Page 37 of Nine Inch Nasty (Hemlock Academy #9)

August

“Delaney? I think your parents left us a gift basket in here.”

My voice echoes through the mostly empty kitchen, out to the hallway where everyone is exploring.

Okay, they’re mostly limping, but the nurse hotline we called said that was normal after what we did.

“No! Don’t open…that.”

Too late. By the time she’s told me not to, my hand is already pulling apart the outer wrapping, and my eyes are taking in everything that I’m really hoping now isn’t from her parents.

“Well. Never thought to use that before.”

“Delaney? Why did your parents make a sex basket for you? What the fuck is wrong with your family?!”

She stares at me, then starts cracking up. “Oh my gods. August. Are you serious right now? It’s a dinner basket. My mom said it was everything to make a family dinner together in the house. She said the pans they ordered for us should be here sometime today.”

I put the coconut oil and the cucumber back into the basket carefully. “That makes me feel better.”

“The sex basket is in the bedroom. Don’t worry, they said they just bought a new bed for us. Apparently, it’s wall to wall mattress so no one falls off.”

“Your parents are going to traumatize everyone else we invite to the ceremony. We need to make sure we hire so many photographers and videographers so we can replay all the scenes when we need a mood boost.”

Delaney shrugs and grabs an apple from a separate basket, crunching into it. “A little trauma is good for the soul; it builds character. Come on. I want to show you something!”

She starts running out of the room, and I’m pulled with her. By the time we get to our destination, we’ve gathered a few other mates. “What am I looking at?”

We’re up on the third floor, standing at a railing that overlooks a wide-open space down to a living area I’ve never been to, two stories down.

“Watch.” She bends down and unlatches something, the gate swings open and a button she hits has the gate stretching into a massive slide that reaches all the way to the ground floor.

“Papa Pearson is a matter wielder. Papa Balfour is a rune god. They’ve combined their magic all over the place to make rune activated things like this. We had the best time growing up here.”

She throws herself down the slide, which is mostly enclosed as it spirals a few times before shooting her out down below, and she pops up and waves.

“I’ll come down there under one condition; you have to promise to sit down with us tonight and make some actual plans for the ceremony.”

“Can’t we just hire somebody?”

“Baby, no. I’ve been ready to officially mate you since that first kiss. You better believe we’re going to plan the shit out of this ceremony. It’s going to be chaotic and perfect.”

“Fine. Only if I get to cockwarm you while we plan.”

“Deal!” I have serious doubts my hips will fit down the slide, but I go down anyway, finding it is actually pretty comfortable, and entirely too slippery.

I shoot down that fucker and nearly bowl Delaney over when I land.

A few others shoot down after me, and it feels surreal to be standing here like this, arm wrapped around her waist while I kiss her, in this incredible home I never thought could be somewhere I’d actually live as something other than an employee.

Security guards don’t usually get to live in lavish homes, but I guess I’m not actually a security guard anymore.

“We start Monday, training at HQ?”

She nods, scuffing her foot against the floor.

“Hey, it’s going to be fine.”

She looks up at me. “You promise?”

I sweep her into me, kissing her on the head.

“No, but I promise that when we get home from whatever happens, I’ll hold you just like this and remind you how worth it it is.

Delaney, it’s like we’re getting everything any of us could ever fucking want.

I’m serious. It’s all because of you. Because you took a chance on a couple of guys that never thought they had a shot in hell with you. ”

“I think I should get some credit too,” Adam says as he gets off the slide. “I put the idea of Hemlock in her mind, gave her a reason to get there. Surely that wins me some sort of prize.”

“Well I was the first one she chose for herself, so if we’re doling out prizes, put me down.”

I didn’t even realize Leo was in the room. The walls in this particular room have a rock facade, so he kind of just blends right in. Don’t tell him I said he looks like a wall, please. We’re supposed to be friends.

“I’m the prize, obviously,” Delaney says as she smacks his ass and starts wandering out of the room, checking out all the changes her parents made without telling her.

So far, she’s found new wall colors everywhere, new furniture, and weird notes from her mother she keeps ripping off walls and stuffing into her pockets without sharing. It’s clear her parents have known about this for a while because they’ve been preparing.

When we get to the main living room, it’s pretty empty aside from a couple pictures on the mantle that they framed for us.

Pictures of Delaney and Adam, and me and my brother with Delaney when we first started dating, other pictures that Delaney must have taken on her phone and sent to her parents when she met more mates.

“Someday this room is going to be full of memories we’ve made, and it’s going to be beautiful,” she says as she lets her fingers trail along the raw stone edge of the mantle.

“I don’t think it’s really going to hit me, how much we’re truly about to be responsible for, until we’re in the thick of it.

It’d be easy to overthink it and try and stress about everything that could go wrong, but…

” she spins around to face us, and I realize everyone has wandered to the room and is now standing in a near perfect semicircle around Delaney.

She takes a deep breath. “I think I’d rather think about how many things we could get right.”

“As long as we all keep you at our center, I don’t think we can do much wrong,” Leo says solemnly as he steps forward to kiss her hand.

“You’re the common denominator here; we’re just a bunch of people that likely couldn’t be more different if we tried.

And I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I have been informed that it’s time for you to fulfill the prophecy.

We can’t settle into these new roles until that’s no longer hanging over our head. ”

“What are you talking about? How do you know information we don’t?” I ask him. We’re security, we know stuff.

“Um, well, I just saw it, there.”

He points to the mirror above our heads, which has text written on it in creepy, red, bloody letters and he reads it out loud. “ The time to fulfill the prophecy is now. Inform your queen. K thx. P.S. There are dick shaped popsicles in the freezer.”