C H A P T E R T H I R T E E N

{Truth of the past...lies of the future}

Water dripped slowly off the jagged edges of the cave walls, running through the cracks and crevices in the floor like blood through veins. The tinkling sound was quiet, barely heard over the loud voices of the occupants that were lounging on the couches.

David, lit cigarette stuck between his lips, leaned his shoulders against the hardback of the wheelchair and watched his mate and her friend talk heatedly in hushed tones, tucked away in a dingy corner of the room. She was clearly exasperated if her waving arms were anything to go by and only became more frustrated when Cassius just stood with his own arms crossed indifferently.

After his admittedly blunt question, Cassius hadn't seemed to know where to begin-so, he'd grabbed her and hauled her off to discuss things privately. David wasn't too happy at having to wait for the uptight prick to pull his head out of his ass and actually start the tricky conversation. He'd sent Marko out to get some food, conscious that their mate hadn't eaten a whole lot today, she had even said so herself.

The little patience he possessed ran thin and he harshly stubbed out the cigarette on his gloved hand, tossing it haphazardly and ignoring Paul's outraged cry when it landed in his gravity defying hair; said man leaping to his feet and thrashing his head wildly to dislodge it from the unruly mane.

Pulling himself up he approached the arguing pair who were silenced by his heavy footsteps and faced him at his interruption.

His lips quirked antagonistically, a challenging air surrounding him. "So, are we actually going to get to the point any time tonight?"

Rolling his eyes, Cassius childishly looked away from him and refused to acknowledge him. Clearly he wasn't happy about whatever they'd been arguing about.

Sighing sharply Hesperia struggled to smile, still relentlessly staring down her brother like a scolding mother once more. It seemed to be a common occurrence. "Sorry about that. Someone is being a drama king and making a fuss over nothing."

Furiously Cassius turned with a snarl; stopping in his tracks when he met her unfaltering hard edged expression. They seemed to communicate silently between themselves before Cassius slumped with defeat, but addressed David with a mocking smirk.

"Yep, I'm making a fuss over nothing."

He hissed the words in her ear like an angry snake and knocked into her shoulder when he passed her, ignoring everyone and isolating himself on the couch in the corner.

David scowled and raised his eyebrows, an unasked question in his eyes when he looked at her as she came to stand next to him. She smiled derisively, shrugging like his attitude hadn't affected her.

David's anger spiked when he watched her blink away tears, seconds away from tearing the assholes head from his shoulders.

If Cassius had been anyone else they'd be dead by now, torturously torn to bloody pieces and burnt into nothing for talking to her that way but it was tricky-he didn't want to hurt her, so the sorry prick was safe. For now.

Wanting to change the subject so she didn't have to remain upset, he decided to bring up something that had been plaguing his mind. "So, you learnt our names earlier sweetheart but we still don't know yours."

She blushed at this, the smell of her blood heady in the air. His eyes nearly flashed yellow before he reigned himself in. The scent of jasmine and orange was nearly overwhelming-there was no denying she smelled absolutely delicious.

Thankfully he was distracted by her musical chuckle, attention captured by her midnight hair that shone in the moonlight when she shook her head. "Wow, that's just like me to forget to even tell you my name. It's Hesperia."

Hesperia. It was hauntingly beautiful, just like her.

"That's a mouthful, doll. Got anything else we can call you by?" Marko made himself known with the question and the loud thud his boots made when he dropped in from the cave's entrance, impressively carrying the heavy bag full of food like it weighed nothing.

"Uh, well...I don't really have any nicknames."

She jumped when Paul suddenly popped up in front of her, grinning like a shark. "No worries girl, we'll give you a new one!" He placed his arm heavily over her shoulders and hummed in thought, swaying them side to side.

"What abouuut...amore." He spoke with the worst fake french accent she'd ever heard, looking down at her and wiggling his eyebrows suggestively.

"Yeah I'm gonna have to pass on that one. Try again, Vince Neil."

"Damn girl, harsh. Okay then, what about...angel?" This time it was Hesperia and Cassius who shared a secretive and amused glance between themselves, not going unnoticed by David or Dwayne.

"Why angel?" She asked, shrugging a disappointed Paul's arm off her shoulder so she could fall tiredly onto the couch next to her brother, stretching her arms above her head and groaning with relief when they popped. She was so tired, it didn't help that it must have been around twelve or one now.

"Because," Paul exclaimed, sitting across from her once again, half lidded gaze floating to peer at every detail of her beauty as he leaned forward, "You're the most beautifulust girl I've ever seen."

