Tacet a Mortuis Read online

  “Girl, do you like seeing him mad? The man is lethal, I wouldn’t be poking the tiger.”

  “Actually, I sort of do, but I am mad at him. I need… answers. I just need answers.”

  She sighed. “I don’t blame you.” Pulling out some clothes she brought with her. After getting frustrated with my average closet, I turned in a huff, my eyes falling on the see-through mesh long sleeve dress she was holding.

  “What is that?” I pointed to it. It was probably one of the most scandalous things I had ever seen, which meant I had found my outfit.

  She threw it at me. “You’re to wear like, a tank or something underneath,” she mumbled, but I was diving into my closet, pulling out a little black lace bra. It had straps that lined over my breast skin and was all held together by lace and scandal. I wiggled on the spot with glee. Oh, this was perfect. Then I paused. What the actual fuck was I going to wear as pants. I couldn’t go in underwear, I didn’t want to get killed, so I took out tight little leather boy shorts from my top drawer.

  “Are these yours?” I dangled them in front of her face.

  “There they are!” She went to launch for them, but I snatched them into my chest.

  “I’m wearing them tonight.”

  “Fine,” she grumbled, taking out a white dress. “I’ll wear this.”

  “Good idea,” I nodded, heading to the bathroom. “You look good in white.” I’m setting everything on the counter when Nate’s side opens. Ignoring him because I’m used to doing so, I unclasped my bikini while holding my breasts from his view.

  “What?” I snapped.

  “Are you coming to the party?”

  “Yes,” I hissed, reaching for the faucet and turning it on.

  “You can both come with me, and have you heard from Bishop?”

  I shook my head. “No. I haven’t checked my phone, though.”

  Nate glared at me, and I quickly slipped under the pelting hot water. “Anything else?” I called out, annoyed at his presence.

  The door slamming was all I got as a reply.

  Daemon

  One two three four five six…six…six…

  “Shush!” I roared to the internal battles inside of my head. Creeping down the dark and gloomy corridors, I pressed the palm of my hand against the damp concrete wall, my head tilting at the sounds.

  Deep breathing was coming from one of the rooms. One of the many rooms in this quarter. The island was separated by quarters, each functioned by your importance to the Elites and your lineage. This was the royal quarter, also known as the Regiis quarter. Then there was the Secundus quarter, Tertium quarter, and finally, the Nihil quarter. Each faction was eloquently designed for their cause. The royal quarter was exactly as it was. I inched farther, closer to the white door where the sounds were coming out from and pressed my ear to the frosted wood.

  Deep breathing was coming again, and then a faint scream.

  “That’s it, keep going. You can do it. Push.” The door swung open and Jaysena, one of the nurses on the island was staring back at me.

  “Sir.” She bowed. “Are you ok?” Her head remained dipped, her eyes searching the floor. So timid. So docile. So “Kill her, I’m sick of seeing her face.”

  ‘Shut up,’ I shouted in my head, my strength at keeping the voices under control getting better.

  “Fine. What is happening?” She got what I was trying to say, and gestured wide, allowing me to see inside the room.

  “A Swan, my lord.”

  I tilted my head, and a girl with pink hair that hung down to the dip in her waist was crouched, hugging a baby wrapped in a blanket. Her eyes came to mine, and she whispered, “Please, don’t say anything yet. I’m best friends with your sister, my name is Tillie.”

  “I’m done.” I smoothed my hair down. I decided on flat and straight for tonight, sharp enough to slice some Kings. Obviously, the liquor was hitting me at full force, but I swiped my phone off the drawers and tucked it into my bra. The little see-through outfit I was wearing was to die for, but I totally wouldn’t wear this if I were sober.

  “I’m ready too,” Tate slurred, standing on her wobbly legs.

  “Impressions, we were going to make some impressions.” I was chanting to myself as my door swung open and Nate’s eyes fell on mine.

  “What the...” he paused, his mouth hanging open as he slowly took in my outfit. His eyes flew from my face to my breasts, to my feet, and then back again. “You can’t rock up like that, sis.”

