Four-Letter Words by Evans, Gabrielle (top 10 books of all time .txt) 📗

“What is he talking about?” Raith leaned against a bookshelf with his arms crossed over his thick chest. “What are you hiding, Torren?”

There was only one reason their eldest brother would keep something important from them. “Addison,” Thane surmised.

Torren’s oldest son was still locked away on Hell’s Alley, and he would remain there until they figured out what to do with him. His crimes against the paranormal world were too great to number, and he deserved a lot more than a stone cell as punishment.

It had been over a hundred and fifty years—and an entire lifetime ago for Torren—since Addison’s disappearance. A lot had happened during that time, and someone had clearly expended a great deal of energy to sculpt the kid into the monster he’d become. Thane just didn’t understand why.

“I’m not hiding anything.” Torren scrubbed both hands over his face, rubbing at the stubble along his jawline. His hair was a tangled mess, held haphazardly back from his face with a rubber band. Dark circles swept under his eyes, and Thane wondered just how long it had been since his brother had slept.

“Just tell them what you told me,” Nix encouraged. “It might be nothing, but it could be important.”

“We have to keep Addison sedated so he can’t use his magic against us, but he’s still lucid.” Torren paused to take a deep breath and let it out slowly, displaying a rare sign of vulnerability. “He knows things. He even asked if Zasha’s hand had healed. No one has said anything about that night to him, but he describes details he shouldn’t know.”

“Maybe he’s a telepath,” Thane suggested. It was the easiest explanation and made the most sense.

“I thought that as well,” Torren admitted with a slow shake of his head. “Last night, he told me to offer his congratulations to Mikko. It was something sarcastic about first steps being a big milestone.”

Mikko had been making steady progress toward recovery, and just the previous night, he’d actually been able to take a few steps on his own. It was a move in a positive direction, but Thane didn’t see how this disproved his telepathy theory. “The guy is a dick, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t pull the thought from your mind.”

Torren shook his head again. “I didn’t know Mikko had taken those steps until after I had come back from Hell’s Ally.”

“Well, that changes things.” There had to be a logical explanation for the things Addison knew. “Maybe one of the guards is feeding him information.”

“I don’t think it’s one of our guys,” Raith said, but he didn’t sound firm in his conviction. “I’ll talk to Tober, though. It can’t hurt to investigate the theory.”

“Maybe he’s compelling you,” Lynk suggested. “He is part vampire.”

“No.” Thane’s tone became somber, melancholy. “I can’t look him in the eye.”

They tossed around a couple of other possibilities, but each seemed less likely than the last. In the end, they were right back to where they’d started, and their only immediate course of action was to question a few loyal Enforcers. Thane still held out for a simple, logical reason for Addison’s knowledge of their lives.

“He knew I was mated to Kieran,” Lynk added. “Back in the mines, when he was taunting Kieran, he knew who I was.”

Addison could have been studying them for years before they’d met in Nevada. Considering the extremely short amount of time Lynk and Kieran had been mated, it seemed highly unlikely that Addison would have that bit of information, though. “Maybe it’s something like Nix’s gift,” Thane suggested. “I don’t know if it’s exactly seeing the future, but it could be similar.”

Not only did this idea appeal to every man in the room, but it actually made sense. Paranoia was making them all jumpy, leading them to look for trouble where it didn’t exist. Something unusual had definitely happened during his latest journey into Purgatory, but he’d gone in knowing he was racing the clock.

If the spell had already taken root, it could have split the levels of Purgatory in preparation for the lowering of the veil. That was actually a probable explanation for what he’d experienced, and Thane felt like an idiot for not considering it sooner.

“Are we happy with those answers?” Torren asked.

Everyone answered in the affirmative, but a tension remained, hovering over the group like a dark, depressing shadow. Perhaps they simply wanted those easy answers to be correct.

Without any way to test their theories, it had now become a waiting game, and patience wasn’t exactly one of Thane’s virtues.

* * * *

When another six weeks passed without anything drastic or devastating happening, Thane leaned heavily toward his theory that Addison possessed some gift that would allow him to see certain events. The asshole hadn’t left his cell, and Torren was dragging his feet on setting a date for the hearing. No one could pay Thane enough money to be in his brother’s shoes right then.

They’d reunited more of the children with their parents, leaving only four residing within the gates of Snake River, though there was talk of moving them to the nursery at Haven. Of the four, they’d actually located one kid’s family, but it hadn’t ended in tears of joy as it had with the others. Sadly, the couple were elitist fuckers who cared more about their status and public appearance than their child. As soon as they’d learned their precious little boy had been syphoned of his magic, they’d acted as though he’d contracted the plague. Sometimes, Thane really hated people.

“You look constipated,” Zasha commented.

“I’m thinking.”

“Ah, that would explain it.” Laughing loudly, Zasha danced out of the way when Thane lunged for him. “You gotta be quicker than that.”

It was a gorgeous spring night, pleasantly warm with a gentle breeze that carried the scent of honeysuckle on the air. October and Raith had gone into town for dinner and a movie, giving Zasha the night