Dangerous Devotion

by Kristie Cook

  I heard the truck about a mile down the road.

  “You said anything for me,” I pushed.

  “Not this! It’s not worth it, Alexis. Trust me.”

  He strode toward the door, and I sprang up. “You can’t keep secrets from me, Tristan!”

  He turned on me, his face hard. “You’d really invade my private thoughts?”

  “No! I meant we’re married, that we’re in this together. We can’t survive with secrets. We need to trust each other.”

  His face softened, and he wrapped his arms around me.

  “I’m sorry.” He kissed the top of my head. “But I do have secrets, my love, things you really don’t want to know.”

  “If they have to do with us, with our daughter, then I do want to know. Anything that might help.”

  He sighed. “It won’t help, ma lykita. It’ll only make things worse. Please trust me on this.”

  The doorbell rang, and I had to let it go. For today, anyway, because the rest of the day was full of furniture deliveries and cable installers, then Tristan setting up the television and Internet service. And, finally alone with only Dorian sleeping soundly in the other room, we were able to make love. Another reason for choosing to live away from the colony was that I didn’t have to worry about anyone hearing us—with their sharp ears or minds. Only Normans surrounded us, so if my thoughts reached out farther than our property, they’d only think they were having good dreams. We couldn’t get too crazy—the sounds of our bedroom being destroyed would wake Dorian—but we still broke our new bed. Owen would have to fix it, and I had to brace myself for the embarrassment . . . but it was worth it.

  “Hey, Mom,” Dorian said sleepily the next morning, snuggling between Tristan and me on the floor, Sasha under his arm. “What happened to your bed?”

  Um . . .

  “Mom was jumping on the bed and got out of control,” Tristan answered with a grin.

  I bit my lip to keep from laughing . . . because it was very near the truth.

  Blossom came over nearly every day with another to-die-for cake. She usually dropped the cake off and chatted for a few minutes, but once the following week, with the guys out on the beach, she stayed, and we had some girl time. It was strange for me. Besides Mom, I hadn’t hung out with a female since I was ten years old.

  “You’re going to make me fat,” I mumbled through a mouthful of strawberries and icing.

  “You can’t get fat,” she said matter-of-factly. I gave her a questioning look. “When you sleep, your cells regenerate, and your body goes back to exactly the way it was after the Ang’dora.”

  “Uh, yeah, right. Is that common knowledge, though? I mean, around the Amadis?”

  She gave me a sheepish grin. “Not exactly. When I found out an actual Amadis daughter had moved in, I did some research, you know, to find out exactly what you are. You’re really kind of badass—vampire, Were, mage, and Angel all rolled into one. Of course, you could eat an entire cake every day and not gain an ounce, so that makes me want to hate you. But . . . well, I can’t. You’re too cool.”

  I stared at her in disbelief. She researched me? Well, then, that gave me permission to research her . . . even if it wasn’t exactly the same method. Within a minute of listening to Blossom’s thoughts while she talked, though, I felt ashamed, yet fascinated. I’d never heard a mind work so fast.

  I’m so freaked out, this investigation will be the death of me, but I just hope Eduardo doesn’t get dragged into it—the image of a man with dark hair and eyes showed in her mind—he’s so great and hot and even though it was his idea, asking me if there was a spell to make tits larger, I was the one stupid enough to see if I could create one and it’s a good thing I used myself as the guinea pig because anyone else would have killed me!

  She barely paused before moving on.

  I still need to figure out that last ingredient to the potion that should cure the neighbor’s cough and hopefully it will turn out better than this enlargement spell, if I can just control myself, but it’s so dang exciting to create new stuff and I know I’m a good witch—wait, no, I’m a great witch!—just a little enthusiastic is all, like with these boobs, and, really, everyone needs to get over their stupid fears because I like Alexis and the rest of them.

  “So what are you doing this weekend?” she asked without a break in the conversation—that’s how fast she processed all those thoughts.

  I pulled completely out of her head, my own spinning. “Going out of town, I think. My mom’s coming, though, so plans might change.”

  “Yeah, I know.” She chewed on her lip as she looked out the window. “She’s coming to investigate me.”

