Pride (Living In Sin #1)

Chapter 33

Pry

I couldn’t help but whistle as I entered the club. The entire night had gone better than expected. Alec had been just delightful. He was responsive and eager, and I had enjoyed just exploring him. If I was lucky, I’d get another chance at him soon, but I was happy enough to wait.

Not only that, but the problems with Des had also worked out well. That was more luck, though. Because they had fallen into bed with the groupies, Des’s mood was much better than I had thought it would be. Perhaps they would be well behaved when they met Alec.

But I wasn’t holding my breath for that. When Des latched onto something it was almost impossible to dissuade them. Lust was a powerful drive when it wanted to be.

“What’s made you happy?”

Acedia was half-heartedly wiping down a table. It never really seemed like they did much, but the place was always perfect. The health inspector was always surprised. Apparently none of the other clubs he’d been to could hold a candle to the state of Club Midnight.

Ace’s abilities played on that. Whilst they never appeared to do much, the work got done. If watched, the mess and clutter would pile up in moments. But they’d made it work for the club and the health inspector was in awe of it.

I liked it; the response always stroked my ego. And anything that stroked my ego was good for the club. Crave mentioned that our powers had long since seeped into the foundations. Even if he was the closest of my siblings in age, Crave was the one I understood the least. The rest of us were driven by emotions and passions, while Crave’s motivation was almost scientific in its way.

It was part of the reason I was grateful that he wasn’t here while Alec was just starting with us. I had a feeling that Crave would put a spanner in the works.

“Do I seem happy?” Teasing Ace came easy; they always seemed so much younger than the rest of the family. They rarely reacted to the teasing, which just made Ace’s brothers tease them more.

Ace shrugged, swiping at the surface of the table. Even as I watched dust accumulated at the edges. A spider ran over the back of the chair. “More than usual.”

“Have you met Alec yet?” I wasn’t ready to admit to feeling anything other than pride. At least not out loud.

“Not properly.” Another shrug. “When I talked to him everything stayed clean.”

Ace’s eyebrows drew together, a frustrated breath hissing out from behind his teeth. That was new. Ace’s power had never just… not worked before. Dust and dirt always collected around the personification of Sloth. For it to not happen due to one person’s aura was too much to think about.

More questions, but we had called for Alec. I might not have expected a human who was clueless to our world, but we’d needed someone to balance us. There were things at work in the supernatural world and they were trying to eat away at our Club.

I would not allow it. And getting Alec out of the deal could only be a bonus in my book at least. Watching the other members of my little family interact with him only seemed to make things more interesting as well. I was looking forward to seeing where it all went.

For now, I wasn’t going to worry about Ace, rubbing their head as I passed. If they’d been Envy, I would have probably been bitten, but Ace just shifted back to the simple movements of his cleaning. I knew when I returned to the main floor later it would be spotless.

“I don’t think we need to worry about that yet.” The shifting of powers could wait. Preferably till the whole family was present and focused. Speculating now was not going to be helpful. “For now, we need to ensure he never wants to leave.”

“The Club needs him.” Ace’s voice was soft, but it echoed through the space. They might be second youngest of us all, but Ace saw more than they said. “And I guess we might need him, too.”

The cheeky little shit was as bad as Des, I shook my head as Ace just seemed to fade away while I got closer to the office. Both of them always said such unnecessary things.