Monster 70

I watched with trepidation as Jinx talked to Paisley in what was now her room and no longer Tarot's. I was surprised when he said he wouldn't be needing it anymore, but then again, I should have learned by now that secrets were like a genetic thing between the brothers. It seemed that no matter how much I learned about either one of them, there was still so much more that wasn't being told. I really didn't care if I learned about Tarot or Paisley, but as it seemed that their secrets had a direct impact on my mate, I wanted to know.

I watched as my lover left his sister's room and walked into the kitchen to make himself a cup of coffee. A frown crossed my features as I watched him hunt down the butterscotch schnapps that Hides had brought into the apartment. Even worse, he didn't just add it to his coffee, but took a shot of the alcohol alone. For as long as I had known him, he had never been much of a drinker outside of the work he did at Nightingale's, but as of late, it seemed as if he was consuming alcohol at home more often. I didn't bother trying to hear the whispered words between Tarot and Jinx, deciding that if they wanted me to hear they'd speak in more normal tones.

"Anyhow, I'm exhausted between today and yesterday," my mate said as he drained the last of his coffee and set the cup in the sink. "I'm going to bed early." I watched him as he crossed the living room, not looking back at his brother nor sparing me a glance. I sighed, knowing he was more  upset than he probably let Tarot in on. I turned my eyes to the taller blonde who was staring after his brother with a completely blank expression.

"So what changed between yesterday and today, Tarot?" I asked, watching him carefully. He glanced at me before giving an noncommital shrug. "I get the fact that you don't want to talk to me of all people about what's bothering you, but I can tell you now that Jinx didn't just simply accept it and move on."

"What makes you so sure?" he asked in that same cold monotone that he had when we left the whore house. That worried me quite a bit, to be honest. Jinx got cold when he got angry, thus why everyone always said his eyes looked like a frozen fire, but he was never monotone. One could always hear the anger and rage in his voice, no matter how cold he became.

"Because that was the same look on his face that he had when you declined to move in when he first offered it to you," I replied, standing up. "Granted, his emotions are stable now and we won't see the same sort of outburst that we did before, but he's still hurt." Tarot stared at me with cold unblinking eyes and my frown deepened.

"I'm sorry, Brad," he said and turned away, walking into the kitchen to put his cup in the sink. "I'll explain it better to Jinx another time." With that he turned and left and I huffed at the brush off.

"I swear, sometimes, I think I am the only sane person around here," I muttered to no one other than myself. I wanted to go to Jinx, but at the same time I knew he needed to sleep and he probably wouldn't talk to me now anyhow. Part of me was worried about the reprocutions of his fight the night before, but it was just something else that I would have to deal with as it came up. Unlike Jinx and Tarot, I didn't tend to run off into a situation that I knew nothing about, especially if there was only smoke. I was the type to wait to see the flames before I got myself involved.

"Hey, Paisley?" I called, knocking lightly on her door. "I was wondering if you wanted to help me with dinner?" For a long moment there was nothing but silence on the other side and then came a shuffling sound before the door opened. I sighed a little to see that her eyes were red and she seemed to be very much depressed. "I'll take that as a yes?" I asked, offering her a small smile in an attempt to cheer her up. She nodded and we made our way into the kitchen.

"You've known Jinx a little over a year now, right?" she asked as she started cutting up some vegetables.

"I think we met in May of last year," I replied, half watching her and half paying attention to the chicken breast I was seasoning. She didn't look up at me, but he chopping slowed down a bit.

"He made it sound like you're the one for him, his soul mate," she said slowly and softly. "How long did you wait before the two of you slept together? One date? Two?" I frowned deeply at her.

"Eleven months," I replied with a bit of coldness in my voice. Her head popped up at that, her eyes a bit wide. "It wasn't because he wasn't willing. In fact, he had been trying to get me to sleep with him for about six months before I finally caved in to my own desires."

"Why would you have waited so long?" she asked incredulously. "If he was the one, then why did you wait? And if he was wanting it, why were you denying him and yourself what you wanted?"

"Because a serious relationship with someone in my family is complicated," I replied. "It's also probably why Tarot and Jinx are so opposed to you and my brother getting together. I mean, if I look at everything that has happened to your brother, it all started after we finally had sex. Between my other brothers bullying him to try to force us apart and then the homophobic group he rescued me from that eventually came after him, it all starts only a couple of days after the first time we were together."

