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“Are you really one of her mates?”

I nod, avoiding eye contact. I’ve never felt like a fraud before, but that’s exactly how I feel now.

“I fought it too, the bond with Delaney. For far too long. I actually made myself pretty ill; the goddess doesn’t like it when we ignore her. It’s one thing to not act because you’re unaware, but to do the opposite?” He shakes his head.

“I’ve been topside for a long time now. Since Leo was human, actually.”

“Wait, holdup. He used to be human?”

I smile. Can’t help it. “Yeah. He was pretty spectacular. He was supposed to be a job, but I got attached. My father allowed me to stay topside as a sort of ambassador, but Leo had gotten himself into some tricky situations, as evidenced by the fact that he’s spent the however last many years as a gargoyle.

Time is pretty hard to keep track of when you’re cursed. ”

“You were cursed together?”

“He made a deal with a witch, and it went sour. She walked in on us in the throes of making passionate, mashed potato love, and was so enraged that she cursed the both of us. He got the brunt of it because she claims he broke her heart. Wait— if this is your sister, that means you’re of her line.

No wonder you were drawn here to this school. ”

“What are you talking about?”

I spin around as he begins to unlock a nondescript entrance near the main building of the campus, flicking a light switch on a dusty cement wall.

“Sorry, hasn’t been used in a while, but it’ll hold her. I’ll have to get her blankets so she’s not cold, though.”

“The witch that cursed us made it so that Leo wouldn’t remember anything before he became a gargoyle; she also tasked the women in her line with watching over the curse. I would hazard to guess your sister has been making trouble for our Delaney?”

“I’m her brother; I’m supposed to love her, and I do, but as she’s gotten older, she’s become obsessed with our lineage and with making herself out to be some superior person when we come from very humble beginnings.

She’s needed an attitude adjustment for a while, but I haven’t been able to do much about it. ”

I freeze as he locks the cell door on his sister, watching the play of emotions over his face, trying to understand the dynamics. “This is… hard for you, isn’t it? You love her.”

He looks through the bars while his sister is still frozen, an almost longing etched into his eyes.

“Something like that. I didn’t think I would ever find myself in a position where my mate and my sister were mortal enemies.

Makes me feel like I might have messed up somewhere.

I shouldn’t be choosing anybody over my family, yet here we are. ”

“Sometimes,” I start, “family makes that decision for themselves before we even get the choice to try and put them first. Parents aren’t the same in Hell as they are up here, but Lucifer wasn’t exactly the exemplary father.

Though he did threaten to start a war for me, so maybe there’s something in him that feels something for me. You ready for me to let her go?”

“Yeah. These cells should block her magic.”

I let go of the hold I have on the witch, taking a step back just because it feels like the right thing to do. What I should have done is plug my ears with cotton first.

She starts screeching immediately, throwing her hands as if she’s about to throw all sorts of spell work, and if it wouldn’t embarrass me to do so, I’d totally be ducking to avoid the spells. Even though her fingers are doing absolutely nothing.

“Get me out of here, Zac! Do not tell me that girl is more important to you than I am. How dare you bring me here? You know I would never hurt you; not my brother.”

He looks resigned. “But you almost did, Shelly. You were aiming at my mate and one of her other mates. Don’t you think that harming them would do something to me?”

“Tell me you didn’t bond with that horrible person.”

“Can we just, drop the dramatics for a moment please? There’s nobody here to watch you put on a show.”

She nods her head towards me. “Who’s that, then?”

“Somebody I’d steer clear of, if I were you,” he responds.

“So she gets everything, and I get nothing? Is that how this is going to go down?”

“What was your goal here tonight?” I step in and ask. “I could find out what spell you were about to throw at my mate, but it might not be too comfortable for you. I think asking nicely might get me a little bit farther.”

She huffs like a damn toddler. “That’s not even possible. You have no idea what I’m capable of.”

“Shelly, you tried to attack somebody. I can’t be your brother and the law if you’re just going to keep doing things you’re not supposed to do.

