Page 19 of The Sirin Sisterhood (The Sons of Echidna #2)

Lucy

“Oh look, you scrub up well!”Lucy grinned at Aris as she stepped out of the elevator with her and Lai’s shopping bags, interrupting the man’s pacing.

Now that she knew the truth about Aris, Lucy could see so many dog-like traits in him, amused to find him waiting by the door for their return.

It was hard work resisting the temptation to call him a good boy and watch him get flustered at her baby-voiced praise.

“Were you waiting here all day for us?”

Aris glared at her and refused to answer, but Lucy saw a subtle movement of Klein’s eyebrows that signaled affirmation.

As if he was any better! His high had long since worn off, but he was still scrubbing the sterile apartment.

Lucy couldn’t blame either of them, really.

It was an anxious time for everyone. Well, maybe except for Louis, who’d wholeheartedly embraced the colorful cartoons on the television.

“Where were you? You can’t just disappear!”Aris snarled at her. Lucy didn’t even flinch, dumping the bags on the bench and ignoring Klein’s small noise of excited anticipation. She knew he wasn’t interested in the bags; he was just hoping there was a mess for him to clean away.

“We were shopping. You can’t wear the same pair of pants all week.”

Lai appeared behind her, loaded up with bags like a pack mule. “He’s been wearing them for thirty years, and they’ve never been washed. Good luck peeling them off him.”

Lucy saw Klein shake his head. She guessed that he had tried and failed in the past, and it wasn’t easy to get Klein to give up on a chore that needed attention.

“Gross.”She used her ‘bad dog’voice on him before Aris could defend himself, and he looked surprisingly chastised.

“Well, we got something for everyone, and I expect you to all get changed. You’ll have to forgive some of the more questionable fashion choices,”she added, glancing at Lai.

“I tried my best, but Lai apparently grew up in a zoo and thinks leopard print is fancy.”

Aris looked them both over, pulling himself back together after his scolding.

“Do you two really think now is the best time for pampering?”He motioned to Lucy’s hair.

She’d almost forgotten about it! Freshly colored and silky soft, it fell over her shoulders in perfect waves.

The stark line of a year-old bleaching experiment was now gone, matched so perfectly to the tone of her natural color thatit was as though that particular meltdown dye job had never happened.

“You noticed my hair?”Lucy beamed at Aris. It was not the effect he’d been after, and his scowl deepened.

“I might die tomorrow. I’m not heading to hell with my roots showing,”Lai laughed, tossing a shirt at his father.

“What the hell is this?”Aris unfolded the fabric, one eye twitching as he studied the design.

Oh no . She knew there been a reason for Lai’s cackling, loud enough to hear across half the department store.

The black t-shirt in Aris’s hands had a heavy metal band’s unreadable logo and a tacky illustration of Cerberus.

Lucy felt the tension in the room skyrocket, broken only by Lai’s giggling.

Klein was staring at the shirt from behind his father’s back, even paler than usual.

She didn’t know if Halcyon was still traveling with the family, but it felt like time was slowing down in anticipation, regardless.

She had seconds to defuse the bomb Lai had lobbed into the room.

She grabbed a bag and snatched the shirt from Aris, replacing it with a plain linen one.

“Go and get changed.”She stood between Aris and Lai, her heart pounding.

To her surprise, Aris exhaled sharply and obeyed, though she wasn’t convinced that the offense was truly forgotten.

He shot Lai a look that promised he would deal with him later.

Unfortunately, the uneasy peace was fragile, and Lai hadn’t yet met his daily chaos quota.

“I thought you might enjoy the image of your father. Does it not remind you of your great childhood with him?”Lai snorted, clearly pleased with himself, self-preservation be damned.

A glass shattered next to his head before Lucy could stop Aris from throwing it, the powerful man’s face tight with rage.

“Hey! We do not break Xim’s things!”She scolded furiously as Klein glided past her, armed with a broom and a shovel.

Xim had picked that exact moment to open the door to the apartment, pausing as she took in the scene.

Lai cowered by the door, covered in a mist of shattered crystal.

Aris was shirtless and seething. Klein stood frozen in place, startled by the sudden arrival, broom in hand.

In the middle of it all was Lucy, red and flustered, arms outstretched as though she was the conductor of an orchestra of pure chaos.

“Well, then,”she said, stepping over the shards of glass and adding a couple of bags of takeout food to the pile on the counter.

Lucy noticed the bags weren’t from any typical fast food joint; the canvas bags with gold foiled letters boasted the name of a restaurant with a weeks-long reservation list and two Michelin stars.

Lucy recognized it, a strange knot twisting her stomach.

Her dad had been so excited to take her mom there for their wedding anniversary just a few months before they had died.

Lucy also had no doubt they didn’t have a takeout option: Xim had decided she felt like eating from there that night, and someone in her entourage had made it happen.

“I’m not going to ask. Lucy warned me you lot are weird. I have news if you’d like to join me for dinner.”

“Good news?”Lucy asked, allowing herself to relax a little after making sure Aris wasn’t going to murder his son, contenting himself with muttering dark fantasies of what he would like to do instead.

