Page 16 of Nash

“I wouldn’t be the one that I am now had you done that.The plan had been right.Put me in a place where I could learn about the humans and make a plan so that they could help with the lands and waterways.Had I been at the castle, there wouldn’t have been any new information, not like we have now.I missed you, too, but we have the rest of our lives together now, and we will be able to have the best memories together going forward.”She asked her about Nash.“What about him?He’s going to be there as well.Right?”

“I should hope so.”They both laughed.“He’s a good man.One that I had hoped would make you happy.He seems to have been able to do that.”

“I love him.So very much.”Mother nodded and told her that it showed on her face and in her eyes.“Thank you.He’s made me very happy, and I know that he will continue to do so.However, he wants to make you happy as well.You should go and talk to him.He and his brothers are hanging out at the big house.I think they’ve decided to have it torn down rather than remodeled.There aren’t all that many memories there for the six of them, and I think that starting fresh will give them all a better outlook on life.”

“I can help them with that.You and Nash, too.”She asked her mother what she meant.“You’ll see.I don’t have all this magic at my disposal just to make the earth clean and pretty.I can make a house green and full of good ideas as well.Yours and Nash’s home will be efficient and well-maintained.Just as it should be.”

“I’m sure you have much more important things to do than to help build us a house?Besides, do you even know what a hammer is?”She tsked at her.“Well, I think it’s a good question.Also, what would you do differently than what we’re planning now for our home?”

“Everything.”The ground beneath her feet rumbled, and she had to hold on for a second before looking at her mom.“It’s done.”

It scared her somewhat, those two little words.It’s done would imply that she had taken it upon herself to build the house the way that she had wanted it.Not that it mattered.She and Nash both were sick of living in the little house stuffed full of boxes that they couldn’t open and set out yet.This might be the best thing ever for all of them.At least, she hoped so.

Chapter 8

Nash loved the house.So did his brothers, apparently, as he couldn’t seem to get them to leave his home.Laughing when Sunny came into the kitchen with them, he wasn’t the least bit surprised when she told them that after dinner was over, they were leaving.They had shit to do.

“You’re such a spoiled sport.Did I tell you how much I love this kitchen?”Beau had just started classes to become a cook.Not a big time chef or anything like that.But he wanted to be able to make himself and, hopefully, someday, his mate a good meal that didn’t take them away from their home nightly.“I didn’t know that most of this stuff existed.Much less how to use it.Will you give me lessons when you get it figured out?”

“Sure.The next time I make a huge assed meal that has seven courses, I’ll do that.”She smacked his brother upside the head.“Don’t be a moron.I don’t know how to cook.Just get the manuals on the shit and read them.That’s the only way I’m going to—not that I plan on being domesticated or anything like that, but there are books on all this stuff in here somewhere.If you want to be really blown away, you should go out and have a look at the greenhouse.There are herbs and things in there that I’ve never heard of.”He didn’t bother thanking her but left to do just what she had suggested.

Nash reached for Sunny to pull her into her lap when she looked stressed.Nash decided he’d distract her enough that she could relax and let him know what was going on.It couldn’t no way be about his brother wanting to learn how to cook.

“Our food is going to be delivered soon.I don’t know when it happened, but there is a large dining room table in the room down the hall.Also, I forgot to mention that there wasn’t a dining room when I was down there.It just appeared like it knew we were going to need a room to accommodate all of us when they came over for dinner.”She asked him if he thought that the house would change to their needs.“Sounds about right, I guess.It’s as good a reason as I could think of.By the way, we have staff too.I don’t know who they are as yet, but they keep appearing around the house, and I’m trying my best to ignore them when they’re suddenly there.I do know that Lily said that the house was magical, so I’m going to let things go as they are until it becomes too much for me.Not there yet, but soon, I’m thinking.How are you doing today?”

“I saw one of the help.I guess they’d be called upstairs when I went to find out if we had a bedroom or not.We do, so you know.There are nine bedrooms in this place, and all of them have been furnished since I walked into them.That fucking freaked me out a little.Bedroom furniture just suddenly appeared.It’s nice, don’t get me wrong.It’s all the things that we picked up when we went furniture shopping.But it’s been set up and is ready for guests.”He told her that he’d been in the living room thinking about how a fireplace would be nice, and then they had one.“Yeah, I’ve decided not to think about shit while I’m hanging around in this place.Also, before I forget, the things that we bought to fill out the house are already out in the rooms.The little birds that are blown glass are sitting on the window sill, just waiting for the sun to shine through them, too.If you ask me, it looks like we picked the things out with this house in mind, but I’m not going to think too heavily on that either right now.”

When the doorbell rang, he didn’t bother getting up to see who it might have been.More than likely, it was the food, but he had been told several times since his brothers started arriving that he had staff now and needed to allow them to do their job.He heard the voices of his brothers as they entered the large dining room to set things up.

“Do you think that if we were to just sit in here, that they’d eat their fill then leave?I’ve had about enough of them all being here.”He laughed and told her his opinion on them leaving.“Yeah, I’m thinking that you’re right.They’d just come looking for us and annoy the shit out of us more.”She stood up off his lap and looked down at him.“The sooner we get them fed, the sooner they’ll all go home.I don’t know about you, but I think that I could sleep for a couple of years and not think a thing about it.”

He had to agree.The stress of the last few days was weighing heavy on his mind and sometimes his heart, too.He’d not been a big fan of his mother or grandfather, but they were both dead now, and he couldn’t help but feel their loss.

