean me,” he murmured, a low undercurrent to his voice that chilled me.

I shook my head. “Is that what that was? It felt different.”

He looked up and his gaze lacked the gold. Instead a dark flat green gazed at me, sharp and hard, like green glass. “You can’t lean me. If you can’t control that…”

His words were cut off when Satan opened the door wearing a crisp suit that looked strange on his enormous body and bald head with black curlicues in sharp contrast to the white skin.

Grim came after him giving me a slight nod as he walked around the curve of the room following Satan. The other uncles entered; Shelley, Stanley, and the other two, Saul and Stewart, but I couldn’t remember which was which. My dad came in at the end, his silver eyes flashing when he glanced at me where I stood above Lewis with a knife in my hand and blood streaming down my arm.

After my dad, a different man, tall, but not as tall as any of my uncles, entered the room. He smiled at me. He was young and old, and when his eyes met mine I wanted to flinch away from the terrifying power of him.

“Lewis, Axel, Nialls, of the House of Carlisle, we welcome you to Slide. Sylvester, attend to the girl,” he said in a melodic voice that was much gentler than I expected considering how much power roiled around him.

I disliked him immediately, and probably not just because he’d called me, ‘the girl’. I mean, who does that? Lewis gets a title and a House and I get a common noun?

I lifted my chin, getting a good grip on my arm. “The girl is fine. Thanks. If this is all over, I’ll take my Intended and leave.”

I turned and glared at Lewis, willing him to look at me until finally, reluctantly, he lifted his eyes to mine. What I saw there was a spark of gold, but more important, a flash of amusement.

“There is the matter of the Intended’s proof of capability,” my grandfather, Slide or whatever said in the same gentle voice, like he hadn’t even noticed my disrespect. So irritating. “Begin,” he said as he stood with arms over his chest, waiting.

Saul or Stewart, not sure which, walked towards Lewis where he stood beside the broken crockery. My uncle ignored me, didn’t even glance at me while he focused on Lewis with a cold clear gaze that made me shiver.

“Dari,” Grim said, close beside me when I hadn’t even noticed him coming. I turned to look up at his pale face, sunken eyes and drooping mouth. “Let’s get your cut taken care of. No sense distracting the boy while he’s fighting.”

“Fighting?” I asked, even as I turned to see Lewis and my uncle circling each other, like the two predators they were. I looked around for something to throw at them, but Grim’s hand on my arm made breathing hard, made everything slow down and get a little bit dark around the edges while he did whatever blood thing he did, stopping the flow, then he squeezed my shoulder.

“It’s only a ceremony,” he assured me, but somehow I wasn’t feeling it, not when the ceremonial kiss had been so soul wrenching, not when I saw and heard as my uncle’s fist connected with Lewis’ jaw, snapping his head back.

“Stop.” I said, but no one seemed to hear me, to pay any attention to ‘the girl’. “Stop,” I repeated, louder as I pulled away from Grim, glaring at my grandfather, willing him to acknowledge me, to stop this insanity. The sound of another punch made me flinch, even if it was my uncle this time who’d been hit. I reached out my hand to my grandfather, so sick of Wild Houses and this whole experience that had been completely lame, feeling betrayed that they would make me go through the whole Intending thing only to end with all my uncles beating him up. It was stupid, pointless, and infuriating. I hadn’t gotten seriously angry since I’d lost Lewis’ soul, but I was starting to feel the pressure of my rising frustration behind my eyes where the fury had always been.

My grandfather looked at me, a startled look that was satisfying, as if he’d finally seen me. He lifted a hand and the two men fell back, instantly. I felt the silence hanging over the room, seeping through my skin like a live thing as he stared, the impossible weight of his gaze feeling as heavy as the stone and mortar the House was made of.

“Dariana Sanders, do you have a better way the young man can prove his capabilities?” he asked, sounding amused, like he was humoring me.

“How about all the uncles get in a suicidal fight trying to protect me from a bunch of Wilds and Hotbloods, and Lewis rescues us, sacrificing himself in the process.”

He raised his eyebrow, a slight movement that felt like a slap in the face, but I continued, undeterred.

“Or he could actually survive me taking his soul, kind of an impressive thing if you think about it.”

His eyes narrowed and I had a hard time breathing, but I shook off his disapproval and kept going.

“Personally, I think he should arm wrestle or play chess.”

My grandfather’s expression changed, like I’d said something brilliant or clever. I felt my heart race at his approval even as I struggled to fight the heady sensation. Dealing with a Head of House left me feeling like I was trying not to slide off a vertical precipice.

“I think you’re right; since the boy clearly can defend you physically the question is whether he’s able to play the game, and win.” He smiled then, the kind of smile that made my heart sink, realizing that arguing with him was probably not the best way to go since he, Head of the House of Slide, would always win.

I opened my mouth to backtrack, but Grim stopped me, the pressure on my arm making me flinch, forgetting for a second about my other arm, the one with the gash.

He whispered, “The more you talk, the deeper you dig. I highly recommend you coming with me into another room where your mother and I can sew up that cut and work on an exit strategy.”

“Grim,” my grandfather said, a world of disappointment in his voice. “Helen and her daughter are free to leave at any time, as you yourself are.”

Grim smiled slightly as he bowed to his father, “The Head of the House is eternally benevolent.”

My grandfather laughed then, a sound that welled up, filling my head and ears and heart until they were overfull, ringing with a sound that didn’t leave any space for my own thoughts. Grim physically led me out of the room, closing the door, and sealing the laughter behind us.

