Page 14 of Dream Lost (The Fae Universe #12)

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B ridget had expected her rooms to be as fancy as the rest of the house, but reality outstripped her imagination.

It was like she had walked into the set of a Peter Pan movie and was given Wendy Darling’s room to sleep in, complete with window couches, a fireplace, and a four-poster bed with velvet and sheer curtains. There were books on the shelves and a fancy claw foot tub with lavender bath salts.

It was the kind of place Bridget’s mother would have died over. There was money, and then there was old money. The first was loud and showy. The second was so inbuilt that it was almost natural to the insider because it permeated every inch of their lives. Every picture and piece of furniture had a history, a lineage, and a legacy. Their name meant something. It wasn’t some name that had been made up one day because you had no family that wanted you.

Bas didn’t seem the type to care about that kind of thing. He hadn’t pushed her about her history when others would have. He didn’t seem to be bothered in the slightest that she had a dark past. She wondered if he would be so ambivalent if he found out that she had killed her stepfather and not the fae.

A knock at the door halted her spiraling thoughts. She opened it with a smile, her heart skipping a beat. She was expecting Bas, but instead she got the blond from the bar.

“Oh. Hello,” she said.

“Good evening, Bridget the Hawk Girl. I’m Apollo, and I’ve been sent to bring you down for dinner,” he replied with a beaming smile. It didn’t hide his rapid perusal from her scuffed motorcycle boots to her Doctor Strange T-shirt.

“Thanks,” she murmured and then paused. “Should I change? I mean, I only have jeans and T-shirts if I do.”

Apollo’s head tilted to one side. “Why would you need to change, love? The only reason I’m not wearing a bathrobe right now is because Bas is afraid I’ll flash my dick around you by accident.”

Bridget giggled. “Okay, fair enough. This just seems the kind of house where people would dress for dinner. Like Downton Abbey or some shit.”

“Dear gods, no. The house is just old. We are all too busy and, quite frankly, too crazy, to stand on too much ceremony. It’s been a long time since a woman has stayed with us that wasn’t an Ironwood, so we are all on our best behavior.” Apollo offered her his arm, and Bridget found herself taking it.

“You guys don’t seem crazy to me,” she admitted. “Eccentric, maybe, but not crazy.”

“As I said, we are on our best behavior because our dear Basset Bear is quite a vindictive little dick when crossed, and he doesn’t want you to be scared away.”

“Bas? Vindictive? Surely not,” Bridget said, still smiling. She was going to get on well with Apollo, but after seeing him at the bar, he seemed to get along well with everyone.

“The man can go into your mind and rearrange it as he pleases. He can give you nightmares if you decide to piss him off. He once made me believe a spider had laid eggs in my arm,” Apollo said and shuddered.

“And why would he do that?” Bridget asked because it didn’t sound like the sweet guy she knew.

“I may have tested out a new laughing potion on him and made him laugh so hard, he pissed himself.”

Bridget snorted and then coughed to cover it up. “Sounds to me like you had it coming.”

Apollo grinned. “Of course I did. We were fifteen and thirteen at the time, so were complete assholes.”

“I thought it was weird that you guys were all living at home as grown men, but after seeing the guest room and the library, I understand why,” Bridget replied.

“We are Greatdrakes. We don’t wish to be anywhere but our towers, and with the amount of explosive things I create, what normal house could stand up to the challenge?” Apollo replied with a shrug. “Reeve, the youngest, splits his time here and at the Ironwood mansion and sometimes the castle in England if he and Charlotte are learning magic from the fae. We all kind of live with each other in that way. Family, you know?”

Bridget shook her head. “No, I don’t know. It’s nice for you, though. I have no idea what that would even be like.”

“You have no family at all?” Apollo asked, blond brows drawing together.

“Nope. Not a one. Mother is dead. Never knew my father. I’m not worried. I get by okay,” Bridget said, swallowing the lump in her throat.

Apollo patted her hand that was still over his arm. If anyone else would have tried that shit, Bridget would have let them have it, but she felt strangely comforted when Apollo did it. Maybe his magic was empathy.

“You’re a magician, which means you’re always welcome here, Bridget,” he said.

She really needed to steer the subject away from family. “What is your magic if you are blowing things up all the time?”

“I specialize in alchemy and shenanigans,” Apollo replied. “Hence the laughing potion to make my brother piss himself.”

Bridget was still laughing when they got downstairs, and she got a noseful of something that smelled like fresh bread and melted cheese.

“Oh my god, what is that?” she asked, her stomach growling.

“That’s Bas. He’s a bit of a mother hen when he wants to be. He’s always been like that, but it got worse after Mom died,” Apollo said, his smile dimming just a little. “He makes sure we all eat right and don’t catch scurvy.”

“You’re lucky. I hate cooking for myself.”

