CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Birds of a Feather
S
omething about Tally was different. Falcon couldn’t put his finger on it, but it bothered him. She’d hummed in the shower and hadn’t even cursed his closet gnome when it wouldn’t give her a pair of socks. She seemed
happy
.
He did realize that on the surface that sounded like ten kinds of shitty. Falcon wanted her to be happy, but the way things were headed, the world was going to end swallowed by a wolf. Maybe it was the kind of manic joy that came with just saying “fuck it”?
Falcon wandered downstairs to warn his mother and brothers that Tally had spent the night—and would be spending the night for the foreseeable future.
He saw his mother, Stardust, fussing over some potion or another on the stove. The house smelled like homemade chocolate chip cookies, still gooey from the oven. His mother was cruel that way. Not intentionally, of course. She knew how her boys loved homemade cookies. It was just the ones that came out of her oven never tasted like cookies. Sometimes sawdust or ferret bedding, but never cookies. Potions she could do, but cooking—he was sure there was actually a law against the way she did it.
“Just where the bloody hell have you been, boy-o?” Raven demanded as Falcon walked in and dropped a kiss on his mother’s forehead.
“You’re not British,” Hawk corrected him.
“No, but I like to say ‘bollocks’ and ‘quim.’ ” Falcon imagined Raven could feel the ghost of his mother’s hand connecting with the back of his head from the look she fired his way. “And that I love me mum,” he added.
Stardust Cherrywood smiled back at her son and went on about the business of whatever witchery she was brewing on the stove.
Raven took the opportunity to add, “And Dred’s black book says it will get me laid. The thing talks. Can you believe that?”
“I’d believe just about anything when it comes to Dred.” Hawk shrugged.
“You didn’t answer the question.” Raven smirked. “And tell us about the Amazons.”
“Better than that, Raven. I got you a date with one.”
“You’re serious?”
“No,” Falcon snorted. “You couldn’t handle the Valkyries.”
“You said they canceled?”
Falcon smirked and it bloomed into a sly grin. Raven punched him and Falcon blocked, until Hawk got behind him.
“Total dick move, Hawk. Dick. Move.”
“Take your lumps,” Hawk fired back.
“Okay. I’ll take them, but I’ll keep the Amazons’ WitchBerry numbers.”
“Maybe I was a bit hasty,” Hawk conceded and released him.
Falcon slapped down two business cards and animated warrior women danced across them.
“Do we get the lust potion you dip your arrows in, too?” Raven asked excitedly.
“Hell no. That would be like slipping them roofies. What’s wrong with you? You’re lucky Mom didn’t hear you or she’d kick your ass. Or worse, make you eat whatever that is trying to crawl out of the Crock-Pot.” Falcon shook his head and then ducked, just as a wooden spoon sailed past his head.
“Sorry, Mom. I have to be honest. It’s an angel thing.” Falcon supposed it was beyond ironic that he was lying. About the angel thing, not about her cooking.
Stardust’s scowl warmed to a smile. She motioned for Falcon to come back over to her and he did, even though he knew what was to follow. He presented his face and she pinched his cheeks and cooed to him about how proud she was of his Crown Prince of Heaven status.
Then he braced himself for the slap. He always got the slap for dying. It always hurt like hell, too. The Trifecta had decided at a very young age that their mother had needles in her hands. She was like a porcupine and could summon them at will to slap the ever-loving hell out of them when they’d been particularly bad.
He smiled at his mother before she slapped him. Falcon could understand her dismay. If he hadn’t taken the Cupid job, he’d have stayed dead. It would break her heart in a million pieces to lose any of her children.
Instead of slapping him, she just patted his cheek. “You’re a good boy, Falcon. Not like those other two. How’s Drusilla?”
How to answer that one? Hot and tasty?
“She’s good. You can ask her yourself. We had a bit of a problem with the house and we stayed over.”
“You’ll take good care of our Tally,” Stardust said with a warm smile. Her warm, dark eyes sparkled with mischief.
And how did he know it was mischief? Because he’d seen it mirrored on his brothers’ faces before they’d all stomped directly in exceedingly deep piles of shit.
