Page 53 of Magpies & Mayhem

“That’s a nice stick,” my brother commented, and then we made our way back down the hill.

Epilogue

Jordan

Theeveningsunisfinally beginning to loosen its grip on me, and I stare at the ceiling, trying to sort through the scents and sounds assaulting my senses. There are too many people in my new house, and they all smell like they’re related to Sidney. Well, most of them. I also smell Levi and Elara, which means I can expect to find a picture of the wolf-boy from Twilight taped to the underside of my toilet lid. Or maybe he’ll switch it up and use Bigfoot again.

Sidney’s footsteps approach our door, and she quietly cracks it to peek in at me. I close my eyes again, pretending to sleep. The door creaks open farther, and a flurry of footsteps give me just enough warning to brace myself for her impact as she lands on top of me.

“I know you’re awake,” she says quietly, though her arrival was anything but. “Your guests are waiting.”

I frown at her in the darkness of our room and wrap my fingers around the back of her neck in the way I know she likes, enjoying the feel of her shiver. “They aren’tmyguests,” I mutter, pulling her toward me so I can taste her mouth. Her lips are hope and pleasure as she relaxes into me and matches the pace of my kiss, and I could swear this is what love tastes like. The sound of her heart rate increasing as her tongue flicks against mine and her chest heaves against me turns my hands into grasping things that want to clutch her tightly and haul her deeper into the darkness where no one will bother us. “Let’s just stay here until they all go away,” I growl against her mouth.

She laughs, and my heart flutters pitifully at the sound. “We can’t. It’s our housewarming party. My grandmother cooked for you. I don’t know if you can actually eat any of it, but just make some appreciative noises and pretend to be grateful,” she whispers against my bottom lip. She laughs again as I groan out my dismay.

This is one of the hazards of becoming a magpie’s mate, I suppose. Social creatures that they are, they come with an extensive accompaniment offamily. Especially this one. Sidney tells me not to pout as she climbs off the bed and tries to pull me up, careful not to bump the precious vase of sticks on her nightstand. As if I can’t just give her more. “It’s just a few hours,” she says, “and then you can drag me back to your lair and have your evil way with me.”

With that promise, I haul myself from our comfortable bed and trip to the bathroom to make myself presentable. As I suspected, a teenage werewolf stares at me from under the lid of the newly installed toilet.

A few moments later, I creep into the living area to find Levi and his heavily pregnant wife seated on the couch. Sidney’s youngest brother, Josh, is in a chair nearby, peppering Elara with questions about the dragon magic she can feel on my mate. In the small kitchen, Sidney’s diminutive, white-haired grandma is bent over the table instructing Josh’s boyfriend about something she’s pouring into a baking tin. Sidney’s mom—a stocky, muscular woman with tanned skin and short, blond hair is getting a workout pulverizing something in a mixing bowl. There are a lot of people in our small house, and I can hear more in the yard.

The kitchen door slams open, and Sidney’s dad stomps in, bringing in the scent of meat cooking on the grill, and pulls his hat off—whacking it against his thigh to knock the dust off. James is balding, and about the same height as Sidney and her mom. I have no idea where her brothers get their towering height from. “Sharon, I give up!” he grouses. “These boys are squirreling around every which way, and I’m not going to stand out there waiting for them anymore.”

Sidney’s mom glances at her husband and shrugs. “I don’t know what you’re expecting me to do about it. They’re your kids through and through,” she says with her usual level of exasperation before returning her attention to her mixing bowl.

“Dad, sit down,” Sidney tells him as she breezes into the kitchen. “This is supposed to be a party. You guys have been out here nearly every day for months, working on the roof and the plumbing and everything else. Let them have their fun.” She presses a kiss to the top of his head as he takes a seat at the table and pours him a drink of lemonade. Such a different relationship than I had with my own parents growing up.

Boisterous laughter echoes outside five seconds before the door is thrown open again and Sidney’s dark-haired brother Aaron steps inside clutching a cloth bag with something moving in it. “I’ve got a bird in a sack!”

Sidney jerks upright, instantly angry. “You leave Pidgy alone!”

“Who’s Pidgy?” Aaron asks. “I’ve got Sam.” He’s clutching the top of the sack closed while the bottom flops around, muffled squawking sounds coming from inside.

