Things That Should Stay Buried - Casey L. Bond Page 0,106

the tub, and disappeared, I turned to her. “What else did you say, and why couldn’t you speak in front of me?”

“There are some things we are forbidden from saying in front of non-Guardians.”

Non-Guardians, or just me?

I turned away and undressed, slipping into the water.

“Did you meet Capricorn?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

“Other than Aquarius, she was kindest to us.”

“Is Aquarius legit?” I asked. “He seems almost too… I don’t know. He’s like the best friend I never had, and though I’m glad Aries has him, I wonder if he’s real. You know?”

She nodded. “I think he is. We all have dark sides though, don’t we? The family I grew up with in this lifetime was the best I’d ever had. We lived in this tiny town in Alabama. It was the type of place where gossip was as sacred as high school football and everyone filled the church pews Sunday morning, no matter what you’d done Saturday night.”

I laughed.

“My mom came home devastated one day after church one Sunday morning and called me. I’d moved out months before, but she was crying and inconsolable. This was big, because I could count on one hand the number of times the woman ever cried. She was tough as nails. She told me that the church treasurer, whom she thought was a good man, had embezzled thousands of dollars from the church over the course of a year before he was caught. She couldn’t believe he was capable of it. She just couldn’t wrap her head around it because she bought into the mask, the image he wanted everyone to see. His treachery broke her heart. But the thing of it is this – human, Guardian, Zodia… we are all capable of terrible things, things no one else would suspect we could do.”

She was right.

I considered her words as I washed my hair and leaned back into the water, letting it fan out around me.

Taurus didn’t bother hiding his dark secrets. He flaunted them. He reveled in the feeling of shocking those around him. He’d enjoyed running me through. There was a moment, right before he pushed the sharp tip of the spear into my flesh, when he hesitated just long enough to lock eyes with me and watch my reaction when it happened. If that was indeed a warning, like Aries claimed, it meant Taurus would enjoy watching me die.

Helena withdrew into her thoughts, but I noticed she seemed upset. “What’s wrong?” I asked, sitting up again.

“Nothing.” She brushed off my concern, giving me a fake smile.

Kes knocked at the door. “She okay?”

“Yes,” Helena said hotly.

Is something wrong? Why is he checking on me now?

“Did something happen?” I asked her. She pursed her lips, looking at war with herself. “Helena. Tell me.”

She looked at the door, glowering at it, as if she could see through it and was shooting her death glare at my brother. I was intimately familiar with that look because I had mastered it.

I toweled off and dripped a trail of bath water to the door, wrenching it open only to find Aries standing with Kes.

His eyes flared and Aries shot a look of warning to Helena before he vanished.

“What was that?” I asked Kes. “And don’t tell me you don’t know, because I’m calling you out on that B.S. before you even spout it.”

“You are in a towel,” he growled. “Get in your room.”

I hated brothers. And men. And Zodia men. And Zodia.

I trudged to my room in a snit and tugged on a pair of athletic shorts and a tie-dyed, long-sleeved t-shirt while enjoying my inner rant. As I stomped around the room, Helena was placing an assortment of dresses in my closet. She’d had the foresight to make several dresses I could knot at the waist and slip on and off without needing assistance.

“This should see you through a few days.”

“I can wear the same ones I have more than once.”

She shook her head. “Have you ever seen Aries wear the same outfit twice?”

I hadn’t. He was always similarly dressed in something dark and moody, but the stitching on his tunic was a different pattern every day and the shades he wore differed ever so slightly. “I’m not a Zodia. I’m a lowly human,” I teased.

Her eyes met mine. “You are so much more.”

My brows kissed. That was the same thing Aquarius said. A foreboding shiver slithered up my spine. “What’s that supposed to mean?” She pursed her lips. “Helena?” She pressed her eyes closed and held them