“Mama—” he began. He always called her “Mama” when he was trying to get his way. It usually worked.
“Well, I’d just hoped that one of you would marry her. I love that girl like my own child and I want her to be a part of the family.”
“That doesn’t explain the sparkle in your eyes, woman,” Falcon teased.
“Now that my son is Cupid, I’d think he could indulge his aging mother with an arrow to one of your brothers.”
“Like hell,” Raven growled.
“Mom, the witch has a great and terrible evil in—” Hawk started.
“She does not!” Falcon’s wings exploded out of his back and he looked every inch an avenging angel ready to smite his hapless brothers.
“Whoa! You’re a little touchy there, Falcon,” Hawk said.
“Oh, my Goddess! You fucked her?” Raven’s mouth fell open.
Stardust took the opportunity to hex a bar of soap into his mouth. “You watch your mouth. Especially about our Tally.” She turned to Falcon. “If you’re engaging in relations with that witch, you’d better treat her well, Falcon. I don’t care how big your wings are, I’ll still take a wooden spoon to your butt.”
“Mom, it’s a Shall Not.”
Liar
.
“Oh,” she said as if she understood. “Well, what about shooting one of your brothers for her?”
“I’m not shooting my brothers.” Hell no, he wouldn’t shoot either one of them. They were on their own. Not to mention, the idea of Tally with either one of them pissed him off like a bear with his head stuck in a beehive with no honey.
“Well, thank Merlin for that,” Hawk said and Raven nodded along, the soap still in his mouth.
“You should know, Hawk—” Falcon squinted at him. “I can see your aura. It’s a little pink.”
“
Your
wings!” he shot back.
“Yes, dumbass. I’m aware of my wings. I’m telling you though—your aura is pink already. That means you’re in love. You’ll save yourself a lot of trouble if you just admit it.”
“Look, just because my girlfriend’s pregnant doesn’t mean I’m in love.” Hawk froze and his head turned toward his mother with all the recalcitrance of a rusty hinge.
Stardust Cherrywood turned a shade of red best reserved for candy apples, nail polish, and fast cars. “She’s what?” Her eyebrows shot up into her still-dark hair like rummaging rodents.
Raven snickered around his soap.
“If you can still talk, that bar isn’t big enough.” Stardust shot him a look that would’ve been more at home on a vengeful goddess.
“I wanted to tell you, but I knew you’d be a little upset,” Hawk ventured, his hands out in front of him in supplication.
“Who is this girl and how far along is she?”
“She’s due in a month. It’s a boy. We named him Orion.”
“When’s the wedding.” It wasn’t a question, not really.
“Neither of us wants to get married.”
“After I talk to her family, she will.” Stardust nodded as if that would make it so.
“She’s not a witch. She’s mortal.”
“Uno che va in culo a sua madre!”
Stardust gripped the counter for support.
Falcon had to stymie a snicker. She’d basically said “motherfucker.” Since Hawk’s woman was pregnant, he found it to be an ironic word choice. Hawk looked for a moment like he was considering how fast he could get out of there and whether it would worth the curses she was sure to fling at his head when he got back.
Tally’s laughter echoed from the stairs and she wandered into the kitchen. “Mama Stardust, what did they do now?”
Stardust continued on in a rush of heated Italian, but Tally just put an arm around her shoulders and stirred the bubbling brew on the stove. She’d always been good at soothing his mother.
Stardust sighed and explained what had happened.
Tally just smiled that secret smile she’d been wearing since they woke up. “I think Merlin may actually know what he’s doing. It will all work out. I’m sure of it.”
“Which of my boys do you want? I will give you one. You will marry him and give me fat grandbabies.”
Tally didn’t look at all like the deer in headlights he felt like. She simply kept smiling. “You know, I’ve always been particularly attached to Falcon. He taught me to ride my first broom, you know. I think I’ll take him.” She winked at him.
Stardust clapped her hands together. “Good! We’ll plan the wedding today.”
If Falcon had been a lesser warlock, he might have pissed himself.
But Tally managed his mother in a way no one else could. She kissed Stardust’s cheek dutifully. “Thank you, Mama Stardust. But we have to wait for Falcon to shoot himself with one of his love bullets before we can do that.”
