Tarnley
I’ve always been relatively patient. When you’re immortal, you have to be. Otherwise, you’ll go crazy waiting for the next big thing when everything around you moves at a much slower speed. The endless monotony of waiting for the caterpillar to turn into the butterfly—while glorious as it is—is something one can only take so many times.
So, over the years, I have cultivated my patience to be something I can rely on. But right now, waiting for Ridley to return is driving me fucking mad. He’s been gone for nearly a week now, and ever since Deissy and Felix were attacked, they’ve been stuck inside the house while the rest of us take turns having Fearghas glamour us so we can go out and attempt to find people to back us up. Which, so far, has been a complete fucking waste of time.
Bella has fit right into our flawed little group, though. The succubus spends most of her time playingYahtzeewith Deissy or drawing character art of the rest of us. Rainey as a cartoon? Fucking hilarious.
Me? I look like a child’s nightmare since she felt the need to add my fangs.
I glance to my right at Bronywyn, who is still pretty damn pissed at me for taking on that succubus two days ago, though I suspect it has more to do with the dark fae masquerading as her mother. She still hasn’t talked to me about it, and not knowing where she stands is killing me.
“Let’s see who you can be tonight.” Fearghas comes to a stop right in front of me. He rubs his hands together and closes his eyes. Magic pulsates around me, and within a handful of seconds, there’s a new me in the reflection of the hallway mirror. Although I still feel exactly the same on the inside, when I glance around him and into the mirror hanging on the wall in front of me, a middle-aged man with silver hair and green eyes stares back at me. It’s creepy as hell.
I reach up and trace the lines of my face, something I will never get to see in reality given that I don’t—and will never—age. “You made me old.”
“Silver hair is in right now.” He stops in front of Bronywyn and repeats the magic, transforming her from a petite blonde to a tall redhead. She glances down at her hands, then stares at herself in the mirror as he winks and adds, “Looking like a gorgeous firecracker.”
He moves to a stop in front of Rainey and grins. She rolls her eyes. “I swear, Fearghas, if you make me a teenager again—” she trails off as he ignores her, completing the spell for a third time and turning her from a short brunette to a leggy, busty blonde wearing nothing but a tiny scrap of fabric that barely covers nipples and ass.
Elijah snorts, and Rainey glares at Fearghas. “You said not to make you a teenager.”
“I didn’t mean turn me into a hooker, either!” She glances down at the breasts barely contained within the leather corset before she raises her eyes and glares back at him. “My boobs should have their own zip code.”
“I don’t hear Elijah complaining,” Fearghas shoots back.
Rainey whirls on Elijah, and he carefully—and intelligently—keeps his gaze from dropping. “You prefer me this way?” she demands.
“Absolutely not,” he replies, easily. “You were perfect just the way you were.”
She glares at Fearghas in triumph, then stares down at her boobs in disgust. “These things are going to get in the way when I fight. Is this even an actual size? No way natural ones get this big.”
“Use them as a weapon,” Bronywyn offers. “I bet you could knock someone out with them.”
She purses her lips. “Maybe. But if I get hurt because of these tits, I’m going to smother you,” Rainey snaps at the fae.
He shrugs. “I can think of worse ways to go out.”
Elijah growls.
“Not that I want to be smothered by yours,” Fearghas adds, quickly. “It’s just a blanket statement.”
“Uh-huh,” Elijah replies as Fearghas comes to a stop in front of him.
Within moments, Elijah resembles a younger man with a mohawk and gauged ears.
“So he gets to be a rockstar, and Tarnley gets to be a grandfather?” Bronywyn asks, looking between us, a grin on her face.
“Tarnley wasn’t about to rip my head off.”
“True,” I say with a grin at Elijah. “Head removal is a specialty of Elijah’s. Mine tends to be more around the throat.”
Fearghas chuckles and holds his hands up over his face. When he pulls them back, his features have morphed into that of an older, middle-aged man with sandy-blonde hair and brown eyes.
“You guys all look fantastic.” Delaney pulls out her cell phone and snaps a picture. “For the grandkids,” she says with a sweet smile.
“Yeah, yeah.”
Based on the look Cole gives her, he does, in fact, know about the baby. Though I’m not sure if it’s because she’s finally told him, or he senses it. Even now, I can hear the fast heartbeat of the life growing inside of her. It gives me hope—hope that there are futures beyond this war for every single one of us.