6. Thoren

Chapter six

Thoren

(Why am I the way that I am?)

I finish reading the report on the latest expansion efforts of a species on our watchlist, the tinkral. They're a reptilian species that have plagued this galaxy for longer than I've been alive. I'm not sure when their planet rejected them, and no one knows for certain where they came from, but they arrived in the Milky Way some time in the last thousand years and have been systematically colonizing. They're adaptive as a species, able to live in a variety of environments, and colonize every planet they find that suits them.

They've been mining in the Kuiper Belt for a couple of years, but when they first arrived in the solar system, we warned them that Sol's planets and moons were protected by the IPPS. They haven't made a reach for Earth, but we watch them closely. They've just successfully completed an invasion and subjugation campaign on a planet in a neighboring solar system. Thankfully, they only successfully conquered one of the habitable planets in that system. The other successfully repelled them.

The tinkral take their wins, but they never fight wars of attrition. They give themselves a standard amount of time to conquer a planet, and if the planet manages to hold them at bay, the tinkral move on to easier targets. This is probably why the Alliance of Species hasn't taken more drastic action than levying fines on them when they fail their campaign. The tinkral pay the fines and move on to their next campaign. They probably account for half of the alliance's income, and they don't seem to care about paying the reparation price for their unsuccessful campaigns.

I shuffle my tarot deck. "What do you think about the tinkral?" I mutter as I shuffle them twice more. The cards are more cooperative about protecting Earth than anyone else's deck, and when they give readings for our work, they pull from the collective power of our family rather than only from me.

I deal three cards in a row and turn them over one by one: The Lovers, The Fool, and the Two of Cups.

"What the actual fuck is this nonsense?" I demand, staring at the reading.

The Lovers is my card. It always comes up in reference to me. I'm family oriented and it makes sense that the cards designated that one to represent me. I've been focused on my brothers since our hatching. We bonded with Uncle because I decided he belonged to us, and everything I do is a reflection of the dedication I have to this family.

I'm beginning to suspect that The Fool is the card this deck thinks represents Dec. In which case, the Two of Cups is absolutely ridiculous.

"Are you suggesting that I start something with Dec? Do you dare suggest that I might be romantically interested in a human, of all species? They can't even see magic. I could walk out of this office wearing nothing but my gargoyle skin and they literally wouldn't be able to perceive me." I'd be completely invisible to them. I could walk around in my natural form moving things around and the humans in the house would assume it's haunted by an invisible poltergeist even if I was literally moving things in the same room as them while they were watching.

I throw another card on top of The Lovers. As expected, it's the Ten of Cups. That is the minor arcana card that the deck has designated for me. It represents all the work I do to make sure my family is happy. Sometimes it means that I'm catering to their happiness and sometimes it means I'm dictating it, but it's all about my desire to take care of my family.

The card I place on The Fool is the Ace of Cups, which immediately makes me think that these cards have gone completely mad. "I am not interested in partnering with him." I stop as soon as the image of Dec's ass reminds me of my unhealthy interest in him. "Maybe a romp in the sack, but I'm not going to do that because that would be fruitless and pointless. I do not want to deal with another Arcan situation."

Faulkes is recovering from Arcan, but his heart still aches with the loss of the man outside of the family that he loved the most. It's difficult being bonded with him as he grieves, but I can't imagine how it would be if he had to carry this burden alone, and I don't want to think about how much worse it would be for the entire family if one of the rest of us made the same mistake.

"Fucking him would be a foolish decision, but getting in a relationship with him would be a mistake," I grumble at that cards, and I turn one more card over onto the Two of Cups.

For fuck's sake. It's the Three of Cups.

"So what I'm getting here is that you think I'm already starting something with Dec and that we're going to live a long and passionate life full of happiness and celebration." I whisper that quietly because I can't fathom any other meaning to this stupid reading. "Do you hear how ridiculous this sounds? How are you planning to convince Dec that we're supposed to fuck like bunnies and bond like he's even capable of forming a bond with a karkoyl like I would require. I'll grant you that he's not likely fully human, but looking like a shifter does not a shifter make. He might have something happening in his long past ancestry, but if he could perceive magic he'd have questions by now. We're not exactly subtle about that since we know humans can't perceive it."

The cards are silent, of course, since they don't actually speak, but I feel the laughter they're silently shaking with.

"This is the problem with half sentient cards. I never should have infused you with my magic. Watch me drain you dry and then come back and give me this reading. I asked about the tinkral!"

I gather them up and shove them back into their pouch.

"If there's a day that goes by when I don't hear you threatening your cards, I'll make sure you're seen by the best doctors in the known universe," Uncle says, laughing as he leans up against my door frame.

I grind my teeth in frustration. "They're predicting love and happiness and celebration when I'm asking if we should be worried about invasion."

Uncle comes into my office and sits on the chair that's for anyone who wants to hang out in here while I'm working. "Oh? What has them so distracted?"

The question sounds innocent enough, but he's actually a nosy old gargoyle, and telling him would result in him meddling. No one needs a nosy old man meddling in their life. "They apparently think I need a companion and are making some very pointed suggestions. I think I'm going to steal my own dog, that way they can focus on something more productive."

