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I wasn't surprised by any of it, except for the fact they'd found out so soon.

"After everything," Julian snarled, "he went through with his sister. Then having Ariel with us now. This treachery is absolutely unbelievable. To think he would actually join ranks with the very men who were the reason his baby sister ended her life... I cannot fathom it. What a fucking coward. I’ll be thanking everything I hold holy that he's no longer responsible for Ariel's well-being because, clearly, he's a traitorous cunt."

That did it for me and pulled me out of my happyI have coffeedaze.

"Stop it," I hissed angrily. "Just stop talking right this second."

Silence filled the dining room as every single person in the room focused solely on me. Several of them looked angry and they glared at me. The rest of them were giving me looks of calm understanding.

Quinton's gaze was what surprised me the most, because he was of the calm and understanding variety. I had actually expected the exact opposite out of him.

Dash was also one of the calm ones. No surprise there. When he lost his cool we all should really be frightened since he had the most reasonable head on his shoulders.

Tyson was outraged. On my behalf, of course. And I wasn't surprised by this either. He had anger issues and was a bit of a hothead. But he was loyal to a fault. That he would immediately jump to attack something he thought might harm me wasn't a surprise in the slightest. I loved him and he was my BFF for a reason, his outrage on my behalf only being one of many.

Julian, obviously, looked outraged.

Damien appeared haughty but curious.

The twins, however, were my biggest surprise because they both sat back, silently watching what was going on around them. I expected some type of emotion out of them. Be it outrage or sadness orsomething.But no, there was absolutely no emotion on their faces whatsoever.

Rain was angry, practically fuming out of his nostrils. I had no idea where this hatred for Marcus stemmed from, and it seemed to be a whole lot bigger than I had originally thought it to be. I swear, Rain was getting on my last damn nerve. He was lucky he was the only blood relation I had and that I loved him.

"Ariel," Rain started, "I don't think you quite understand what's going on here."

He was wrong. It was him who didn't quite understand what was going on here and it was clearly up to me to set him straight.

"It's you who doesn’t understand, Rain," I replied in a calm voice. "You're so blinded by your hatred of the Council and your jealousy of Marcus that you'll believe anything negative about him that you can grasp hold of. Marcus Cole is a damn good person and no amount of slander on your part is going to change that."

That shut everyone up.

I leveled Quinton with a glare. "Yes, Marcus did share with me yesterday at lunch that the Council had asked him to join them and that he was going to say yes. He wanted me to know first, which I appreciate all the more now that you people are acting like this. I'm glad I'm not one of you."

"How can you be okay with this?" Julian ground out between clenched teeth. He was taking this incredibly personal.

"For one, it's his decision to make, not ours. And, for two, he's not joining them because he wants to be a part of their debauchery. He's joining them because he thinks he might actually be able to do some good for our people that way."

Rain slumped back in his chair in defeat. "Goddamn him," he grumbled. "Why am I not surprised that he'd do something for the better of our people, he's a fucking saint."

I was right, Rain was jealous of Marcus and that's why he hated him so much.

"He took care of me," I said as I looked Rain dead in the eyes from across the table. "She had lots of boyfriends, Vivian did, and the majority of them were not nice. Marcus was the first adult in my life to give a crap about me. He means a great deal to me so I'm going to need you to lay off of him. Do I think he's a saint? No, absolutely not. For goodness’ sake, Rain, he was sleeping withVivianof all people. That does not say good things about him. It says the opposite in fact."

The guys all looked uncomfortable and were watching Rain carefully since Vivian had been mentioned. My father hated his sister more than I did, and that was saying a lot.

"But what you need to get, Rain, is that none of that matters to me. He might have been with her, but that didn't stop him from taking care of me. I'm not his daughter, but we're family all the same."

"You'remydaughter," Rain growled in a voice full of gravel.

I threw my arms up in the air in frustration. "Iknowthat! Everyone knows that. Nobody's disputing that fact, not even Marcus. For fuck's sake, Rain, get over yourself already. You're my dad and I love you. You can stop being jealous now and give Marcus a break."

Rain, whose face is usually a mask of emptiness, blinked back tears as he looked down at his hands in his lap.

"You love me?" he rasped.

It was me this time who blinked the emotion back from my eyes.

I cleared my throat, twice, before I could respond. "Of course I love you, you're my dad. I don't think there's any way I could evennotlove you. You're awesome and you're fierce and you teach me things about magic that nobody else will. You gave me pictures of my mother and told me all about her. You told me about my family. You spent years and years looking for me and youneveronce gave up on me. That's crazy beautiful and I would have to be a soulless brat not to love you back. I’d never had someone love me before I moved into Marcus Cole's house and even then, it's not the same as it is with you. I needed someone like you... I... When she left me alone with them..." My voice caught and I choked on the words, not getting anything else out past the lump in my throat.