Apollo put his arm around her shoulders. “Then you’ll be pleased to know that Bas is taking you under his wings.”

Bridget didn’t get a chance to ask him what he meant by that, or process the image of being under Bas, because Apollo opened the door to the kitchen, and she was faced with all the Greatdrakes men sitting around the scarred pine table drinking wine and talking all at once.

As one, they all stood up when Bridget entered the room, and she giggled nervously. She didn’t think people in real life did that shit.

Cosimo pulled out a chair for her at the head of the table. “So happy you could join us, Bridget. This table needs a feminine influence more often.”

“I don’t think anyone has ever accused me of being a feminine influence before,” she babbled and quickly sat.

“Wine?” Bas asked from his place in the kitchen. Bridget nodded, and Cosimo poured her a glass.

“This is from my favorite estate in Veneto. I have to hide bottles so the boys don’t drink all of it on me,” he said, shooting her a wink.

“You say that like you don’t go to Italy every month,” Apollo said, holding his glass out. “Make it a big one, Dad. I’ve had a day.”

“What’s in Italy to keep you going back there?” Bridget asked. She could totally do small talk. Or at least try to. She was curious about these generational magicians. They weren’t like regular boring people she had nothing in common with.

“I hunt magical manuscripts mostly,” Cosimo replied. “My grandmother was a Florentine, so I ended up with the name Cosimo. It’s a family tradition to be named after magicians, mystics, and alchemists, so I was named after...”

“Cosimo Medici?” Bridget guessed.

His face lit up, and all the brothers groaned.

“You know of him?” he asked.

“Of course. The whole of Western civilization and culture was altered because of Cosimo. If he hadn’t funded Marsilio Ficino and the Florentine Academy, we would still be in the dark ages,” Bridget replied before she could stop. She quickly shut her mouth before she started to ramble. People didn’t always like that about her.

Cosimo put a hand on his chest. “A woman after my own heart. Finally, a youth I don’t need to educate.”

“You got him started now,” Valentine said, his lips lifting into a wry smile. “Quick, Bas, feed us so we avoid a lecture.”

“Philistines. I’d love a lecture on Cosimo Medici. Do you know that apparently Ficino was worried that he would never have the resources to translate all the manuscripts he had, so he went outside and sang the Orphic Hymn to the Cosmos, and then like the next day, he got patronage from Cosimo? Actually, it makes sense that Cosimo was a magician now that I think about...and I’m rambling. Sorry,” Bridget said and quickly drank her wine.

The Greatdrakes men were all smiling at her, Bas with a hand resting over his heart.

“That’s it. We are keeping you,” Cosimo declared, smacking his hand on the table. “Well done, Bas. Very well done indeed.”

Bridget blushed from the tips of her toes to the tips of her ears. “I don’t know what just happened, but thanks. I read a lot, and I don’t get to talk much about stuff with people because I can’t have normal conversations.” She really, really needed to stop verbally spewing everywhere.

“You don’t ever have to worry about that with us, Bridget,” Apollo said and offered her the basket of bread. “We are magicians. The more random the facts, the more we enjoy it.”

“What’s your last name? Are you sure you don’t have magicians in the family?” Cosimo asked her.

Bridget quickly drank more wine. She felt a light brush behind her eyes, and Bas said into her mind, If you aren’t comfortable talking about it, I’ll get them to stop .

Thanks, Bas, but I’m okay. We will still have the torte and rum conversation, but I can handle this.

Bas nodded, and the tingle of his presence left her. Bridget was touched that he would ask at all, knowing that talk of family made her nervous.

Bridget said, “My surname is Hawkyns, but I picked that myself. My mother was a narcissistic gold digger, and I never knew who my father was. Depending on how much she had drunk, he would be an F1 driver from Monaco or a sheik from Dubai, but he could have been a waiter at a party for all I know. She was white, so I know he must have been brown. I always hung out with the Desi and Somali kids at school, and I just told them my dad was dead. No one really asked further questions.”

“Bas mentioned you turned into a hawk, is that the reason for the name?” Valentine asked. None of them looked like they cared about her fucked up parentage at all.

Bridget nodded. “Yeah. I have always loved hawks. They are always so free and fierce. When I got to choose a name, I went with that. I wanted to feel as free and fierce as they looked.” Again, she felt like she had said too much.

Valentine only said, “Do you know hawks mate for life? Dragons do the same.” Bas shot his brother a glare, and Bridget grinned.

“And we are back to dragons. Bas refuses to tell me about this place’s dragon fetish.”

As one, the Greatdrakes men all turned to glare at Bas. “What? I needed there to be some mystery to get her to come and stay here.”

“Oh, I’m definitely here so I can have a crack at your library.” Bridget sipped her wine and asked innocently, “Would any of you like to tell me about dragons? Because I have questions.”

“Ask away,” Valentine said, grabbing some more bread. “We are dragons.”