  So, she’s honest.

  “I got a little excited with my experiment and ended up with these.” Returning her gaze to me, she smushed her breasts together with her hands. “I didn’t mean to. I was pretty happy with my girls before, actually. Now they’re way too big. They get in the way all the time, and it’s impossible to find cute tops that fit right. But Eduardo—he’s the vamp who owns the coffee shop on Captiva—likes them, so maybe it’ll be worth it. He’s really yummy. You’ll get to meet him sometime.”

  “Yeah . . . sometime.” If the natives ever let us come into town.

  “Of course, you have Tristan. Major yummy. I think it’s so sweet that you’re real soul-mates, a match made by the Angels. I wish they’d do something for me.” She sighed wistfully.

  I picked up our cake plates and took them over to the sink, debating whether to mention Owen, but I wasn’t sure how interested he was in Blossom. Not my business. It’ll happen if it’s meant to.

  She asked me for some pointers for dealing with Mom and Char, and I told her to be truthful, because Mom would know anyway. Then she chatted about how exciting it was to meet all of us, especially two Amadis daughters . . . and ranted on about several other things, too.

  “So where are you going this weekend?” she asked, coming full circle.

  “Um . . . I’m not sure. Either Daytona or a bike ride to Lake Okeechobee.” I wasn’t exactly lying—Tristan still hadn’t decided if we would visit the witch coven in Daytona or the Okeechobee wolf pack first—but it wasn’t the full truth, either. I wanted to trust her, but I didn’t know yet. Trust never came easily to me, not since I was a kid and people hurt me one too many times. And right now, I wasn’t sure I could trust my own mother, let alone some witch I’d just met. She was probably safer not knowing, anyway.

  “Well, I hope you can go,” she said. “I’m from Daytona, and it’s always a lot of fun. And Okeechobee must mean a Were bike rally, which can be a blast. And you look like you could use some fun.”

  “I hope we can go, too, but I don’t know how much fun it’ll be,” I muttered.

  “Oh, it will be, especially if you go to the bike rally. Wait, maybe not—there’s a full moon this weekend. That wouldn’t be good. You should go to Daytona.”

  “Ah, dude, I missed Blossom,” Owen said, eyeing the cake as soon as he, Tristan and Dorian walked through the door. I shooed Dorian back outside to clean the sand off his feet.

  “Sure did, by about fifteen minutes.” I retrieved more dessert plates. “I don’t think you’re her type, though. She seems to prefer the dark and quiet type. You know, dark hair, dark eyes . . . undead.”

  “Ew. She’s a vamp-tramp?”

  “A what?” I laughed.

  “A vamp-tramp . . . someone who’s not a vamp but likes to do them. It’s disgusting.” Owen shuddered, then he shook his head. “What a waste. Ah, well. She’s too thin and too . . . uh . . . endowed for my liking, anyway. And then there’s that mole on her cheek and how fast she talks and . . .”

  I stared at him for a minute as he rattled off a few more of Blossom’s “faults” and then shook my head. No wonder he was still single—Owen was incredibly picky. And half the things he listed were turn-ons for most guys. I vowed to never set him up with anyone because no one could make him happy. He was on his own.
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  Dorian came in and went straight to his room. He didn’t mind sand on his feet but hated it in his trunks and would change before he returned for his piece of cake.

  I lowered my voice, in case he didn’t close his bedroom door. “Have you decided where we’re going this weekend?”

  “Probably Okeechobee,” Tristan said. “They’re having a bike rally, so lots of people to talk—”

  “A Were rally?”

  “The best kind, from what I’ve heard,” Owen said.

  “You realize it’s going to be a full moon, right?”

  “We’re not staying at night,” Tristan said. He smiled, his eyes glinting. “Are you afraid, ma lykita?”

  “Um . . . maybe. Should I be?”

  Owen guffawed. “For one last time, will you have some faith, Alexis? You have Tristan, the ultimate warrior, and me, the dreaded warlock. And then there’s you and your electric personality. They should be the ones afraid.”

  I laughed. “The dreaded warlock, huh?”

  He gave me a sinister look. “Don’t mock me. You have no clue about my history.”

