Chapter 17

Delilah was silent all the way home.

"Are you seriously ignoring me, over ice cream?" I ask, opening the front door turning to look at her over my shoulder.

She doesn't answer me and just walks past me with a straight face.

I sigh, "Fine, have it your way." Once everyone comes in, I close the door, the lock makes a soft clicking noise. "Guys, go to the clothing room to find a swim suit, we're going to the pool." I wiggle my brows excitedly before jogging up the stairs.

Bella runs behind before sprinting ahead, her dark brown hair flowing behind her, squealing in the excitement. "Hey! Wait for me, I'm the only one here who doesn't have supernatural speed or any other enhanced physically abilities! I'm slower than the average human!" Alex chases after her- or tries to at least. At some point everyone starts to run up the stair, chasing after one another.

A smile tugs at my lips.

"Why are you idiots running?" Antares asks in a bored tone, walking far behind us.

"Why are you walking, Gem?" Austin sasses back, raising a questioning brow at her.

She scowls at the nickname that she pretends to hate, mumbling, "I hear an angel's wing feathers make good pillows, should I make one?" She smiles to herself at his horrified expression. "What the fuck is wrong with you?" He sprints off, making her burst out in laughter.

Wow, she is legit crazy.

I can live with that

Somehow.

Why are there so many stairs again? My legs burn from the workout but fade into tingling sensation.

Finally, I get to the clothing room, dragging my feet.

Why do I call it the clothing room when it’s basically an oversized closet?

"You can choose whatever swim suit want but if you find something that someone else likes, don't fight over it. There is another one exactly like it." My eyes scan for a pair of shoes before looking for the other. Once I've found it, I pick them both up to prove my point.

"See?"

They nod.

"Alright then, be downstairs in about 15 minutes," I closed the door, walking towards my room.

Pulling my phone from my pocket, I use the card Siren gave me to add her number to my phone and send her a quick text.

Nate: Hi, it's Nathaniel. Text me when you get this.

When I opened my wardrobe, I glance around while removing my clothes, observing my options. There is a sea blue swim trunk, a leaf green and a black one with ocean waves. Looking them over a few more times, I decided on the black one with the waves on it.

Pulling it on, I stumble out of the wardrobe, hopping on my left foot. Once I've steadied myself, I remove jewellery except my earrings, the trunks hang low on my hips, complimenting the tone of my body. Running my fingers through my hair, I fix it to my liking, my fingers occasionally trapped in my knotted curls and the picking up a pair of glasses from inside my top drawer.

Just as I am about to leave, my phone buzzes, grabbing my attention.

Taking a few steps backwards towards my bed, I pick it up.

Siren: Hey Nathaniel, I did it. I shifted into his wife while she was out shopping. When he tried to hit 'me', I beat the shit out of him until he was shaking in fear. By the end of it, he was begging for 'my' forgiveness, promising never to hit 'me' again. I may have broken a couple of bones when I snapped a wooded broom on him but it's a big downgrade from hitting him with a bus, so he should be fine.

Siren: We'll be seeing each other again very soon.

I smile at her message, shaking my head at her lack of restraint with a soft laugh escaping my lips despite not wanting to.

Nate: I look forward to it.

Leaving my phone on the bed, I walk out of my room closing the door behind me. Going down the stairs, I turn to the side and there they are, looking as good as models would or even better.

Bella has on dark red two piece swim suit that compliments her fair skin, which is tied at the back and sides, when she moves into the light, golden glitter shimmers off of it like a thousand suns. She braided her hair, placing it over her shoulder with a heart accessory clipped inside the braid. In her ears are golden hoop earrings, no necklace and red heels.

We are indoors but she went all out.

Alex is standing next to her in, purple trunks with the jellyfish from Spongebob on it. He put his glasses on head, ready to pull them down. His hair adorably messy because he constant tries to fix it when it was perfectly fine the way it was before but he seems to think that it wasn't then ends up making his hair disheveled. My eyebrows furrow at his lips because they seem pinker than they were a few minutes ago. Strawberry chap stick, maybe? Violet eyes shimmering with happiness.

This is what I want to see, him genuinely happy.

His skin glistens in the sunlight, the skin mark on his neck obviously is permanent, not a single sign of fading.

Delilah is wearing a simple aqua blue one piece swim suit that has a low cut that stops a little under her breast. Paw earrings that dangle from her ear lobs and her black hair in two buns on the top of head, her highlights making a swirl in her hair, a pair of blue glasses sit just in front of them. I notice that she is wearing the same clear blue heels she was trying on in clothing room when she was dressing up in gowns with Bella.