“What’s up with the flirty pigeon anyway?” Sidney’s dad asks over his shoulder. “He’s fixing to get eaten by that dragon.”

I move to the window to look outside, knowing Sidney will be unhappy if he eats a bird. Huck is laying on some exposed rock next to the house, enjoying the residual warmth from the sun. The pigeon in question is sitting on Huck’s back, currently being thoroughly ignored.

“He followed me here from Dry Gulch one day and never left,” Sidney grumbles. “They seem to have made some kind of peace.” As I watch, Pidgy jumps down and begins to do a weird little dance in front of Huck, bowing and vocalizing. Huck doesn’t even bother to open his eyes.

The energy in the kitchen is a little too overwhelming for me, so I slink back over toward my old roommate and take a seat in a chair across from Josh as he excuses himself to grab a drink. Elara looks mildly uncomfortable, though whether due to her stage of pregnancy or due to also being overwhelmed by watching Sidney’s family hustle and bustle about, I have no idea. Levi is ignoring all of it, engrossed in the Chuck Tingle novel that Sidney instructed me to hide in his room.

“What are you reading?” I ask, feigning ignorance about the book he’s holding.

Levi reaches up without looking and pushes the embroidery hanging behind him askew. It’s the terribly stitched, ‘Home is where the vampire is,’ gift he made for me. Sidney insisted on bringing it to our new house when we moved in.

“I’m just killing time waiting for you to get your ass up so we can play some Settlers,” he mumbles. He reaches into a duffle bag at his feet and pulls out my favorite board game, setting it on the coffee table in front of him, and then turns the page of the book.

This party just became a million times better. “I guess it’s good that Grim couldn’t come,” I joke. He’s theworstsheep thief.

Levi smirks because heknows. “He sent a housewarming gift.” This time he does set the book down, balancing the open pages on his knee so he doesn’t lose his place, and reaches down to pull out the gift. A package of rock salt, a little pot of sage, some strongly scented incense.

“What the hell?” Sidney asks from the kitchen, stalking into the living room to peer at the objects on the coffee table. “Is he trying to tell me our new house is haunted?”

Levi picks the book back up and finds his place as he answers her. “Is that what salt means? I’m pretty sure he just wanted to gift you some cooking and house stuff.”

Sidney jerks back, blinking at Levi repeatedly before shaking her head to clear it. “I forgot to put my ear cuff on,” she says, referring to the enchantment ward she wears to block his siren’s magic. I’ve never had a problem with it myself, so I guess blood magic must block it on its own. She stumbles toward our bedroom, where she keeps her jewelry, pointing at the table as she goes. “That’s ghost stuff, Levi! People use that to keep ghosts out! A reaper would know that, right?” Levi shakes his head and continues reading, and I exchange a look with Elara, because now we’re going to be fighting all night about whether there are ghosts in my house and Grim is subtly trying to tell us something.

Josh drops back into the seat across from me again, cup in hand this time. “Oh, I love this game!” he says excitedly. “I can’t wait to steal all your sheep!”

“Jordan!” Sidney’s grandma walks to my side, handing me a wine glass full of blood that she probably shouldn’t be handling. I don’t know her real name; she instructed me to call her ‘Grandma’ the first time I met her. “I made you a blood pudding, and a blood sausage, and some blood cakes,” she says, patting my arm.

Her family has been more welcoming to both me and Josh’s partner than any of us expected them to be, Sidney included. But her mom still declared that she didn’t care how it happened but she expected some grandchildren from someone, at some point, and no, Huck didn’t count. Sidney’s response had been to nominate Sam for that job and run from the room.

“Thank you so much,” I tell the older lady, oddly touched that she would try to make food that I might be able to eat, and she smiles.

“You’re a good boy,” she declares, nodding to herself, and walks back into the kitchen.

Sidney threads herself through the living area and drops into my lap, the ear cuff now firmly in place. “Aaron!” she hollers, even though the house is the size of a shoebox. “Let Sam out of the sack and come play Settlers with us! Hm, I think we’re going to have to play teams.” She leans back against my chest as Elara whispers to Levi that she wants to learn how to play and picks up the instructions for the game… and my heart is strangely full.

*