  I shoved past him. “I can do what I please.” We all headed out of the house and I got into the front of his Audi.

  He fired it up, shaking his head. “You’re in fucking trouble, girl.” I didn’t care. At that very moment, I was drunk and pleased with myself. I hadn’t heard from Bishop—at all, since I left his house yesterday, so I was feeling… irrational. But I still had his gift in my pocket. We turned the music loud and started dancing. I hit play on “Sex with Me” by Rihanna and Tatum started singing the lyrics in the back like a twit, accentuating every word. Nate picked up what she was doing and laughed. We all fell into a breezy trip and it wasn’t long until Tate pulled out her phone.

  “Yo! Smile.”

  I turned my head over my shoulder with a smirk, my hair tricking over my other shoulder, throwing up deuces, and Nate flipped the camera off, his eyes staying on the road.

  “What was the caption?” I asked, just as we pulled hit the city.

  “When incest looks hot.”

  “Tate!” I snapped, and Nate broke out in tears, his laughter not looking to subside.

  “Jase ‘liked’ it.”

  “Of course he did,” I muttered just as we pulled underneath an underground parking lot.

  “And of course Bishop owns a five-star penthouse, I mean, totally logical.”

  Nate chuckled, shifting the car into park. “Yeah, understatement of the century, wait until you see this set up.”

  We rode the way up the elevator, Nate punching in a code that took us straight to Bishop’s penthouse. The doors spread out and opened onto a sea of young people and rock music blaring through all the bodies. I couldn’t even admire the house as much as I would have liked because there were people everywhere, but from what I could see, it was set up like a three-story loft. I walked to the edge of the little balcony that the elevator opened out on and peeked at the place.

  Nate gestured to the back of himself. “Basketball court, too.” He shot us a wink before disappearing. He was acting weird lately, weirder than usual.

  After taking the two steps down onto the main lobby, I snatched a drink from a waiter passing by and took a long swig. I felt people’s eyes on me, but I ignored them all, focused on my search for Bishop. The song moved to “It’s a Vibe” from Ty Dollar sign and I couldn’t fight the eye roll. Obviously, Nate had found the sound system.

  I started slightly pushing through the bodies and taking the two steps down from the lobby and kitchen area, down to the open sitting room when my eyes fell on Bishop who was stretched out on the sofa. His bare chest rippled under every movement, his tattoos flexing along with them. He had a red bandana tied to the front of his head, jeans that looked to have been out in the sun for a beat too long, and since he hadn’t actually texted me since a couple days ago, I was trying hard not to make it obvious how much I was checking him out. And—yep, he was drinking again. His eyes collided with mine and I felt as though the air was sucked out from my lungs. Machine Gun Kelly started rapping about being a “bad mother fucker,” just as the rim of his bottle touched his lip. His eyes stayed on mine, as the corner of his mouth slowly kicked up in a grin. I was hoping for a reaction. A caveman Bishop—if you will, but all I got was a brush off. Jesus. Was he still holding a grudge about Nate, Brantley, and I? I guessed it would be valid since he had let me off on it lightly, but I knew Bishop. He was calculated. He did everything for a reason and he performed it with expertise. Or maybe I had broken him a little, but even as I thought those words, I knew th
at that wasn’t possible. You just couldn’t break someone like Bishop. He was too… unbreakable.

  So I did what any sane girl my age would do while under the influence. I yanked my eyes from his and went in search of my partner in crime. Bypassing the sea of people, I found myself again, annoyed that I couldn’t truly appreciate Bishop’s new condo, with the influx of women and—few men. Huh. There were more women than there were men. Surprise, surprise. Yet again, I didn’t know what game he was playing at, and before I could allow my brain to begin sifting through the possibilities, my toes started to tingle and my legs wobbled like jelly. Maybe I shouldn’t have started drinking so fucking early. Searching for a room—any room—away from all the people, I shoved through a pair of black doors and came into what I was guessing was the master bedroom. There was a bed that looked as though it was floating in the center, a large television hanging on the wall opposite, and directly in front of me was a wall of glass overlooking the city. The sheets and blankets were all silken black and red, and even the little seat that was in the corner was more like a throne in blood red leather. There wasn’t much else to the room—the penthouse itself felt more like an art studio. It wasn’t warm and inviting, and on that thought, I started backing up, ready to get the fuck out of here while deeply regretting even attending. Tate and her stupid decisions. Slowly stepping backward, I collided with a hard wall of muscle and a small squeal leaped out from my mouth. Jumping around to see who I backed into, Hunter’s piercingly dark eyes were glaring down at me.

