An Undead Rebellion (Sequel)

Dodge and Burn

We both laughed quietly among ourselves. I took a sip of my coffee. More serious now, I asked; "Do you think they're still alive?"

Silence weighed heavily between us for a long moment. "They won't kill your sister. They can use her for leverage. She's a power play."

"And my dad?"

She hesitated. "He's not as important to them."

I clenched my teeth against the feeling of bile rising up my throat. God, I was going to be sick. My pizza was abandoned, barely eaten, on the counter.

"You don't deserve for this to happen to you." Eris said, making me glance up. "You're a good person. But then again, we didn't deserve to be enslaved either."

Leaning heavily against the counter, I rubbed a hand over my face. "That wasn't my fucking decision, though."

"And yet we all pay the consequences."

Disheartened and exhausted, and done with the conversation, I took my coffee and left the kitchen. I went to the office, which was a bit of a mess since I'd been in there a lot the past 24 hours taking the place of my sister. She was supposed to be having a lunch/public meeting with the president of a neighboring country tomorrow and I was still trying to figure out how to finagle my way out of that one. I was thinking I would send Reaver in her place, as cancelling it all together when the president, Mr. Blance, had already flown in, would look very bad. Reaver was the next best thing to Arabelle, considering he was sort of near-King status, but he still wasn't yet royalty and his background was unknown and what little he had divulged was fabricated. Several journalists had tried to dig up dirt on the fiance of the Queen and came up completely empty, with not even a birth certificate to show for their efforts. When questioned about this he had dismissed it by way of saying that Reaver wasn't his birth name and so, obviously it wasn't on record. Who knew anything with that guy, really. He was a complete enigma to everyone I think besides perhaps Arabelle.

Sitting down at the desk, I waited for the computer to boot up. Wishing my coffee had an edge of whiskey in it, I leaned back in the seat and sighed as the welcome screen came up and I opened the email. The inbox loaded each of the 123 new emails since I checked it this afternoon and I began scanning through them, seeing what was important and needed responding to and what could be pushed aside until later. As I was doing this I felt a prickle in the air that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up and disturbed, I glanced up at the sudden feeling that I wasn't alone. Low and behold Reaver was sitting in the armchair across the desk from me and I almost jumped out of my seat but merely swallowed my noise of surprise instead.

"Why does fucking everyone do that?" Angry, I slammed the laptop shut. The emails could wait. Reaver was back and he had the supplies.

"Do what?" he inquired, picking a piece of lint off the sleeve of his black velvet blazer.

"Scare the living shit out of me every chance they get."

A small smirk quirked the side of his mouth. "You'll need to get used to it. You're the only human in a house full of supernatural species."

"God, I am." I realized, hands cupping the warm mug in front of me. I wasn't sure how I felt about that right now. Glancing down at the dark liquid inside my cup, I looked back up at the dark-haired demon across from me. "Any chance you could spike this with whatever mystical powers you've got going on?" I tapped the side of the mug, which had the family crest on it; A vine of black ivy intertwined with a serpent wound around a bow. Our ancestors were famous archers. I myself had never picked up a bow, despite my parents wanting me to on more than one occasion.

He shrugged. "Are we ready?"

"Almost. I want to wait until Kasper gets here."

"The detective? Why?"