Austin is wearing grey trunks with no additional designs on it. This is the first time that I am seeing him shirtless and damn. Celestial beings are blessed with a great body and I can't tell if he worked out to get like this or did his puberty hit twice. It's the same with Justin, their bodies are literal carbon copies of each other. Justin- for the first time that I've seen, lets his hair down which stops at his pecs. His black trunks, like mine, hang low on his hips and like his brother's, also has no additional designs.

Right now he resembles a certain anime character that also has long hair and happens to have a napping addiction.

His dark eyes hold mischief as he speaks to his brother who looks amused but shaking his head at whatever they are talking about, disagreeing with his twin.

Antares is wearing a black bikini with dark green sequin decorating it.

Her hair is in one bun on her head, the same glasses that she had on earlier still sitting there. No jewellery on her what so ever and no heels.

"I don't need to tell you that you look amazing, do I?" My shoulder leans on the rail of the stairs.

"No, you don't," Bella answers in a cocky tone, smiling whilst lifting her foot backwards, like those girls in movies that lift their foot when a guy kisses them.

Humming, I cock my head towards the kitchen, "Come with me."

I opened a door at the far corner of the kitchen, that has very long staircase that leads towards the pool, lights on the ceiling to brighten the dark.

Multiple groans are heard from behind me.

"I'm willing to pay you to get an elevator in this place, it's stupid for a house to be this big and and not have an elevator," Justin says from behind me, dragging his hands down his face. Antares scoffs, "Aren't you a daemon, Horns? Can't you just bust out wings and fly up or something?" He scowls at her. "It doesn't work like that, Gem. Aren't you supposed to be intelligent, since you read and stuff?" He narrows his eyes at her insultingly.

"Yes, I do read, however, I mainly read on things that help develop my abilities. I'm a summoning witch, want to see what I can summon here?" Her eyes glow green, symbols appearing on her arms shimmering the same green.

"Let's not, please, I would like to sleep without nightmares tonight." Alex shakes his head, jabbing Justin's stomach with his elbow.

"Fine." Justin grinds his teeth together. Antares hums, her eyes fading from glowing to her usual emerald green.

"Justin, does have a point though, you should get an elevator." Bella says, her eyes staring up at the lights on the ceiling.

"The thought did cross my mind," I laugh, walking up the stairs that they are complaining about with every step. I can feel my legs burning slightly after a while but I ignore it, determined to get to the top.

"My legs hurt from this," Alex grunts, forcing his legs to go up another step, despite them wobbling. "Hop on," I bend my knees so that he can get on my back, which he does eagerly wrapping his arms around my neck and legs around my waist, resting his chin on my head. I wrap my arms under his calves to stop him from slipping, whilst carrying him.

"Much better," He hums, kicking his feet happily. "I'm starting to think, you like it when I carry you," I think out loud. His stomach trembles as he laughs, "I have no shame in it." I smile, shaking my head at his new found confidence, letting the real him out f his shell.

We finally get to the top of the building.

"Do you really need to have your pool on the very top floor?" Austin pants with his hands on his knees. "Well, I do have another one underground but this one has the better view." I receive several 'what-s' and a flick to the forehead from Alexander. "I regret wearing heels," Bella grunts, pulling her heels off and rubbing her feet. Shrugging, I say, "I didn't tell you to wear them."

They finally look at our surroundings, their jaws dropping at the view.

The pool has a very odd shape that has many curves, one big pool and a small one that acts like tub for a single person, the water going from shallow to deep. Different types of floats sitting top of the water, waiting to be used. There is even a huge one with blankets and rubber and real cushions on it.

A few beach chairs but only five have umbrellas. The evening sun reflects off the water making it look enchanted and to the far side is a drink bar where you can make your own drinks with whatever toppings you want. Over our heads is a glass ceiling to stop unwanted creatures or if it were to start raining, we wouldn't get rained on. Worse if it was stormy.

"What the hell?" Antares gasps, stepping forwards, looking at the sight before her. "What do you think?" "This place is freaking gorgeous." She answers, walking towards one of the chairs that have an umbrella. "It's a'ight," Lilah clears her throat, pretending not to be impressed."Are you still salty?" Bella asks, gently bumping her shoulder with hers. "Yes." She deadpans making me sigh.

So stubborn.

"Why are we standing around like a sack of potatoes? Lets go!" He says boucing in spot, signalling that he wants me to put him down

"We're not stopping you, go on." I let him go and he puts his glasses on my head before sprinting and canon balling into the deep end. "It's warm." He says in a confused voice. "Heat system." I inform. He smiles, "So cool." Alex dips under the water and starts swimming around. The same speed of my blinking, is the speed Bella takes off to the bar.

The twins smirk at each other.

"What are you two smirking about?" I ask, crossing my arms with raised brow.

"Nothing," they answer, walking towards the bar, smiling at each other deviously.

"I may have to keep an eye on those two." I mumble walking towards the pool, sitting atthe edge.