I took a deep breath, looking up at Grim as we walked down a hall, his face mournful and solemn while I staggered along, shock and blood loss hitting me hard without Lewis to distract me.

I could barely breathe. Lewis was at the mercy of that man, that man with too much power and self-importance to be trusted. Slide, my grandfather made everyone else I’d met look like a child playing marbles with their anger and violence. He was above that. There wasn’t a question of his dominance and authority.

I shook my head trying to clear it. One encounter and I could hardly think straight.

We walked, neither one of us interested in disrupting the silence until we got to the kitchen where my mother was moving around with a tightly coiled energy that made me nervous. She glanced up at us, her dark expression shifting to surprise when she saw who we were.

“Dariana needs a suture,” Grim said, guiding me towards the long dark table in the middle of the pale slate floor. I pulled out a chair, heavy, iron-wrought, and sat down on the surprisingly comfortable seat.

“Mother, your House is so fun,” I said with a wan smile.

“What happened to you?” She pounced on me, taking my arm in her hands, giving it a professional perusal. “Curved blade, very sharp, odd angle to stab someone…” She spotted the knife I clutched in my hand and lifted an eyebrow as she gave me a skeptical look. “Why did you cut yourself?”

I scowled at my arm then shrugged off the embarrassment. “Why not? Is there a reason you didn’t tell me that I would have to either stab Lewis or kiss him?”

I tried not to notice as Grim came back and began laying out supplies on the table—gauze, white tape, needles.

“It’s against the rules to tell someone. It might make you overthink what is supposed to be an emotional response, at least as emotional as Wilds can get,” Grim droned. “Personally, Wilds have an almost infinite ability to overthink, so it’s probably a good rule. In your case it might have been better done differently. Speaking of things being done differently,” he said threading a needle with hands that I realized were already covered in latex gloves. “I doubt that Lewis appreciates your interference, however good your intentions are.”

“What do you mean?” my mother asked, gripping the table, all intent focus and extreme paranoia.

“Slide instigated challenge duels. When Dariana interceded, he agreed to shift them to a more cerebral sphere.”

My mother’s shocked face worried me, so I patted her hand comfortingly. “It’s fine, mother. I think they’re going to play chess.”

She didn’t look relieved as she turned back to the kitchen and the cleaning mixed with cooking that should have been chaotic, but she was almost painfully efficient and organized.

“This may hurt a bit,” Grim said, fingers hovering over my cut with a pungent smelling cloth in his fingers. I opened my mouth to say something, but all I did was gasp as the stinging stuff hit my cut arm.

“That hurts,” I managed during the next swipe. When he picked up the needle, I gritted my teeth, holding tightly to the table as he shoved the piece of metal through my skin.

I flinched, breathing through my nostrils as he pushed it through again. It hurt every time the needle went through. I wanted to kick something, but I managed to keep my arm still. It may have had something to do with the fact that Grim had all his weight on it.

It seemed to take forever, but finally he was finished, saying as he smoothed gauze over my arm, “Right as rain and twice as lovely.”

My mouth trembled. I’d come a long way since the girl who came back from the woods with a Hotblooded soul, but I wasn’t sure if I’d gone in the right direction.

It was quiet in the kitchen. Too quiet as I shifted on the chair, unable to keep my hands still. My fingers ran over the stones on the hilt over and over, turning the blade over in my hands as I waited for Lewis, for my arm to stop throbbing. The kitchen filled with smells of baking while the air steamed from boiling soup and rain dripped down the tall window.

My mother seemed at home in the room that was more industrial than domestic, filling up the space while she scrubbed, peeled, chopped, needing no help, actually looking like it relieved her stress.

The door opened, and we all looked up, me holding my breath while I waited to see who came in. Satan’s bald head was the first thing through the door. He grinned at me, and I smiled back, rising from the table to question him, but slowing down when I saw Lewis, two steps behind him, giving me a slight smile before he looked around the kitchen, as if he were searching for something. Seth or Stanley, the black haired, dark blue-eyed uncle who hadn’t been fighting Lewis followed them with an irritated look on his face.

“Ready?” Satan said, pulling out a large pocket-watch, nodding for a moment as if in time with the seconds before saying, “Go,” in a rapid fire way.

Lewis shed his jacket, draping it over the back of a chair before he rolled up his sleeves and went to the fridge. I watched Lewis move, as smooth and intense as if he were fighting my uncle while he fished vegetables and meat from the fridge.

“What are they doing?” I hissed to Satan as he stretched his enormous body into the chair beside me.

“Cooking is now a sport,” Lewis said, apparently having heard my low voice. He pulled his own knife out, a nondescript long knife that looked like the one he’d cut himself open with the other night. My stomach clenched at the memory, and I gripped the ornate dagger harder while he chopped vegetables with speed and precision, flipping them into a pot.

Satan snorted, “It’s baking you have to watch out for with Stan. He makes a mean tart…”

“Torte,” Stanley cut him off as he shook a sifter briskly, a cloud of flour floating slightly above his hands where they worked, unerringly. Lewis nodded while he continued with whatever he was doing, the muscles in his forearms standing out while he gripped the handles of pans, arranging them on the stovetop.

“Slide’s displaying his sense of humor,” my mother commented drily where she sat at the other side of me. I hadn’t noticed her abandoning the cooking and cleaning areas, but apparently she had left it to Lewis and Stanley.

“It could be worse,” Satan growled, pulling a cigar out of the inside pocket of his suit, rolling it between his fingers for a moment before putting it back.

“What did he do with Stew?” Grim asked, like Lewis wasn’t cooking furiously right in front of us.