  I calmed my erratic heart down. “Hey.” My newfound brother and I weren’t really on great terms, so I was still unsure of how I should step around him.

  “Figure we may as well get this talk over with.” He tilted a large bottle of bourbon up to me, and then brushed past, heading straight toward the window. For a brief second, I considered running, but I’d been wanting to see Hunter for a while now. Since he found out about us being biological siblings, he had gone more than cold on me, so, I followed him to the window, looking him up and down. He looked good, like they all did. Wearing jeans and a tight fitting black shirt, you could almost make out the lines of muscle in his arms.

  “I’m sorry.” Because I was obviously shit at this—being an only child all my life and all, ‘I’m sorry’ was the first thing that came out of my mouth.

  He snorted and then raised the bottle to his mouth. “What exactly are you sorry for, Madison?” He didn’t look at me, he merely kept his eyes forward, watching as the busy streets of the Upper East Side remained awake.

  “I don’t know.” I followed his line of sight. The tension between us was loud. “Existing?” A chuckle slipped out before I could stop it and his eyes slammed into mine.

  “This is funny to you?” he accused, his eyes narrowing on me. They dropped to my lips and then to my eyes. “I wanted to fuck you, and then I find out that the girl I used to pull off on is my sister…” he smirked. “I guess that makes me a little sicker than Brantley, and that’s saying something.” His eyes went back to the window.

  “You’re not sick, Hunter,” I muttered, swallowing past the emotion that was threatening to surface in my throat. “And you weren’t the only one who had thoughts…”

  His movements stilled. I took this moment to reach over and snatch the drink from him, wrapping my lips around the rim and tilting back, letting the warm liquid slide down my throat. “There was this one time,” I laughed, suddenly realizing how bad this was about to sound. I swiped the residue from my lips and handed the bottle back to him. I could feel his eyes watching me as he absently took the bottle from me, waiting for my confession. “I had this very intense dream that involved all of you. In my head, I had already fucked you, so there, I trump yours.”

  There was a long pause and I couldn’t bring myself to look him in the eye. “And if you tell anyone, I’ll kill you.”

  Suddenly, his laughter cracked through the cold room and my eyes snapped to his, catching him rubbing the tears from his cheeks. “Well, yeah, that makes me feel a little better, but I can assure you, I fucked you in my head too.” After that, I felt a sense of calm come between us. A lot easier than what it was a second ago.

  “Tell me about Daemon and I’ll tell you about your biological parents.”

  That was unexpected. I hadn’t thought much about my biological parents, mainly because I didn’t have time to. My life was an information dictionary and I was constantly being fed the unedited version that had to continue to be revised and changed.

  “Well,” I started. “I don’t know much about him because he’s new in my life, but what I do know about him I go off instinct. Probably some sick twisted twin thing, but it’s hard to explain. I don’t know him, but I know him. It doesn’t even make sense, it’s like a bond of natural instinct. He doesn’t speak much English, but he’s fluent in Latin—like all of you, only better at it—no offense—”

  He chuckled, throwing his hands up. “Hey, none taken. He’s a Princeps Lost Boy. Latin was his first language.”

  “So weird,” I added absently. “Anyway, he’s… different. It didn’t take me long to figure that out.” Hunter stepped backward, falling onto the bed. I turned to face him, my back pressing against the brisk glass. I slid down until I was seated on the floor. “I don’t really know what’s wrong with him, but Bishop and everyone keep saying he’s different.”

