by Kristie Cook
“Why couldn’t we go right away?” I asked Tristan as soon as we stood in our own garage. After removing our cloaks, Owen had gone on home. “We were halfway there already.”
“Because we don’t know what we’re going up against,” he said. “If it’s Amadis, they must have had help over the years, so it’s probably more than one person, and we have to be careful how we handle it. If it is, by chance, Daemoni, then you’re looking at a battle much bigger than what we just finished. I need a chance to regroup and make a plan.”
I crossed my arms and stared at him. He stared back at me.
“Are you making a plan?” I asked impatiently.
The corners of his mouth twitched and eventually tugged up into a smile.
“You’ve certainly become all full of yourself today.” He pulled me into his embrace and held me tightly against him. “Please give me a moment to feel you safely in my arms before we throw ourselves into the pits again.”
I wrapped my arms around his waist and leaned my head against his chest. “I suppose we can spare a moment.”
“How about a night?”
“The whole night?”
“You really don’t want to be out there in the middle of the night.”
I snorted. “After what we just went through, you think I’m afraid of the dark?”
“Not the dark. The swamps. The homes of gators, anacondas . . .”
“As in big snakes?”
“As in ginormous snakes.”
I shuddered, but said, “I can handle it.”
He heard the hesitation in my voice and knew he almost had me convinced. “A few hours sleep will give our bodies time to completely heal, and Owen especially needs it.”
Ugh. He knew how to get to me.
“Okay, fine. We leave first thing in the morning.”
“Perfect.” He took my hand, and we headed into the house, where we found Dorian in bed and Mom and Charlotte at the kitchen table.
And they weren’t alone.
Chapter 19
Wearing a charcoal gray pants suit and her dark hair pulled into a twist at the nape of her neck, Julia looked almost like a Norman visiting friends during a business trip. But the vampire’s only business here would be to take Tristan. My hackles rose. I stepped in front of Tristan.
“What the hell are you doing in my house?” I demanded, though I already knew the answer.
“Rina was worried. I told her I’d check on you and Sophia,” Julia answered smoothly.
“And we’re supposed to believe that? Believe you?”
“Alexis!” Mom thought. “Calm down. She’s not here for Tristan. Rina seems to think we need a babysitter.”
She followed you? I asked. Mom barely moved her head in a nod.
“That’s my official business,” Julia said. “But while I’m here, it’s only prudent of me to tell you that your actions are making your situation worse.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Tristan asked.
“Today’s events mean nothing to you? The Amadis who fought for you—their lives mean nothing?” So she had already received word of the battle at the Were encampment.
“Of course they do! And if you knew as much as you think you do, you’d know that we protected them,” I seethed through clenched teeth.
“Which is no better. You risk their lives by going there in the first place. Then you risk your own—their only hope for a future—because of the danger you brought down on them. Either way you look at it, your actions can’t be trusted.”
“Well, our actions,” I said, “led us to what we’re looking for. A girl who everyone says doesn’t exist. Don’t talk to me about trust!”
Mom, Charlotte, and Julia stared at us for a long, silent moment. Then the questions started flying, and Tristan and I shared what little information we gleaned, before discussing our plans for tomorrow. I absolutely insisted on going, and everyone except Tristan protested, but I shut them down by pointing out what I had done today. Mom couldn’t risk going, and Char was sworn to protect her. They would stay with Dorian. So it came down to only Tristan, Owen, and me again. Perfect.
As the three of us prepared to leave the next morning, Julia popped into our living room, dressed in leathers like us.
“I’m going with you,” she announced.
“What?” I demanded. The hell she is!
“I did a little of my own investigating last night and confirmed what I suspected. Nobody knows anything about this witch or this girl,” Julia said. “We have no idea what kind of danger you’re headed for. You’re risking your lives again, and since I can’t stop you, I can protect you.”
I had all kinds of things to say about that, but Tristan squeezed my hand, keeping them from flying out of my mouth.
I don’t trust her, Tristan.
“Me neither. But she won’t leave, and it’s the best solution. Do you want her here with your mother and Dorian? At least she’ll be with us, where we can watch her.”
“Charlotte is here,” Julia continued. “Your mother and son have a warlock and a Lykora, and they’ll be safe in this house. Rina said you need me more. I can’t break her orders, regardless of what you think or want.”
Regardless of the fact Rina’s out of her mind and has no clue what orders she’s giving. I wanted to say it aloud, but didn’t. Tristan made a good point. I’d rather Julia be with us than here. Who knew what she could pull while we were gone? Who knew what we might come back to if we left her here?
“Fine,” I muttered. “Let’s just go.”
Tristan had explained to me that if you had a place on a map to concentrate on, you could flash there, even if you’d never been there before. However, without street names or landmarks, such as in the wilderness, and no coordinates, you might not appear in the exact spot you wanted, possibly as much as a few miles off. So flashing into the middle of the Everglades? Risky, even without considering that we could appear in a snake or alligator pit.
To avoid the chance of us appearing several miles apart, one of us would have to take the lead for the others to follow. I should have been the lead, since I’d seen the place more specifically in Trevor’s mind than a map provided, but none of us, especially me, felt confident in my abilities to lead a flash. So we all lay a hand on Tristan, and without Julia knowing, I shared Trevor’s image with Tristan, and we flashed.