"Beautifulust ain't a word, numb nuts." Dwayne corrected, and from the tone of voice he used he did that a lot.

She scoffed out a laugh at both Dwayne's lack of patience and Paul's incorrect compliment, thinking maybe he was joking...but his face was firm and serious. So much so, she knew he really wasn't kidding.

Well...she'd never been told that before. Normally people tended to think she was crazy and didn't give her the time of day.

Flushed with the heat of embarrassment, she didn't know where to look and began to chew her lip to stop focusing on the way her heart fluttered weirdly, failing to avoid watching the way he was looking at her, like he was enamoured with her every slight move.

They all made her feel things she'd never felt before. She just didn't know, under his attention, if she loved it or hated it.

Coughing to draw his slowly becoming leery appreciation of her to focus on her visibly agitated face, she shrugged with a lilt of her head. "I appreciate that, but no one's ever told me that before. Guess you're one in five billion." Trying to sound nonchalant didn't really work out, she just sounded like a shy idiot.

Was she ever going to stop embarrassing herself in front of them? God, these were the times where she wished she had some experience with intimacy and live interests, but any she'd tried to have Cassius had always scared off.

Paul snorted so derisively, like it was the most ridiculous thing he'd ever heard. "You're kidding right?" When she didn't budge and shook her head he was genuinely shocked. Appalled even, huffing, "Well, I'll be damned. I guess I'll just have to be the one to keep telling you how sexy you are. We can work out a way to convince the other 499,999,999,999 people on the planet some other time."

An uncomfortable and yet fond giggle escaped her and she was even fruther mortified when he chuckled in return, raking his eyes up and down her body without shame again. This time, though, she could practically feel the way he was undressing her.

This one was definitely the flirt.

Cassius, ever the grouchy mood ruiner, nudged her to get her attention. He was looking at her disapprovingly and she knew it was because she was being nice to them all and actually attempting to have a good time.

'Sue me for trying to make the best of a bad situation, Cas.'

He frowned again for the tenth time that night after hearing her thoughts; she didn't care and just shoved his hand off her shoulder. If he was going to act like a pouty bitch that was his problem, she wanted to actually enjoy herself.

A creak gained her attention. David was back in his wheelchair, in fact all of the boys now sat around them.

"Alright princess," It was painful to admit it but she was beginning to love the drawl of his voice. It was no surprise it was raspy given he smoked like a fucking chimney, he even had one lit now. "Enlighten us. How did you and your little friend here meet, hm?"

She pursed her lips in thought, not really sure how to answer. She couldn't just outright say 'Oh yeah I was depressed and grieving my murdered parents and he showed up as this really terrifying shadow, our souls bonded so now I'm the sister to a fallen angel.'

They might possibly freak out just a bit at that.

"He's my brother."

Yep. Simple it was.

They all seemed to deflate in relief, like a huge weight had been lifted from their shoulders. Marko, through his relief, was confused.

"You don't look all that similar." He said curiously, biting at his nail. It was adorable how inquisitive he was-in fact he was just kind of adorable in general with his curls and large, sleepy lidded doe eyes.

Cassius answered this time, rife with pride. "We're not real siblings, we chose each other as family." His voice was sentimental, like he was remembering their first meeting as she often did.

Dwayne for probably the first time that night decided to engage with Cassius. "Nothing wrong with that, sometimes your chosen family is better than your real one." The deepness of his voice rivalled David's but it was definitely more baritone-it was a crying shame he didn't speak more.

Marko and David nodded, the statement ringing true for everyone in the cave.

Paul, buzzed on the effects of the joint he was quickly burning through, was either extremely stoned or just had no concept of boundaries. "Well what about your real families?" He questioned, flicking the ash on the floor.

The question was met with stony and somber silence.

Unable to handle the sudden agonising bout of grief that hit her, the tears that collected on her lashes or the way every pair of concerned eyes in the room were now staring at her, Hesperia cleared her throat and stood up, wincing when her voice wobbled with tears.

"I'm just gonna-uh...go and get some fresh air. I'm sorry."

She kept her head firmly pointed at the ground as she left, even ignoring Cassius when he called her name and tried to stop her.

Gnawing at his lip, Paul looked over at Cassius, his dislike for him momentarily forgotten. "Ah crap, did I say something?"

Marko scoffed, tearing his eyes away from the entrance to stare incredulously at his youngest brother. "Of course you did, you idiot. All that weed must really be fucking with your brain cells."

They glowered at each other, backing off when David snapped at them both to cut it out.

"What happened?" Dwayne's serious question spoke over the background bickering made Cassius shift uncomfortably, for like his sister he wasn't too fond of having all of their eyes on him.