Antares sits on the chairs, glasses over her eyes.

"You're not going in?" I kick my feet in the water.

"Why would I go in the pool, when I can just look good sitting here, by the pool?" She raises the glasses for a second before pulling them back down. I roll my eyes. "Because it fun and I get to pull you underwater without it being attempted murder." She lifts up her middle finger with a sarcastic smile. "Wrong answer," I say, getting up and hastily moving to her.

"Don't you da-" She was unable to finish her sentence as I pick her up and throw her over my shoulder, taking her towards the pool.

"Nathaniel so help me if you-" I toss her into the deep end of the pool, making a big splash as she falls in. Her glasses now floating around the pool.

I smile innocently when she starts to glare at me, then all of a sudden she smirks before lifting herself out of the pool.

"Fine. You wanna play? Let's play." Her eyes suddenly start glowing as she mumbles words under her breath, symbols start glowing green on her arms, the same colour of her eyes and out of thin air, she conjures water guns in both her hands. An evil one sided grin settles on her face.

"No fair!" I laugh as she starts spraying me with water at a somewhat high pressure. I think some of it went up my nose a second ago. Slipping on the tiles, I stumble to grab one of the water guns and she laughs heartily when water went into my mouth, forcing me to start coughing and my eyes tearing up.

Snatching one of them away from her, I say, "My turn." Shooting water a her must have startled her because she dropped her water gun to cover her face, taking steps backwards to avoid get water her nose or mouth.

"Watch out!" I tried to warn her but she slipped on the wet tiles, falling flat into the pool, letting out a surprised scream. I wince, "Ouch, I know that hurt." Standing at the edge, I bend down wondering why she hasn't come up for air yet.

That was a stupid mistake on my behalf.

She pops out of the water, grabbing my shoulders and dragging me in. I fell in face first so my eyes automatically shut but there was nothing I could do about the water shooting up my nose and into my lungs.

Ow.

Quickly, I swim to the surface, sucking in a huge breath of air that immediately came out in a fig of coughs.

Antares sits on the edge, where I was, laughing at me. Eyes shut, hand on her stomach, leaning back, laughing like I didn't almost die just then. I push my hair back to avoid more water streaming down my face, the curls in my hair going loose from being wet.

"Karma!" She cackled, kicking her feet in joy making me roll my eyes.

Out of the blue, the twin run up to us, pouring ice cubes from two cups each over Antares and I. The ice painfully connect with my head all at once but I could feel them all individually, making it more painful. With every passing second, I got colder and colder until my bottom lip started quivering because of it.

My body has always rejected low temperature and subconsciously would itself heat up more for reasons that I don't understand but that's how I've always been.

"What the hell is wrong with you!" Antares snaps at them, rubbing her arms to get warm but then slides into the warm pool and sighs in relief. "We haven't pranked anyone in a while, it didn't have to be you but you were just to good to pass up. Don't take it personal." Justin tries and fails to hold in his laughter.

Once I've stopped shaking, I step out of the pool. "Ice? Really? Couldn't you use anything else?" A fallen strand of hair keeps going to my eyes, forcing me to push it back again. "It has really nice effects." Austin shrugs. "Is that so?" I raise a brow, looking to the side at Antares, who immediately understood what I meant.

Crossing my arms over my chest, I tease, "You know if you wanted attention or to join in on the fun, you could have just said so. There was no need for," I point to the melting ice on the floor, "This." A smirk tugs at the corner of my lip.

"That's not i-" Antares pours a bucket of ice over them with her magic. They wince at the impact of the cubes hitting their skin, flinching and shuffling when the ice hit their feet.

I laugh raising a hand at Antares and she gives me a high five, swaying as she laughs, eyebrows creased, while the twins are standing in the same spots, shivering and teeth chattering.

"What kind of ice is that cold?" Austin ask through colliding teeth. "It's just normal ice with an amplification spell so that it would be as cold as if hell froze over, that's what it would feel like." She explains in a 'matter of fact' tone.

"Why? The prank wasn't even that bad." The chattering of his teeth as slowed down, allowing myself to hear what Justin said. "It wasn't, but this is a lesson, try something like that with me, expect repercussions that are ten times worse." She pulls her hair out, letting it fall down her back as she walks to the bar, leaving them rubbing their palms over their arms, desperately attempting to warm themselves up.

"Who's thirsty?" Bella asks, bringing some drinks over to us on a tray but stopping in her tracks, she looks down at the floor, "Why is there ice on the floor?" She kicks the aside, wincing at how cold it is against her bare feet.

How can she feel temperatures if she is… you know I actually ask her these questions one day.

"They wanted to play a prank on us, so we returned the favour with a little punch." I smile, somewhat proud of my victory.