Xim nodded, walking over to the cupboards to get the plates: Klein beat her to it. She raised an eyebrow as he set the table, but didn’t fight him.

“I got you a plane. It’s chartered for tomorrow evening. It wasn’t easy, but if we all promise to keep it hush-hush, there shouldn’t be any problems.”

“Please don’t tell me you’re hiding this from your fathers,”Lucy begged, guilt already worming its way into her. Or maybe it was shame. She had left to gain her independence, and now she was back to plead for help, this time with a pack of strays in tow.

“It’s fine.”Xim quickly waved it off. “Get all of your affairs in order. You can’t miss this flight; I won’t be able to get another one.”

Lucy chuckled a little at the flicker of irritation on Xim’s face at ‘I won’t be able to get another one,’ wondering what had become of the poor soul that had to tell her ‘no.’She doubted they were having a good day.

She nodded her gratitude, determined to thank her properly later when they could steal a moment to themselves.

Lucy only hoped she wouldn’t have to stall for time. In the chaos and clutter, only she seemed to notice that Lai was nowhere to be found.

◆◆◆

In the hasty distribution of food amongst a family with defensive eating issues, no one missed one lone dinner plate. It was Klein who raised the alarm, the surprising lack of mess at the table alerting him.

“Where did Lai go?”He asked, looking to his father out of habit before quickly turning to Lucy for answers.

That little rat! Lucy knew exactly where he’d gone, her anger quickly overtaken by worry. Lai was returning to the manor, and she was too late to stop him. Now, all eyes were on her, expecting an answer, and she didn’t have a lie spun up to soothe them.

“Lai and I were gonna head back to the manor and grab a few items to help us negotiate with the witches. I think he might have gone on ahead.”She tried to stop her voice from shaking, as though the plan was as simple as popping out to the supermarket.

Lai had wanted her to trust him, and now she had no choice but to do so.

“Gods dammit, girl!”Aris slammed his hands on the table, making the people and the silverware jump, abrupt silence flooding the apartment.

“Absolutely not! You don’t know what that woman is capable of; I forbid it!

”His chair crashed backward as he leaped to his feet, the thud absorbed by the thoroughly soundproofed penthouse.

“It’s not your call,”Ryan reminded him, staring at his dinner plate to hide from his father’s livid glare.

“I hate to say it, but Lai and Lucy aren’t wrong.

I’ve seen our accounts. You owe them more gold than we have; it would be foolish for us to assume they would even grace us with the time of day.

”The boy sighed and looked up, finally facing his father.

“No one seems to have considered our other big assumption, that the witches still have enough firepower to save us. They used to be a formidable force with a lot of magic, but we used to be a formidable family with an army of monsters. Who knows what might have changed over the years?”

“Well? You are the head of the family. How are you planning on stopping my idiot son?”Aris dismissed Ryan’s pessimism and turned to Lucy, poison coating his words.

“If anyone can do it, it’s Lai,”Lucy offered, trying to sound like she believed it. “Going after him now will only throw him off his game. He can do this.”

“You give him too much credit,”Aris hissed.

“And you don’t give him enough!”She snapped at him, standing to block him from leaving.

“Move, girl. Someone has to fetch that stupid pup. I will be back before departure.”Aris ignored her completely.

“No!”Lucy raised her voice, feeling her throat tighten treacherously. “If he doesn’t come back, I’ll go there myself and drain Eleanore and every single one of her men to save him, but I trust Lai! He is cunning enough to do what needs to be done!”

“Sit down, girl. The power is going to your head.”He pushed her back down in her seat so firmly that her breath escaped her lungs in an indignant gasp.

Lucy was stunned and humiliated, but she waved her hand at Xim as the woman stepped forward to help, gathering the last shreds of her pride as Aris strode towards the elevator. She followed him, running to keep up.

“Stop!”She slammed her body between the closing elevator doors, the machine hesitating and withdrawing rather than crushing her. “Aris, you’re putting him in danger!”

“I let him go alone once. Never again,”Aris whispered as he took Lucy by the shoulders and lifted her out of the eagerly closing doors.

“Fuck!”Lucy raced to the smaller service elevator, slamming the button as if the urgency of it would make it somehow arrive faster. “Fuck, fuck, fuck! Why do none of you just take no for an answer?!”

Finally, the doors peeled back to announce the brightly lit cube inside. She mashed the ground floor button, shifting anxiously from foot to foot as the display counted down the levels, the rushing of her blood blocking out the irritatingly bland elevator music.

At last, she reached the bottom of the tower, and Lucy slumped in relief to find Aris waiting for her just outside the opening elevator.

He didn’t look pleased, though, his dark features grim as he strode towards her.

Lucy suddenly realized that she had made a mistake chasing him.

What had she been thinking? Aris was no puppy–he had almost killed her on her very first day at work.

“Sorry–”she started, cut off by a sharp whack to the back of her neck. Stars exploded in front of her eyes as her collapsing body was thrown back into the brightly lit lift. As her vision went black, the last thing she saw was Aris pressing the button that would send her back to the penthouse.