"I suppose that makes some sense," she agreed, taking the chopped vegetables and dropping them into a pan. "But that doesn't give him the right to try and dictate who I can and cannot sleep with." I shook my head, chuckling a little as I moved her aside enough to slide the seasoned chicken into the oven to broil.

"They just don't want you to end up like them," I said, giving her a small pat on the shoulder. "Jinx avoided serious relationships for the longest time and I think most of it had to do with how his lovers would treat him. I get the feeling that you and him are a lot alike in that respect. You seem as strong willed as he is and being treated as inferior seems to get on your nerves as much as his."

"Have you made that mistake?" she asked, turning her eyes to me. I sighed. I couldn't very well deny that I tried too hard to protect him when I knew he could protect himself.

"I have and I'm still suffering for it," I said, leaning against the bar top now that my part of dinner was cooking. "Jinx hates to have anyone trying to baby him or be overprotective of him, even if they don't mean to be. And they are both new this whole siblings thing, so give them some time to find the boundary lines, okay?" She nodded a little, but I doubted that it was enough. She had grown up the last nine years without anyone to truly supervise her and the sudden appearance of two brothers who had her 'best interest' at heart, was probably hard to handle.

"Is getting involved with Hide really such a bad thing?" she asked softly.

"If it's not serious, then I agree with your brothers," I said. I also vaguely remembered Hides saying something about white wolves being the only breed of wolf who could successfully mate with a human and I had to wonder if being a human decendent also made it possible to be impregnated by a wolf. "However, if he is serious about you and you are about him, then I will support your relationship."

"You'd support us even if Jinx doesn't?" she asked, turning to me fully now in surprise. I nodded, offering her a reassuring smile.

"But you'd need to be seriously contemplating something long term, like marriage," I clarified. "If I'm going to risk Jinx being pissed at me, then I want to know that it's worth sticking my neck out for." Just as Hides had always supported my relationship with Jinx, even knowing the reprocutions that such a relationship might have.

"How do you know when you want such a relationship with someone?" she asked even more quietly.

"You just do," I replied. "I knew from the moment I first saw Jinx that I wanted to be near him always. Granted, it's not always easy to deal with him and his whims, but I want to be here with him. I can't even imagine not having him in my life now. I don't think I'd survive if he were suddenly gone." A bit of a contemplative look crossed her face before she turned back to the vegetables she was lightly frying.

"What about Tarot?" she asked.

"I think he has found his one, but there is a little snag in it somewhere," I replied honestly. "I don't know the details, but I know the look of unrequited love anywhere and he was displaying it when Jinx was in the hospital, whether he meant to or not. I do hope he can find happiness in either moving on or that person realizing his feelings. I don't want him to begin to hate Jinx for his relationship with me."

"Well, right now, I hate them both," she muttered. I frowned deeply at that, but still I understood. I had a strong feeling that if someone had walked into Jinx's life and told him where to work and where to live and who to see, then he would likely have rejected them completely.

"Give them a little bit of a break, please?" I asked pleadingly. "Jinx, I know, has a protective streak when it comes down to his siblings and I have a feeling that Tarot is much the same." I turned my head a bit as I heard a key in the door, wondering briefly if Tarot had forgotten something. My frown only deepened all that much more as my eldest brother walked in, the scent of sex and familiar female scent wafting off of him to my nose. "Hide..." I muttered, narrowing my eyes at him. His eyes moved over me and then Paisley before he continued into the room, stopping on the other side of the bartop.

"I didn't expect to see you again so soon, Paisley," he said, ignoring me. I rolled my eyes a bit at his behaviour, thinking he was acting very juvenile and out of the norm.

"I didn't get much choice in the matter," she replied, a faint blush still coming to her cheeks as she turned to face him. "My brothers showed up at my workplace and pretty much quit for me before dragging me back here."

"Oh, that sounds very much like something those boys would do," he replied with an amused smile. "Where was it that you were working that they didn't like so much they made you quit?" I saw her blush darken and sighed. This was going to be oh-so-painfully awkward for awhile.

"It was a fetish club," I replied and thusly thrusting myself into the conversation they were so diligently leaving me out of. "It was enough to turn Tarot into something akin to a robot and make Jinx threaten to burn down buildings." Hides snorted.

