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“As long as you’re not mothering everyone else to avoid your own issues,” I teased, knowing that wasexactlywhat she was doing.
Aria rolled her eyes, spinning on her heel and disappearing into the bedroom while I got dressed.
She’d never admit to it, of course, but I knew that she’d liked Neo. He’d been on her side from the start, and from what I’d gathered, he’d also been the only person to realize right away when I’d gone missing.
He would be sorely missed—and he was probably going to be smug about it if he ever got to peek down at us and see how mopey everyone was without him, the bastard.
Aria was gone by the time I dried my hair and wandered into the bedroom, so I slipped on my shoes and decided that I might as well head up to the training field. The twins had been obsessive about keeping everyone in shape lately; they’d be thrilled I’d shown up to spar, I was sure.
Stepping off my porch, I nearly tripped over a tiny blond girl in an oversized hoodie who was barrelling toward me.
She stumbled to a halt right before she could run into me, her big brown eyes gazing up at me with a bit too much irritation to be comfortable. However, recognition flashed in her eyes for some reason, and she quickly composed herself.
“Sariel Ambrose, right?”
Her voice was bright and high-pitched. The girl couldn’t have been older than nine, but she was well-spoken, bordering on formal when her hands folded behind her back.
I was immediately suspicious. “That’s me. What can I help you with?”
“Your s— dad is Azazel, right? That makes you half-fallen. What’s it like?”
I frowned, trying not to let the kid see how uncomfortable I was with the random question. “It’s… I don’t really have a reference for what being non-fallen would be like. I’m just me.”
“You don’t have any bursts of rage or insanity? Like a demon might? Azazel’s pretty crazy.”
My knee-jerk reaction was to lash out at the implication that I was anything like Azazel or had inherited his insanity, but I willed myself to relax. It would be entirely unreasonable for me to go off on a kid for something that she might not even have meant.
Still, I glanced over her head, searching for some kind of parental figure and coming up empty. Why was she running around unattended?
“I can get angry sometimes, yeah. But I’m not like Azazel. He’s a really bad man.”
That seemed like a child-appropriate way of calling him a fuckhead. However, she didn’t appear to agree, judging by the deadpan look I received for my dumbed-down answer.
“A really bad man,” she repeated flatly. The way she was speaking almost mademefeel like the child here. “Okay. Are you sure you didn’t inherit any weird rage like fallen-bloods and demons do?”
I looked away from her weirdly sharp gaze. Seriously, whose kid was this? “I… Before I met my mate, I was a lot more unreasonably angry, sure. But I don’t know if that was because of being half-fallen or just having to be around Azazel so much.”
I wasn’t sure why I was telling her this, but her adult way of speaking seemed to have caught me off guard. She crossed her arms, looking somehow more agitated than I did despite the factIwas the one getting the third degree.
“Did he hurt you when you were my age?”
Bristling a little at the personal question, I prepared to give her a lecture on being nosy when I spotted Auren turning the corner.
Out of nowhere, the little girl turned, went wide-eyed, and bolted, taking off up the path ahead as he stalked down the road toward me.
I watched her go, feeling like there was something I was missing. Maybe Auren was scarier to kids than I was, though I couldn’t imagine why.
“Hey,” Auren called out. He also looked after the little blond before shaking his head. “I just… I wanted to check on how you were doing, after everything.”
Wouldn’t Aria be thrilled? It was too bad she’d missed him; she’d have been jumping for joy if she’d seen this.
“I’m coping. Honestly, the girls are more upset about Neo than Johnny or me.”
Neo and Marilyn had known one another for the longest out of our little group—or at least knownofone another—but since the witch had been picked up by the Paras, Reese was the only one really hurting. Johnny was more hung up on the fact that his girl had been kidnapped; he hadn’t spoken to anyone in days, either, but mostly because he was pissed off at me for leaving her behind.
“I tried to talk to Reese, but she’s not coming to the door,” Auren admitted, swiping his hands down the front of his jeans before tucking them into his jacket pockets. Fair enough.
“How areyoudoing?” I asked, feeling like it was the right thing to do, if a bit uncomfortable. My brother winced, then shrugged, looking at the street as some kids hurried up toward the field. “I made a bad call sending you all out there.”