I’ve warned you so many times your temper was going to get the best of you.

” He takes a step back from the cell, and then another, keeping his hands in his pockets and looking quite sad.

“Where are you going? Get back here now and let me out.”

“I can’t do that, Shells. I wish I could, but this is bigger than just you and me now.”

“Because of her,” she spits with so much venom in her tongue I’m surprised it doesn’t burn her mouth.

Zac is ready to jump in and defend our mate, though. “She’s really nice, you know. She doesn’t deserve what you’ve been doing to her. I don’t want to take sides in this Shelly, but when you’re so flagrantly harming other students, you’re making me.”

“I’ll do it, you know. I’ve always threatened it, but I really will this time. Unlock this door, or…” she looks at me nervously, letting her sentence taper off.

He takes his phone out of his pocket, presses some buttons, and then it’s ringing on speaker. “Zac? You guys okay? Where’d you go?”

“I have something I need to tell you, Delaney.”

The girl behind the bars starts shrieking again, enough so that she drowns out my mate. And things seem like they’re about to get interesting, so we can’t have that. With a thought, she’s silent. Gods it’s so much fun to be powerful.

Now she's just an animated clay figure silently yelling at us. Perfect. Such an improvement.

“A truth,” Zac starts, “that I’ve tried to keep covered up for years. Some of the guys have wondered why I let Shelly get away with so much. Aside from just being her guardian all these years, there’s more.”

“You don’t have to tell me,” Delaney promises, nearly pleading, but Zac cuts her off.

“I want to. I need to. This… it’s been a weight on my chest for too long, and it’s already held me back enough. I meant it when I said you were everything to me now. I won’t let secrets get in the way of what we could be.”

“Whatever it is, it’s not going to change anything,” Delaney promises. “But I’m listening.”

He exhales heavily, rubbing his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. “When Shelly and I were younger, our parents were pretty great. Sure, my father was a terrifying naga and my mom a witch, but they were good parents.”

I think I know where this is going, but I do think he needs to say this. Somebody needs to pop the bubble of blame he’s clearly been existing in.

“My father spent a lot of time helping me to keep control of my temper; he always said nagas had a bad enough rep as it was, so it was important for us to be more than our peers. I always had to study harder, be better, do more, so that people wouldn’t be scared of me.

Didn’t matter in the long run, people are still scared of me, but I guess it got me this job and found me you. So, there’s that.

“Anyway, my father had been bragging to my mom about how well I was progressing in my control. One day she came out to watch. We had this huge backyard then with this incredible forest, a little meadow, and a pond back full of koi fish that my mom loved.

“I was practicing shifting different parts of me independently and learning to bite without the venom. At the time I didn’t understand why I would need to bite somebody, but my dad always assured me it was just another thing I needed to practice controlling.

He made sure I knew that we needed to have ultimate control over our venom since it’s so potent.

He wanted to get me to a point that I had to really try if I wanted to inject venom in somebody.

I don’t know what kind of scuffles he thought I’d get into, but I never questioned his ways, not really.

“So anyway, Mom was there watching—"

Delaney gasps. “Oh my gods…. did you accidentally kill her?”

Both of the siblings stare at the phone in horror as Zac starts back peddling. “What? No!... no! I would never…no.”

“Sorry, I got caught up in the drama of it. Proceed.” Delaney says calmly.

“He’s still a monster though,” Shelly spits from behind the bars. “He ruined my life.”

“Sorry, my bad,” I interject. “Forgot I was supposed to be keeping her mute. She can’t talk anymore, Zac. Go ahead, man.” I forgot I was showing off my skills, I got pretty into Zac’s story.

“You know how it’s somewhat rare to inherit magical skills from both parents?

How it’s more normal for a child to more or less show attributes of one parent, and maybe they’ll have a quirk or two from the other?

Yeah, well my quirk turned out to be pretty bad.

With all my honing of the naga skills, I hadn’t spent any time on the witch side of me, because I hadn’t realized those abilities were there.