  If he were anyone but Owen, I might have actually been a little frightened.

  “They’re Amadis, anyway. They won’t attack us,” Tristan said, dismissing my concern. “Did you—” he twitched his fingers around his temple “—with Blossom?”

  “Yes.”

  He eyed me when I didn’t expand my answer. “And?”

  I gave him a coy smile. “I’ll tell you when you tell me what I want to know.”

  “You’re not being very helpful,” he grumbled.

  “Ditto,” I replied as Dorian entered the room, preventing any further discussion.

  As the weekend approached, I continued dreaming every night about faeries, Vanessa, and my pendant, but the night before Mom was to arrive, the dream changed. Vanessa taunted me with her musical laugh, her white-blond hair whipping in the wind as she stood on the edge of a cliff, dangling my necklace over the emptiness beyond. Then suddenly, in her other hand, she held a little girl, about Dorian’s age, by her reddish-brown hair. The girl cried and kicked her legs over the nothingness. Vanessa spread her arms wide. She laughed again. And then she let go of them both. I had to choose. I ran for the edge, stopping myself at the lip and watching them both fall in slow motion as I actually considered my choices. My mind screamed for the girl but my heart pulled me toward the pendant. When I finally dove over the edge, I aimed for the necklace. As soon as I grasped it, the girl evaporated into a wisp of smoke.

  “NO!” I gasped, waking myself up. I sat up in the bed, pulling gulps of air. How could I?

  Tristan pulled me into his arms.

  “Just a dream, my love,” he murmured.

  “Of course. But I can’t believe . . .” I couldn’t finish. I lay down on my side, my back to him, ashamed of myself.

  “You want to talk about it?” He nuzzled his face into my hair and kissed the side of my neck.

  “No,” I said with a sigh. The pendant was a touchy subject—not something for the middle of the night. “I just feel pulled in so many directions. I guess the stress is creeping into my dreams.”

  “Hmm . . . let me de-stress you.” His mouth moved along my jaw, his lips finding mine.

  As he took me far away from my stress, he murmured, “Happy Anniversary, my love.”

  I glanced at the clock—it was long after midnight, now July 30th—and grinned. Our eighth anniversary, but the first one together. Tomorrow will be perfect. It has to be. We deserve it. But since Mom would be in the house tomorrow night, this was our chance to celebrate alone. So we did. Oh, man, did we ever. Tristan brought me to the highest of heights several times, an orgasm for every anniversary we missed.

  I hadn’t slept so soundly in years, until . . .

  “Mom! I thought we told you no jumping on the bed,” Dorian reprimanded the next morning when he came into our room and found us on the floor again. “Uncle Owen’s going to be so mad at you. He just fixed it!”

  Tristan shook with laughter. “Mom’s a bad girl. What do you think we should do?”

  Dorian crossed his arms over his chest and narrowed his eyes at me. “Maybe she needs a spanking.”

  “I think you’re right,” Tristan said. He raised his hand with a gleam in his eye, but Dorian grabbed it.

  “No, Dad, her mom’s supposed to do it. We’ll tell Mimi when she gets here today.”

  Tristan laughed. “Yeah, you’re right. Besides, we’re not supposed to hit girls, right?”

  “Right. Then you would have to get a spanking, too.” Dorian considered Tristan for a long moment. “Who’s your mom?”

  The humor drained out of Tristan’s face, and something flickered in his eyes. My stomach formed into a rock. Tristan didn’t remember his actual parents. Like me, he never knew his father. He’d been taken from his mother while a tot, and all he knew was that she was evil.

  “Um . . . so . . .” I stammered, trying to think of how to get out of this demand. “So, Dorian, why would you say moms give spankings? I’ve never spanked you.”

  He shrugged. “I know. Naughty Nick’s mom spanks him. And his dad laughs when he’s bad, and that’s all the time.”

  He chattered on about his favorite cartoon. Tristan thanked me with his eyes for distracting Dorian from the question. We both knew it wouldn’t be the last time he’d ask, but at least now we could prepare ourselves for it.