His mother’s eyes narrowed with a predatory gleam. “Is that all?
I
will shoot him.”
Tally laughed again, the sound light and musical to his ears. He liked her laughter. “No, no. I was teasing. You always told me things will happen in their own time. And they will. Both for me and for Falcon, even for Hawk and Raven.” Stardust was still making a face. “Just like they did for Middy.”
“Okay.” She seemed resigned. “But, it wouldn’t hurt to have it all planned, would it?”
“Tally is going to work with me today. No time,” Falcon interjected.
“We’ve got to go to work, too, Mom.” Hawk grabbed Raven by the collar of his shirt and yanked him out the back door. They forgot their brooms, but Falcon knew they wouldn’t be back for them any time soon.
Stardust kissed both him and Tally on the cheek. “You be careful. Spread some love. All the worlds can always use more.”
He grabbed Tally and flashed them to a cloud, where he charmed a picnic to spread itself out before them. “It can’t hurt to have lunch before we put our noses to the grindstone, right?”
Tally giggled, genuine joy on her face. “A picnic on a cloud? I thought they were all mist? This feels like one of those bouncy houses Middy and I loved as kids.” She bounced up and down to demonstrate.
“One of the perks of being Cupid. I’m supposed to hang out in cloud cover and shoot the unsuspecting.”
He wondered if he should bring up her discussion with his mother or if she would. She’d said she didn’t want any kind of a relationship. They’d had the discussion, but the way she was talking with his mother it was like she expected something to suddenly change.
But she didn’t say anything. She kept popping grapes in her mouth and leaned back on the cloud, seemingly content to watch the world below drift by.
“Oh!” she squealed and popped up onto her knees. “Give me your love gun.”
“I, uh, just gave it to you again this morning.”
“Warlocks.” She shook her head. “Give me the gun or the bow and arrow. Hurry up!”
For one horrifying moment, Falcon thought she meant to shoot him. Until she jerked the gun out of his hand and aimed it at a young girl who was sitting on a bench in a park down below. She was crying, sobbing like her heart was broken.
Tally aimed and fired.
Falcon could suddenly see everything about this girl, the path of her life, and whom she would love. Whom she was meant to be with. As soon as Tally’s bullet hit her, it splintered in half. Those branches that had grown from the tree of her heart withered and died; new branches erupted and bloomed. The new leaves were brighter, more vibrant than the old ones representing the man she was supposed to be with, the one who’d made her cry. His branches withered, died, and the soil of his heart went fallow.
Together, they would have both bloomed, but she was obviously better off without him. And he ended up with no one.
“There! All fixed.”
“Tally, you can’t just shoot people randomly.”
“It wasn’t random. I knew she’d be happier.”
“How did you know that?”
She shrugged. “I just did. It was like she was a seed. Her love was the tree she’d grow into.”
Tally had seen that girl’s path with
his
magick! “If you saw that, then you saw what happened to the other boy she was supposed to love.”
“The other boy she was supposed to love was unworthy. Why should she have to suffer so he can bloom? Her leaves and branches were stronger, brighter, and her life will be better without him. His blooms were small and sickly anyway.”
Falcon felt like they were talking about him and Tally rather than the girl Tally had shot. “Who are we to decide that?”
“First, it’s your freaking job. Second, we’re not. Not really. Nature does. Survival of the fittest, right? Those sad little bursts wouldn’t survive the first freeze. The first bit of trouble between them and they’d wither and die.”
“Just because a love hasn’t yet bloomed into what it could be doesn’t mean it wouldn’t ever.”
She sighed. “Right, but again, why should that girl who loves with her whole heart have to suffer until he decides she’s good enough?”
Oh, they definitely weren’t talking about those other people anymore.
“If she loves him, wouldn’t that be worth it?”
“No. Not for one second. He will never love her the way she loves him. So, I saved her a lot of pain. If he never loves, that’s his loss. His failing. It shouldn’t be hers when she was so obviously made to love.”
“I don’t agree.”
“That’s why you’re a shitty Cupid.”
“I wouldn’t even be Cupid if—” He snapped his mouth shut and leaned back on the cloud.