Phoenix Found (Brothers of Fire #5)

Chapter 4

Chapter Four

It was well past dinner when Perrin made his way to the castle kitchen, but his father was still there as a delivery of fresh meat had come in. He wasn’t hungry yet, and wouldn’t be for another four or five days, but what ghoul would turn down a delivery of meat? His father always set aside the hearts and kidneys. Beef liver was his mother’s favorite, though like his sister, she usually got her fill of meat from the hospital where they both worked.

There were about six ghoul nurses working there, and his mother had tried to set him up with all of them at least once.

“Your staff gone for the night?” Perrin leaned on the immaculate stainless steel counter.

“Yes. There is a tub of chicken hearts in the fridge since you won’t wait until you need to eat. I put the beef hearts in the freezer.”

Perrin grinned and opened the fridge door. “Thanks, Dad.”

The hearts were in an unmarked tub, the same as always. He grabbed it and dropped onto a stool, ready to dive into one of his favorite parts .

“Make sure you eat some bone when you feed next. Too many juicy bits aren’t good for you.”

“Want me to chomp on a tail or ribs to prove I’m eating healthy?”

“I trust you. Even though you’re snacking between feeds.”

Perrin rolled his eyes and opened the tub. The dark purple hearts were no bigger than a strawberry. His fingers lengthened, and his fingernails became claws. He didn’t need to unhinge his jaw or grow his teeth for something so tiny. He stabbed a heart with a claw and popped it in his mouth, giving the muscle a little chew before swallowing. “It would be nice if they didn’t drain so much blood out of them.”

“Perhaps you should catch your own chickens.”

“Too many feathers. I’d be coughing up bits like an owl the next day.” He’d only caught a bird once, never again. He didn’t even like hunting that much. Ghouls were scavengers.

His father leaned on the kitchen counter across from him. “Have you looked through the profile of your match?”

Perrin paused with one claw buried in the heart, wishing he’d waited longer before coming to the kitchen. “I don’t want an arranged marriage with some ghoul I’ve never met.”

“It worked out well for your mother and me.”

Had it? Or was it a case of there being no other options? Humans were too hard to deal with, and paranormals… Well, they had their own prejudices. Which made the dating pool really small. “Dad?—”

“You’re nearly thirty. You need to do more than think about these things.”

He had been thinking, and he didn’t want to marry someone for the sole purpose of getting ghouls off the endangered species list. His father wouldn’t like learning that his son knew the best places to meet men anonymously. The only thing Perrin liked better than snacking on chicken hearts between feeds was sucking dick—another delightful mouthful that left him wanting more. Which had given him a bit of a reputation.

He put the heart in his mouth and chewed it far too many times before swallowing. “You know I prefer guys, right?”

By ‘prefer,’ he meant he only liked men. He didn’t want to marry a woman at all.

His father sighed. “It’s a preference that you can’t afford.”

“So I’m supposed to pay for the rest of my life?”

“There aren’t enough of our kind for you to be precious.”

He wasn’t being precious. It was his bloody life, and unlike the phoenixes, he only got one of them. Unless, like other paranormals, he was reborn. But if witches were only reborn as witches and shifters were only reborn as shifters…if ghouls became extinct, did that mean they wouldn’t be reborn at all? Then what?

It wasn’t as though he believed in heaven and hell, but what kind of afterlife did he get? Or was there no afterlife at all? He didn’t really want to find out.

“There are other options.”

His father glared at him, his eyes taking on that pearly dangerous sheen. “You do not create children to abandon them.”

“That isn’t what I suggested.” Although it kind of had been. There must be a female ghoul who wanted children but who wasn’t interested in a loveless relationship. One who’d hooked up with a witch or a shifter…

And maybe he was clutching at straws.

“I can’t be the only young ghoul who doesn’t want to exist only to ensure the survival of our kind.”

He thought of the little dragon girl. The future of dragons depended on her. Things weren’t that dire for the ghouls. His parents have done their part, having four children. Perrin was the oldest. One sister had accepted her arranged marriage and gone to Germany, the other worked in the hospital, and his younger brother worked at the abattoir.

His father shook his head. “You don’t appreciate what you have. You don’t even have to leave the country. She will come to you.”

And that was half the bloody problem. The castle, this country, was his entire life. He’d never even left the country. He wanted more.

He needed more. But how did he explain that to a man who’d started working in the castle kitchen at fifteen married the woman chosen for him at twenty?

Things had been different back then.

They didn’t talk about his dad’s mother, who’d apparently snapped and eaten her husband and disappeared into the mountains. Needless to say, if people became lost and died, their bodies were usually never found. Perrin guessed she hadn’t liked the husband chosen for her, and after raising the children, she’d taken care of the matter.

He toyed with the hearts in the tub. “What if I want to leave? Take a gap year or something.”

His father laughed. “A gap year?”

“Some guys I went to school with?—”

“I know what a gap year is. You have a job and responsibilities. People of any kind would love to be in your shoes. You live in a castle with a job guaranteed for life.”

Yeah, he was aware of his privilege. That working for the phoenixes afforded him a kind of protection that many other paranormals didn’t have. And the job security was great. He didn’t even have to pay rent. But there were costs that weren’t financial.

“And I will come back. I just… I have itchy claws or so mething.”

His father shook his head. “You’ve never needed to scavenge. It’s made you soft.”

“Dumpster diving or searching for recently deceased hikers isn’t going change my attitude about how I want to live my life.” Though that was his father’s solution to every problem. As if searching for and eating carrion was all he needed. He managed not to snort his disbelief as the last time it had earned him a slap on the back of his head.

“Do you think you can marry a human man? How are you going to explain your eating habits or lack of?”

And that was exactly why he only ever hooked up with human men and never went looking for more. That wasn’t a conversation he wanted to have with his father. “I don’t know what I want because I’ve never had a choice.”

His father’s eyes became opalescent, and his fingers and claws stretched over the stainless-steel counter. “You are forgetting what you are and what you need to do.”

Perrin leaned forward. “I could never do that. You’d never let me.”

He eased back, not wanting to fight with his father because he’d be the one left to clean up the blood, last time it had been with his tongue.

His father snarled, his jaw lengthening and teeth sharpening.

Perrin clamped his teeth together, resisting the urge to up the ante, but the tension thrummed through his muscles. His toes curled in his boots, claws pressing through his socks. “I’ll speak with the Coven. Perhaps I’ll be allowed to talk to her first to see if we get on?—”

His father swallowed, his face returning to its human form. “I do not care if you meet her the day you marry. You’ve been given more than enough time to become accustomed to the idea. You will marry her. ”

With that, his father, and head chef who was used to being obeyed, stalked out of the kitchen.

The argument had put Perrin off his chicken hearts, which was a damn shame as they were nice and fresh. If he froze them, they wouldn’t be as tasty.