  Owen and Dorian were on Captiva later that morning, trying to make peace with the natives—we hoped their sweet faces and engaging personalities could win over the colony residents—when Mom and Charlotte arrived. After I gave them a tour of the house, we sat in the living room and watched Tristan connect a new home entertainment system—a “necessity” by his standards.

  “So, are you pregnant yet?” Charlotte asked, direct as always.

  I nearly spit out my drink. “Uh, no. Why?”

  “I told you she wasn’t,” Mom said.

  “I hoped you were wrong for once.” Charlotte frowned.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  Mom sighed. “I didn’t want to get into it our first five minutes here, but there’s a lot to discuss, honey. The Amadis are getting . . . anxious.”

  “Yeah, you said they’re acting strange. So, is that why you’re here? To spy on us? They wouldn’t send royalty to investigate a witch, especially right now.”

  “Actually that was an excuse to come here and see you. They aren’t aware you’re here yet.”

  My eyebrows shot up. “Really? Surely someone in the colony—”

  “Yes, someone has reported your arrival. But the entire Western Hemisphere reports to me now,” Char said with a grin, “and I haven’t bothered to tell the council yet. I said I needed your mother because we happened to be in Atlanta anyway, and with her truth-sensing and persuasion abilities, she’d make my investigation easy work.”

  I resisted the temptation to read their minds and studied their faces instead. Perhaps I really wanted to trust them, wanted them to be on our side, or perhaps they really were sincere, so I decided to give them the benefit of the doubt.

  “Okay, so what’s going on?” I asked again.

  “The council has broken into factions,” Mom said, not telling Tristan or me anything new. Until her next statement. “Even the most supportive ones are becoming agitated, up in arms about the next daughter. Rina thinks the sooner you get pregnant, the sooner everyone will settle down and unite again.”

  “But Rina knows there’s already a daughter,” I said. “Why doesn’t she say so, if that will make everyone happy?”

  Mom’s eyes leveled on me. “Alexis, there is no daughter. You need to let it go.”

  “There is! I heard it. You need to believe me.”

  “You’re jumping to conclusions based on snippets of thoughts.”

  My eyes flew to Charlotte and back to Mom.

  “Charlotte knows about your power,” Mom said. “I had to tell her
so she can help us. Now listen to me. What you heard about Rina, the threat to expose her secret, is not what you think it is. It’s not my secret to tell, but just trust me on this.”

  “Well, if it’s not Rina’s secret, it is somebody’s. Julia and her mysterious friend and whoever else are hiding our daughter! If Rina would only listen to me . . .”

  “It’s nonsense, Alexis. There’s no possible way. You need to stop searching for something that doesn’t exist.”

  I narrowed my eyes.

  “I know what you’re doing,” Mom said. “You’re going to Daytona this weekend to question a witch coven. I feel the truth of it.”

  I didn’t answer at first. Last I’d heard, we were going to Lake Okeechobee, but apparently Tristan had changed his mind. I looked at him, and he gave me a shrug.

  “Okay, so that’s what it is,” I conceded. “So what? We need to figure this out. We need to find this girl.”

  “I also feel the truth that you’re searching in vain. You won’t find her—there isn’t anyone to find.” Her mahogany eyes were wide and sincere. She means it.

  I dropped my head into my hands. Mom was never wrong. If Mom feels that truth, then what are we doing? What did I hear? Over a month had already passed since we left Amadis Island, but the thoughts I heard were still clear. But the meanings?

  Tristan came over and sat on the arm of my chair. I felt a tug inside my head—his mind signature. He was signaling me, and I opened my mind to him.

  “What do you think, ma lykita? I trust you.”

  Time had passed, but the urgency had continued to build. Last night’s dream only motivated me more.

  “Maybe you’re right, Mom,” I finally said, “but I can’t take the chance that you’re not. Maybe whoever is blocking Rina’s power is messing with yours, too. I can’t risk our daughter’s life, if she’s out there. And as you said, if she is out there, finding her will improve things all around.”

  Mom and Charlotte exchanged a significant look.

  “Tell her,” Charlotte said.

  Mom sighed heavily, closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. The air in the room thickened even more, making my lungs, my whole body heavy with dread. Whatever she had to say wasn’t good.