Grandfather had attacked Josiha when mother fell to the floor.Her head, removed by their leader for daring to detain him, had rolled across the floor and right at the feet of her father.He stood there for several seconds; it seemed so much longer, but that was all until he looked around the room at them all.

“Don’t you even care?Look what he’s done.”It was then that he leapt, as his cat at the other man, and it took the six of them, as their cats, too, to remove him from their leader and calm their grandfather down.However, within seconds of them releasing him, Grandfather snarled again and then leapt at his throat.It was iffy there for a bit on whether or not he was going to kill all of them in the process.As it was, both he and Archie had been cut up, but it was Beau who had gotten a few broken ribs.

Dinner was a fun affair.Dinners with their mother had always been social but not very noisy.No conversation was started unless Mother had approved.She’d actually call them the day before dinner to give them a topic of interest to study up on so that if there was time, we’d have something intelligent to talk about.Tonight’s dinner was mostly about the upcoming houses they were building.The food they were sharing and what plans they all had over the next few weeks, waiting for things to be settled up with the estates of their father and grandmother.Insurance claims had to be reworked due to them being murdered and not dying of natural causes, as their first death certificate had stated would take a few days more.

“I’ve gotten with an estate attorney, and he’s working on gathering things up for you guys.I swear, had I known what this was going to entail, I would have just given you the shit long ago.”They had a good laugh about that.Archie was never one just to hand something over to someone.He would want whatever it was fixed up so that you’d not have to mess with it nearly as much as he did.He was a good man about that sort of stuff.And he couldn’t have loved him more about it.“Anyway, all the property is put into each of your names.It’s being divided up equally between the six of us, and I’ve already made sure that you can add your mate’s name to the deed as soon as you wish.Nash, as per your request, yours already has Sunny’s on it.”

“Thank you for that.”There were other things, too, that had been divided up, and most of them had a monetary value on them that they’d not have anticipated.Rental properties that Dad had put into their names.Jewelry that he’d put in safety deposit boxes for each of them that held a great deal of gems and other items that had been in his family.None of which, come to find out, had ever been worn by their mother.“I saw the house coming down this morning.It surprised me at how quickly it came down.I don’t know why, but I figured that it would take weeks for there to look like nothing had ever been there.Are you going to build on the same place?”

“No.I’m not going to build anywhere near where the house was.There is a spot that is more off the road that I’ve fallen in love with.I’ve spoken to Lily, and she said that she’d have a start on it soon for me.There are large trees surrounding it.A little pond back there.She said that when she’s finished, it will look as if the house had been put there, and then the forest grew up around it.That’s what I wanted.”Archie exchanged a look with Sunny before he continued.“I know that we’ve all decided that we don’t want to be up each other’s asses all the time, but it’s really good to know that we can just walk to each other’s homes when we need to.To be honest with you, I like my solitude very much.But just knowing that each of you is so close to me that I could walk over is more appealing than I ever thought it would be.”

“I agree.”They hugged then, something that he was only just realizing that they do a great deal of now.He was closer to them, too, than he’d been even six months ago.He was far better off having them in his life than he’d been before, too.They were no longer his enemy.They weren’t pitted against each other either.That, he thought, was worth every second of the feelings that he had against his mother for what she’d done to them all.

Nash hated his mother.Maybe that was a little harsh, he thought to himself, but he was sure that he had never loved her.It took him until this morning to come to terms with the fact that he didn’t much care for his father either.He should have done more for them when he’d been alive, he’d told Sunny, rather than waiting until he was gone to make their lives better.

“I would have loved to have been able to spend time with him, learning more about becoming what he wanted us to become.Grandmother too.I don’t hate her; she was as beaten as we were, but father should have done something about mother so that we could have a reasonably better life than we had.”Sunny hadn’t said anything, and that had nearly caused them to have a fight.But he had come to realize that she’d been right in not saying anything almost the moment his temper flared a bit.“You’re thinking that because of what he did, it made us better men, right?Or some bullshit like that.”

“No.I don’t think that at all.Apparently, you’re out to pick a fight with me, and I’m not in the mood.”He watched her face as she glared at him.“Do you think it made you a better man?I have no way of knowing.You were a prick when I met you.And so you’re aware, I don’t like this part of you either.Picking a fight with me isn’t going to bring him back.Let me ask you something, Nashville.Do you think your father would have liked being murdered?Or do you think he might well have wanted to be around now so that he could hold your children?Get to know your mates?Those are the questions you should be asking yourself.Instead of going on about how he had slighted you in some way, you should be thinking about how he’s missing out on shit too.”

She’d left him there.Stewing, Beau called it.And because he’d sat down with him in the kitchen after Sunny had left him, he got an earful of about how Sunny didn’t understand.That had not only earned him a snort from his little brother but also a good fight in the yard when he decided that he was just too stupid to know what the adults were talking about.Nash rubbed his shoulder, where he was still sore from Beau showing him what a full-grown cat could do to someone who was stupider than he was.

After dinner was cleaned up, Sunny had shoved them out of the house.She said that she needed no drama and that they needed a good long run.He couldn’t remember the last time that the six of them had gone to the woods to run, and as soon as he shifted to his other half, he could feel a freedom that he’d not been allowed in years.It felt wonderful to be able to run and play with the others where there was no malice, anger, or even the need to draw blood.

~*~

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