"Look," His tone was heavy with worry, it was the first time he hadn't sounded sure of himself. "This really isn't my story to tell...maybe we should wait for her to come back."

They relentlessly stared, and it was unnerving and he was alone and he'd always been flakey. Without Hesperia there to distract him, he began to cave under the pressure. "Okay, fine. You'd have found it out at some point tonight anyway I suppose."

They leant forward, eager to know something about their mate even if it wasn't all that good.

"There is one thing you should know first, one thing that only she knows. A secret that I was so reluctant to have spilled to all of you-that's why we were arguing. I may not know anything about you but for whatever god forsaken reason you seem to care for her, more than anyone I've ever seen. So, here goes. I am...a fallen angel."

They were silent with shock, almost frozen in place. A beat of silence passed, then another before Paul burst into laughter.

"Ha! That's a good one, really." He continued to giggle and snort to himself for a moment before he fell silent, the grin stretched across his face disappearing when he looked at his brothers and saw how serious they were, not once taking their eyes from the silent man.

"He isn't joking Paul. It was obvious to me that something was wrong with him, think back to his scent." David's voice was harsh. He had no time tonight for Paul's joking and carefree attitude, not when everything was at stake.

David was right of course. Now that he actually thought about it he remembered the horrible smell that was covering hers, how it had made them all so angry, how...abnormal it was. That same smell, that he only just now cared to notice, filled the room now Hesperia's pleasant one was gone.

Falling back into the cushions he blinked at Cassius. "Well, shit."

"Believe me, I didn't want to tell you any of this. I know there's something not right about you all; I wanted to take my sister and run but my own curiosity about you and concern for her stopped me. I don't know what it was that night that caused her such pain but I vowed that under my power it will never happen to her again, so here we are. I need you to know this, or nothing will make sense."

This was surprisingly shocking to them. As far as they were concerned, they were one of the only supernatural creatures to exist; they weren't so arrogant and to think there was nothing else out there, but they'd never even seen or come close to another before-except for now.

"Years ago, I was wandering from state to state, trapped in a lonely hell, invisible to the human eye and cursed to live amongst the filth that was humanity, to watch as they committed their sins and destroyed each other. I ventured up to Alaska, to escape the vermin and the noise, to find a small refuge amongst nature. That was when I felt it."

They were listening intently now, unable to detect a single lie in his tale.

"I followed this...pull, this strange niggling pain in my soul that I knew wasn't my own. I ended up in Alaska's capital, Juneau, outside of a huge home surrounded by the forest. The sadness and the grief that lived inside the abandoned house was so...palpable-you could almost feel it in the air. There were no birds singing, no animals inhabiting the surrounding dying trees, no wind. It was utterly deserted. That was when I heard it, the only sound that could be found in that desolate corner of society-a cry."

He paused, taking a deep breath as he relived the event that changed his life. Leaning back into the couch he stared at the floor, finding the will to continue.

"I've always been a curious person, too much in some cases...maybe that's why I was cast from heaven, I don't know. So I wasted no time to enter, what was the harm after all if whoever it was couldn't even see me? Then I...I found her."

The boys all tensed, Dwayne was even unsure if he wanted the fallen angel to continue, especially when Cassius smiled sadly and tears shone in his eyes under the dull candle light.

"She was so small, so alone. I realised then that it was her sadness, her grief that almost consumed you. She was in so much agony that for the first time since my exile to this world I felt something, I felt the overwhelming urge to help her. I remember walking towards her, even if she couldn't see me I still wanted her to at least feel like she wasn't alone. Imagine my shock when her puffy eyes open, when she looks right at me."

He sniffed and chuckled in disbelief, like he couldn't even believe it had really happened. For the first time since meeting him the boys began to feel like maybe they'd...misjudged him.

"I didn't know if it was even real, if maybe in my loneliness I had just imagined all of this. But, it was clear she could see me, I'd never seen someone look so afraid. I don't know why, but I didn't want her to fear me...I wanted her to talk to me. So I calmed her and when she opened her eyes again I was...normal. I was no longer the black shadow I had been for centuries, I was me. I knew then, this wasn't a coincidence-it was fate. When I looked into her mind, it was utterly devastating. She'd lost her entire family, stuck in a city where she couldn't go anywhere without all eyes on her, without false sympathy. We were two beings, alone in this world and filled with uncontained rage and agony, we were meant to find eachother. Through our pain we were bonded, and neither of us would be alone again."

The cave was silent, the only noise the dripping of the water on the stone.