But it happened for another three days, and no one fessed up to the prank. We had run out of suspects. Sage thought it was hilarious, “Dude, it’s magic. It’s supposed to do that.”
I sighed as he sat on my couch with my laptop. I strung up the security cam wires to catch whoever it was that was making my mornings worse. Everyone was stepping around me. My assistant was pushing calls and work at Ant or Alex and skipping me altogether. My phone was silent, Alex had commandeered it two days ago and refused to let me have it. He kept me on schedule, though he was out of the house at the moment doing his thing. It was me and Sage in our empty apartment. Eddie was walking around the living room staring up at the camera. He definitely wasn’t a normal cat.
“Sage, it’s a doll.” I commented, “It doesn’t do anything we don’t want it to. And no one in my household would do this to me. It’s not funny. I can’t work. The whole thing sets me off in a bad way. Think if you had a whole crowd of strangers come up and hug you for no reason.” Sage shuddered, “That’s me right now.”
Sage sighed. “I’m helping, aren’t I? You know it’s Rider, Laker or one of the kids. You know how kids are.”
“You can’t lie with telepaths around Sage. And I have 3 naturals, and 1 partial excluding my limited ability around. They say they didn’t do it, I believe them.”
“Even your normal life is so not normal, Nox.” He laughed as he turned the laptop around. “It’s on a rotating random circuit. So no one can predict it.”
“Except you.” I grinned at him.
“And you.” He laughed. “All programming randomness is…”
“I know Sage, I know how my ability works.” I interrupted before he could get into the real technical side of how a computer worked. He liked computers much more than people. Sometimes I didn’t blame him for that one.
That night we all went to sleep with the elf on the shelf sitting where we’d left it. When we woke, the house was a mass of glitter, and the elf had moved to a new spot. I wasn’t freaking out as bad this morning watching the live feed of the camera when I woke up. Alex was still snoozing next to me. “Go back to sleep Nox.” he sighed.
I leaned over and kissed his cheek, “Can’t.”
Alex groaned and sat up and pulled me into his arms, dragging the laptop with me so he could see too. And we rewound the playback until things started happening. Watching the house clean itself in reverse was amazing. I wish it was as easy as that.
The elf flew on wings of nothingness. We watched in stunned silence. “Hunter, Cass, Drake, and you are the only ones that could have done that.” Alex pointed at the elf flying around the house in reverse with no help.
“But none of us did it. The kids need to see what they are doing.”
“You don’t?” Alex asked.
I shook my head and guffawed, “Remember my back?”
Alex’s hand ran down the smooth skin of my back, and I froze out of habit but relaxed against his touch after a moment. The scars were gone, but I inflicted them on myself in my sleep. But now they were gone – born again like a Phoenix. Alex sighed, “So who or what else could it be? Dee gave it to them, could it be a demon?”
“I’ve never known a demon to play pranks. There are all sorts of creatures that could have done it, but none of them are invisible. And for an angel, demon or ghost to move things on our plane takes a lot of energy that most can’t muster. Definitely not this much, for this long, and this many times.”
“But something from another plane could do it?” Alex asked. I nodded, and Alex smirked. “So what if watched from the dream plane? That’s the same, right?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. Do you see angels and demons there?”
“That’s where Probhter was,” Alex growled. Those were some bad memories for both of us, ones that we both wanted to forget completely.
“It can’t hurt.” I agreed. “You could use it as a teaching moment for Quinn. She’s always begging you to take her out.”
Alex groaned, “That is so much harder.”
I smiled. “That’s my life with three little ones who are way too strong for their age.”
“They are your kids.” Alex laughed. “Even if Drake is not yours by blood, he feeds off your potential. We all do.”
I sighed. “I should go live on a deserted island, so I don’t infect everyone else.”
“Hell no.” Alex raised an eyebrow and looked at me with lust-filled eyes, “Unless I get to stay alone with you forever.” He leaned down and kissed my neck and started nipping and sucking at his favorite spot. I tilted my head to the side to give him more room and sank into his embrace. I never tired of Alex’s mouth on me. Or anything about Alex for that matter.
The Mind of Nox 