“I was trying to show off but ended up opening a portal and shoving my parents through. I don’t know where they went to, but they’ve been gone ever since.

All I know is that it was full of rainbows and glitter?

So that’s my big shame. I spent years trying to figure out how to do it again, obsessing over any sort of tidbit I could gather to help me with the portal, but I’ve never been able to reverse the action.

So that’s why I ended up mostly raising Shelly, because I took her parents away from her. I am a monster.”

Delaney is silent for a minute, likely processing. But I’m not entirely sure why he felt so nervous about telling this particular story.

“Thank you for telling me. First of all,” Delaney says slowly into the phone, “I don’t know how long you’ve been keeping that to yourself, but I hope you feel a little bit lighter with it off your chest. Second of all, I don’t think you’re a monster.

Magic is… unpredictable sometimes. The goddess likes to play games and tricks, and it’s not always intuitive to figure out how talents work.

Look at me, how long did it take me to realize how to keep my magic under control?

Do you have any idea how many orgies I’ve caused in my life?

I feel like that’s more alarming than you accidentally sending your parents somewhere.

Wait a minute; in theory, they could still be out there somewhere, right?

Like, alive? And could potentially be pulled back? ”

"I guess so, but time always works differently in other realms, and I don’t know anything about the realm I sent them to.

It could be the most dangerous place in existence for all I know, and they could have been killed within minutes of landing.

They could have been biologically incompatible with the atmosphere, they could have—"

“Deep breath there, Zacky. In this moment there’s clearly nothing we can do, you've been… fighting this for a while on your own now. You have help now.”

“Still don’t think a group of college students is a flex but thank you.”

“I mean, if you don’t want our help…” she taunts.

“No, no, I would appreciate that. I’ve been so scared for so long about this getting out.

It’s… freeing to let it go.” He turns to his sister.

"Shelly, I’ve done a disservice to you. I’ve let you get away with too much instead of disciplining you and trying to shape you into somebody respectable.

I just got mated and I really can’t deal with you right now.

Maybe that makes me a shit brother, but you’re a pretty shit sister for trying to attack my mate like that.

Not to mention it seems like you were trying to reenact a curse that she worked so hard to break?

Yeah, I think you’re going to spend the night here and we can talk tomorrow.

I’ll get you a mattress and some blankets and stuff, but I need to do a better job of teaching you the consequences of your actions. ”

He starts walking away and I follow, because ain’t no way I want to be stuck down here without him. It’s creepy and gross, and I grew up in literal Hell.

When we get outside, I rock back on my heels, wondering what to do now. There’s an expectation that Zac will go back to Delaney since she actually chose him, and I guess I could blip myself back down to dear old dad, but it’s kind of depressing to spend my first actual night of freedom alone.

“You coming?”

“Nah, you go ahead.”

He stops and looks at me, then walks back to me.

“You should try to date her. Maybe this started out as an arrangement between your parents, but if you’re fated like you say, you guys could be something special.

She just needs a chance to get to know you.

Maybe without pretending to be somebody else this time. ”

“I’ve just been waiting so long, I had this sort of dramatic idea in my head about how things would go down when I finally got to talk to her, you know? That was dumb. And Leo…”

“You love him, too?”

I rub my chest. “Is that what this is? It feels weird. Being a tree was easier, no messy emotions.”

“I’ve got an extra room at my place if you need somewhere to crash. I could even hang out with you if you want?”

“I’m pretty sure Delaney needs you, but I appreciate that.”

“I need to get my sister squared away, then I can bring you over there and get you comfortable. Honestly, I don’t know where I’ll be sleeping tonight, but I’ll sleep easier if I know you have somewhere comfortable to be.

I get the feeling you just went through a huge transformation, and it doesn’t sit right with me you being by yourself right now.

You’re going to need help. You know what?

Just come with me. If nothing else, you and I can sleep on the couch in Delaney’s living room or something.

There’s been too much of us all being scattered. ”

“You don’t think she’ll mind?”

“Only one way to find out,” he says.