"And what he does where he works is so much better?" he asked incredulously. I sighed. I actually knew that Jinx had quit his job at Nightingale's after the whole incident with the vampires and then Tarot overdosing on sleeping pills. I hadn't thought it was necessary to inform my brother that Jinx had essentially given up the majority of his life. I had honestly figured that he would have gotten back into his normal schedule by now, gone back to going to class and going to work, but he was steadfastly remaining very much like a hermit.

"He doesn't work there anymore," I muttered. "And both of them have their reasons for not liking the place, though I think Jinx's were more because he could smell sex."

"He had other reasons," Paisley muttered and I raised an eyebrow at her. I hadn't listened in on her conversation with her brother, but I guess that he had given her a more sound reasoning than the fact the 'no sex' rule had been broken. "And what do you mean by he doesn't work at Nightingale's anymore? When did he quit and why?" I stumbled for a moment, trying to figure out just what to say. I knew Jinx's reasons, though he had been reluctant to tell me, but I wasn't sure he wanted anyone else to know.

"He.. um.. quit the night that Tarot was admitted to the hospital in a coma," I said slowly, turning my eyes to the floor. "At the same time he also managed to convince his professors to allow him to take his courses online. As for the why... maybe it's better if you ask him. All I really feel comfortable saying is that he suddenly became extremely uncomfortable with the idea of being surrounded by lots of people he didn't know." I sighed deeply, knowing that Jinx would be upset with me if Paisley did ask him about it tomorrow or the day after.

"Brad, it has to do with what they did to him that morning, doesn't it?" Hides asked and I nodded without looking back at him.

"They? Who's they? That group of homophobes that you said put Jinx in the hospital six weeks ago?" Paisley asked. I couldn't look up at her. What Walker and his family had done to Jinx still hurt me more than it should have. I know that I had killed the alpha wolf, but it didn't erase or ease the memory of seeing my strong lover hanging there so bloody and broken.

"No, they are some people from a company your father started a war with," Hides said, filling in the details. "He had attempted to kill off Tarot by sending him in to retrieve some information from them, only it backfired and Jinx became involved. Apparently, they still held a grudge against Jinx for rescuing Tarot from the torture they were putting him through." I looked up as Paisley gasped slightly, but then her brow knit together in confusion.

"So, wait," she said, turning back to her vegetables and beginning to plate them, even getting out an extra plate for Hides. "If Jinx was capable of rescuing Tarot, then why would a second round with them send him into a mild state of reclusiveness?" I turned to Hides, silently pleading with him to stop now before he said anything else. But he wasn't looking at me. He was watching Paisley closely.

"Because this time, they got him at his weakest," Hides replied. "And although he fought back, he was outnumbered and eventually overpowered. For someone like him, what they did before we were able to get there was the worst thing possible. Even worse than what the group before had done. With the lingering effects of being beaten and broken still wearing on him, to have that happen made something snap. Mentally, he probably couldn't handle the idea of not knowing who would attempt to hurt him next."

I groaned deeply as my brother ignored my silent plea and revealed much more than Jinx would have ever wanted known. He may not have said it specifically, but he left it more than open to interpretation and Paisley was far from stupid, as evidenced by the pan that suddenly fell to the floor. Us finding my lover in such a position and state had been nearly as bad to him as what they had done. I knew my mate well enough to know that the silent treatment he had given us the rest of the day after that had more to do with his shame of being rescued than the humiliation of being raped and fed off of by vampires.

"Please don't mention it to your brother that you know," I said softly. "I don't think he will take well to it and I do not want another round of his silent treatment, because my brother has far too big of a mouth." She turned her wide and shocked eyes to me and for a moment I feared that she hadn't comprehended just how important this was to me.

"I promise," she breathed and I sighed in relief.

"Brother, the chicken is done," Hides said, reminding me of the chicken breasts in the oven. I quickly got the poultry out and split them between Hides and myself, before taking a seat at the bartop. Oh, if only things could just calm down and be normal again. When my lover didn't seem so stressed out or affected by the things around him. I was still getting glimpses of the calm, cool and collected Jinx, but I knew better than to believe that he was returning to his old self. It was going to take a lot of time before the shadows on his heart and mind shrank and let his true self shine through once again.