  Hunter searched my features. “I’m not going to lie to you, or hide anything from you because I feel like you’re in this shit way too deep to not know, so I’m going to do you a solid and tell you that yeah, Daemon is different, I guess you could say.” My jaw felt as though it had hit the floor. For once, someone was being straight up with me. Hunter continued, his eyes carefully watching mine as if he was waiting for a reaction. “He has a—I guess you could say—a form of schizophrenia, only, a lot darker.”

  I faltered. “Schizophrenia?”

  Hunter dipped his head. “Only it’s worse for him. He has six ‘voices,’ only they’re not voices.”

  “Okay.” I was totally not handling this very well, but I wasn’t about to disappoint my new brother by being a little bitch, and besides, I didn’t want to make him regret opening up to me. “What are they?”

  Hunter gave me a somber look. “Demons.”

  “Say what now?” I cocked my head, floored by his response. “Demons aren’t real.”

  “To you and I and everyone else who walks this earth, sure, but in Damon’s head, they’re so very real, Madison. His head is a very, very dark place. That’s why we couldn’t trust him with you, and that’s why we know he was the one who shot you.”

  My eyes closed from the pain those words caused. I had always questioned it deep down. I mean, the evidence was there, but my denial was stronger than any evidence. I couldn’t believe that he would hurt me, and in essence, he didn’t. The sharp stab to my heart, though, proved that I was still hurt by it.

  “I know,” I whispered out hoarsely, wiping away the tears that had come out. “I knew it was him. I guess I was just in denial, and I still to this day don’t think he would hurt me.”

  “I believe you’re right,” Hunter agreed. “About him not wanting to hurt you, but Madison, he’s not always Daemon.”

  That hit home for me. Was it going to be possible for me to have a relationship with my twin brother? Or was he just too sick to even know? My heart snapped a little in my chest.

  “Anyway, tell me about your parents.”

  Hunter snorted. “Well, I wish I could tell you that they were amazing parents and would welcome you with open arms, but, Dad is always away for business and my mom is sick.”

  “Sick?” I asked, my head tilting.

  Hunter nodded. “Yeah, she only has a few years to live.”

  “I’m sorry,” I muttered, realizing that me and these guys have so much more in common than any of us would ever care to admit.

  He shrugged. “It’s life. Jase and I have been doing this shit since we were lit
tle. Well, Jase was the one who raised me—mostly. My dad just provided the funds.”

  “So these Kings, they all grow old and just—stop giving a shit? I see a pattern here.”

  He chuckled. “Probably. Not sure where the disconnect is, but yeah, I’d say you were mostly right. Except for Hector.”

  “Hector?” I quirked an eyebrow. “He’s a good dad?”

  “The best. He may be a scary fucker, but there’s nothing he wouldn’t do for his son. It’s something we could all do with.” Once again, I’m wanting to ask about Nate’s dad, but that would make me a shitty person if I took Hunter’s good deed for granted by using this. Nate would tell me when he was ready. Or until I fought it out of him eventually.

  “Which brings me to my next thing,” Hunter announced, standing from the bed and reaching for my hand. “There’s something you probably want to see right now. But, I’m going to say that you won’t like it, but, I’m sorry. Bishop does want you there and as much as I’ve loved our little bonding chat, he’s my loyalty.” These damn boys and their loyalty.

  I followed him out of the room and down the long hallway. The crowds of people had died down a little to what they were earlier, so it was a lot easier to surf through. Hunter took a hard left turn, pushing open another set of doors, these ones tarnished wood, and when they opened, the smell of rubber mixed with sweat shot up my nostrils. My eyes went straight to the crowd of people who were bunched in the middle, cheering, yelling, and screaming with their hands flying over their head with cups grasped in their hands.

  “What’s going on?” I asked skeptically, my eyes staying on the crowd.

  “This is Bishop’s basketball court room, but tonight, it’s also a fighting ring.”

  “Oh no,” I muttered, barely above a whisper.

  “Oh, yes,” Hunter announced, taking my hand.

  “Who?” I asked as we made our way to the crowd, who were now spreading out. It was making it a lot easier for us to step through the bodies.