Uncle waves off the implication in my words. "I didn't steal Mr. Simms. He was abandoned outside, and he loves living here. He's starting to herd our new butler, you know. They're so cute together. Dec gives him extra treats, and Mr. Simms keeps him on a tight schedule. I think they're going to bond beautifully, which will be good for Mr. Simms. He needs someone to guard."

Uncle did, in fact, steal the dog. They're herding dogs, and Mr. Simms was both well-fed and chipped when he brought him home. Walker hijacked the microchip and changed all the info on it so that if Mr. Simms somehow gets lost, we will be the contact on his RFID, but he was absolutely a working dog before Uncle stole him and turned him into a pet.

I anonymously paid the previous owners and sent them a couple of vouchers for replacement dogs and training academies. They seemed placated by the reparation.

"Dec could probably use a companion to keep him company. What is that man's name?"

Uncle Maxime stands, shaking his cane at me. "You will have to ask Dec. I only know it because I have to for employment purposes. If he doesn't want anyone else to know, that is his prerogative, and I'm not going to reveal his secrets just because you're my nephew." He pulls a folded note from his pocket and hands it to me. "I've been summoned to perform a reading for the council."

"And?"

He shrugs and rolls his eyes. "And I already did the reading. The cards still say the same thing: something tragic happened a very long time ago that shouldn't have and the world is injured by it. The council is doing its best, but it's struggling because it is blinded by the injury. And soon the injury will heal and the council will be stronger and more successful than before."

It's the same reading that the council has been getting from Uncle's cards since the first time they requested a reading. It's always the same cards, always in the same order. Sometimes he varies the layout of the reading, but even when he does that, the cards just repeat themselves.

His cards are better at reading the big picture and long consequences than any of ours, but they are shit at illuminating the details. They see the whole forest, whereas my cards see clusters of trees, while Reeves' cards see each tree in the forest as if none of the others exist. If we could get them to work together, we'd be able to see the future, but our cards absolutely refuse to talk to each other.

"You could just tell them the reading hasn't changed," I suggest.

Uncle waves the idea away, pshawing. "You know I enjoy visiting them when I'm invited. There will be a soiree, and I plan to make the most of it."

I glance down at the note he handed me. There are three possible incidents that I need to keep an eye on in case we need to send someone to help. "Go have fun. I've got this," I promise, standing and walking around my desk.

Uncle is small for our species and deformed from a birthing accident. His wings are still the size of an infant's, which is why he's so much smaller than us. Although the rest of us love him regardless that he can't fly and tell him that as often as we can, he still prefers his human skin to his natural skin, because in this form, he appears completely normal. Since we learned how to shift into human form, I've only seen his stone shape twice. I wish he was comfortable with us in his natural form, but the happiness he radiates in his human skin is genuine, and I would never want to take that away from him.

I bend and hug him, kissing his cheek and tugging on the bond between us to remind him that we are connected and family, and he must return to us safely. He travels a lot for the work we do because he is the ambassador of Earth for the IPPS, and we make sure when he leaves, he knows we miss his presence.

Uncle hugs me back and bids me goodbye, and when I release him, he teleports to the council building on the other side of the world. I've never been, but it's not exactly part of my job description and I don't feel like I'm missing out. That whole mess is more than I want to deal with on a regular basis. I'm happy just stopping shelaks from destroying cities in between halting potential Earth invasions.

And maybe it might be a little fun to tease Dec a bit more. No one can blame me for staring while he bends over. I work hard and deserve to spend my leisure time doing things that bring me joy, and teasing that man gives me so much more joy and pleasure than anything else I can think of. Dec's ass is one of the wonders of the modern world, and it's a crime that he hides it under his suit jackets.

I bet I could get him to take his jacket off.

I glance around the office to make sure I'm not forgetting anything legitimately important, then head out to find the new butler as I formulate a plan in my head for undressing the man. Not fully, obviously, and I don't want to damage his clothing. That would just be rude. I need something that will stain if he doesn't address it right away, but a stain that will be obvious on a black—

I stop dead in my tracks before pushing the button to the elevator that will take me up to the house. What the fuck am I doing right now? I just got finished telling the cards that I will not be entertaining the possibility of Dec as anything more than a member of the household staff, and here I am planning a prank just so I can get an unimpeded view of his ass? What is wrong with me?

"You look like you're having an existential crisis." Ethan pokes the button on the elevator, scanning me from head to toe with his gorgeous stone gray eyes. They're his best feature, and that's saying something considering how handsome he is.

I grimace, grinding some dust off my stone teeth before pulling on my human skin, reminded by his appearance that if I want to be seen, I have to disguise myself. "I've just realized that I'm playing into my cards' hands, following their lead like I didn't just sit at my desk for fifteen minutes telling them they're wrong and stupid."

Ethan gives me a pitying look. "You know that's not how this works, right? You deal the cards and then interpret the deal, and it's all on you how much the cards reflect your life."

"Maybe your cards let you interpret their readings like that, but mine are damn near sapient and have opinions ."

He pats my chest as the elevator doors open. "Alright, brother. Come on, I'll help you figure this out, but I need some food. I've been in and out of human form all day and require something sweet and creamy from Jax's stash."

I sigh but agree that ice cream would probably help whatever is happening to me. It might even be enough to make up for missing out on Dec's ass.