Xenos
"Why'd you drag me out of there?" a pissed off Zephyr hissed at me as we continued our trek outside of his safe house "I need to be in there when they have that conversation. I need to know if they're scheming together or if another clue pops up."
"No, you don't" I said firmly, pulling him along "Let them have their conversation alone for now. Ethan will let you know if something happens."
"When did you become soooo considerate?" he snarled at me.
I shrugged "About the same time you became a dick."
He sent curses my way and yanked his arm out of my grasp, stomping ahead of me like a petulant child.
Zephyr's Hellhound Shadow, who currently took his original form of a Rottweiler while on earth, nudged my left leg.
I scratched his head and sighed.
"Am I being too hard on him?" I asked.
He nudged my leg again and nodded, his white lifeless eyes looking from me to his owner before looking back at me.
I sighed again.
"I'll fix it" I said softly, following my cousin as he continued to stomp his way to an area I knew he visited frequently.
The Cemetery.
Specifically, the acreage of land behind the Matthews Crypt that was currently being guarded by four Wolves.
He paused at a weathered oak tree, which looked on the verge of tipping over, and gazed forlorningly at the newly sealed crypt.
I paused at the other side of the tree, waiting a few minutes before breaking the comfortable silence.
"I'm sorry for what I said back there" I murmured soft enough for him to hear me but not loud enough for the wolves to pick up my voice "I didn't mean to add more salt to the wound."
"You're not really sorry" he sighed, running a hand through his hair "And you didn't add anything more than what was already there."
I couldn't deny his statement, considering how I wasn't sorry for what I said back there.
I didn't regret my words but I did regret the way I harshly delivered those words to him.
At his words, or...better yet... for the lack of mine, we were lulled into a stony silence.
"Did you know?" he asked suddenly, his voice a mere whisper as his crimson eyes locked with mine "Did you know this whole time that Cerberus wasn't my biological brother? Did everyone know but me?"
I shook my head "Zeus and Hera never mentioned anything to me."
"But they must have known" Zephyr stated in a dull, matter-of-fact tone "Because those two know everything and anything that happens around them."
"I'm sure that they did know" I agreed with him, knowing first hand how involved my parents were in everyone else's business "But I'm not really sure why they never mentioned anything to me or my siblings."
I hesitated for a millisecond but being the ever vigilant person that he was, Zephyr caught onto that hesitation quickly.
"What?" he said, standing straighter "You know something, don't you?"
I nodded my head slowly "I didn't really pay attention to this at the time but one day, when Cerb was about sixteen, I ran into him on Earth going into this sketchy shop. When I asked him what he was doing there, he got angry at me. Like Hades level angry. Told me to fuck off and mind my own business before stomping away."
"What was so special about the shop he was visiting?" Zephyr asked "And what made it seem sketchy?"
I hesitated again before sighing, knowing that he wouldn't give up until I told him everything and anything I knew from that one moment.
"It was a place of worship for the followers of Hecate" I said slowly, gauging his reaction "I got curious on why my little cousin was there and why he didn't want me to know about it. When he left the shop, about an hour later, I went inside and snooped. They were...let's just say they were practicing some rituals that they thought would possibly work in order to break their Maiden Mother out of Tartarus."
He sucked in a sharp breath.
"He's been planning this for nearly ten years?" he murmured, his tone betraying his overwhelming rage "And you didn't think to tell anyone about what you saw?"
"I didn't tell anyone because this was right around the time when he started acting out about not having gifts of his own" I said pointedly "I thought he was trying to figure out why his powers were dormant, like Phebe's. How was I supposed to know that he was planning world domination at the age of sixteen?"
Zephyr remained quiet as he listened to me.
"You couldn't have known" Zephyr said after a few minutes "I didn't even notice and he is...was...my brother. We were living under the same roof for God's sake and I didn't even notice that he was one hundred steps ahead of me this whole time."
Another lull of contemplative silence.
In that lull of silence, I watched as a pretty woman, who I was sure was in her late forties, walk up the trail behind the crypt and give the guards a warm smile.
They smiled back at her and stood straighter at their post, bowing as she unlocked the crypt and slipped inside.
We were far enough away from the Crypt that nobody could spot us but, close enough to it that we could see everything that happened on the Matthews Land.
I had no doubt that Zephyr also took the extra precautions in cloaking his hideout with a Blessing branch or concealing spell that he learned from his Grandmother.
Zephyr's sharp intake of breath gave me an idea of who the woman was to him.
His Mate's Mother.
His future Mother-in-Law.
"You're going to have to tell them." I said, ripping a rose from the bush next to me and plucking away at its dying petals.
I licked the blood off of my thumb from the prickly thorn, noting how large the thorn itself was (no doubt because of my sweet cousin's gift) before giving him my attention again.
"Tell them what?" he asked, remaining stock still and stone faced.
Clever...I'd give him that...
It would have worked if I didn't already know all of his tells.
Force of habit in my family.
The "Get them before they get you" mentality that was engraved into my very being the moment I became aware that this 'family' wasn't considered a family at all.
More like...chess pieces on a board called Life.
Expendable, replaceable, and could be used as collateral damage at any given moment.
From a young age, I'd made it my mission to learn all the tells of my family in order to better protect my younger sister Phebe from their backstabbing ways.
I'd first learn my parents ticks, then the tells of the older Prats I called my siblings, before analyzing all the tells of my Uncles and Cousins.
Zephyr and surprisingly... Persephone were the toughest ones to analyze though, considering that their tells were harder to recognize since they were easily confused with normal body responses.
His muscles tenses ever so slightly before he'd force them to relax and if you looked closer at his eyes, the literal window to his soul, I could momentarily see the slight violet color bleed into his crimson irises before receding fast.
He was his mother's son through and through.
A brave facade and smile in front of others but melancholy eyes that never matched their jovial expressions.
Their eyes were always giving them away before their mouths evened opened.
I smirked at his attempt of acting stupid.
"You know what" I said pointedly, my thumb accidentally snagging on another overgrown thorn "Let's not insult my intelligence and pretend otherwise."
More annoying silence.
"And what is it that you think you know?" he asked.
"That Serenity's body isn't the one in that crypt" I said, nodding towards the heavily guarded tomb "She's alive...isn't she cousin?"