We appeared hip-deep in the middle of a swamp. Well, I was hip-deep. Everyone else was more like thigh-deep. The muck at the bottom sucked at my boots as we waded through the reeds to the bank, watching for gators and snakes. As I neared the grassy bank, I saw something out of the corner of my eye. Something big and white disappearing into the water about forty yards away. I shivered as my imagination ran wild with visions of enormous anacondas and alligators. Standing on solid ground, I lamented the desecration of my new leather gear, but, to my amazement, it had already dried and returned to perfect condition.
“I’ve been waiting for you, princess,” said a familiar voice with an Australian accent coming through the brush. A bulky figure topped by a bald head emerged from a clump of trees.
“Jax?” I asked, though the answer was obvious. That must have been him, in crocodile form, I’d seen slithering off a few moments ago. He apparently had clothes nearby this time, because now, thank God, he was dressed. “What are you doing here?”
“I think I found the girl you’re looking for.”
“You? Here? But how?” I paused. “Oh, wait. Let me guess. A little birdie told you?”
He grinned, and the scar over his eye crinkled. “She’d spent some time here, and when she flew home, she told me all about it. Including a witch and a little girl she’d met hiding in the middle of the bloody bush—or whatever you call this place.”
“So you came here? I thought you never leave—”
“I couldn’t help it. You struck something in me, princess, and I had to do what I could to help.” He shrugged. “It’s been a ripper of a trip, actually. This
place is a lot like Oz, but . . . different. An all right change. Especially these gators. They’re nothing like the crocs at home.”
“Glad you’ve been enjoying your vacay,” Owen said, “but let’s get back to this witch and girl.”
“Sure, mate,” Jax said, and he told us about how he’d been here for a couple of months, learning his way around the Everglades and searching for what his were-bird friend had told him about—the girl and the witch. He hadn’t found them until his friend arrived and led him to their hideout, then he had her fly to the nearest Amadis Were to deliver a message to us. The visit from Trevor’s wolves surprised him when they came to check him out and make sure the message was real. He didn’t like them much, but he was friendly enough to build their trust in him.
“Well . . . where are they?” I demanded when he finished his story. My patience ran thin. After months of searching, we were So. Close. The girl hid somewhere in the vicinity. The girl who could be our daughter.
Jax led us through the woods, swamps, and brush, Tristan and I behind him, and Owen and Julia covering our backs. Although our summer had seen less rainfall than normal, much of the ground was mushy under our feet. We waded through water and reeds, squelched and squished through mucky marshes, avoiding the sharp edges of waist-high saw grass, and crossed broad areas of solid ground with forests of cypress, pine, and palm trees. Birds floated lazily overhead when we were out in the open, their shadows often making me duck after yesterday’s attack. The noises of the subtropical wild—birds’ squawks, the plop of something dropping into the water, whispers of waving grass—filled me with both awe and anxiety. After all, those movements were made by wild animals, including panthers, snakes, and alligators.
I tried to suppress the excitement I felt by staying alert and focusing on my surroundings, but the butterflies in my stomach wouldn’t go away. I’d been thinking of this day for months, visualizing what this girl would look like—a lot like Mom, Rina, and me, I assumed. Imagining how it would feel to be certain I had a daughter, a daughter I hadn’t been able to raise myself, a daughter who might know nothing about us. And envisioning the consequences—how it would release the pressure off Tristan and me to produce a daughter, how the council would settle down and the Amadis unity could be restored, how everyone’s trust in us and each other could be regained so we could do what we’re meant to do: fight the Daemoni, not each other. Of course, there was still a traitor trying to take things over, but this girl seemed to be tied to her in some way, and when everything came out, surely we’d be able to identify the traitor, too.
Speaking of traitors, I wondered what Julia thought right now, knowing secrets were about to be exposed. She knew Rina kept a secret about the next daughter, and this was probably it. Was this why she didn’t trust Tristan and me? Because she knew we’d discover Rina’s secret before Rina wanted us to? Or did she expect to find us somehow betraying the Amadis with this trip? Was that why she really came, to prove herself right? Did she really think we’d take her along with us to have a powwow with the Daemoni? Or . . .
Shit! Why hadn’t we thought of this sooner? She could have been setting us up! Perhaps this was all her doing. Now that I thought about it, it was rather convenient that she showed up just as we received the information we’d been seeking all this time. Only one way to find out.
I felt out for her mind signature but before I latched onto her thoughts, three extra signatures floating around distracted me from Julia. Three more than our expedition accounted for, and two were relatively close by. And very different than I expected. The childlike one was vivid, like Dorian’s, but not quite the same. It had a rougher and darker edge to it. The other one felt more human than anything, but that wasn’t quite right. Something . . . different . . . layered it, a suppressed undertone. Tristan had expected a witch, and Jax had confirmed it, but this signature didn’t feel like a mage’s. Perhaps the witch worked with a Norman who helped care for the child. Perhaps that third signature belonged to the witch, but now I couldn’t find it. The third one had disappeared from my range.
I tried to focus in on the second signature, the strange one, to find the thoughts that followed it, but there was nothing there. No thoughts at all. Completely blank. Perhaps she was a witch after all and was somehow able to block me. Did she know we were coming? Did she know about my telepathy? Or perhaps she was extremely cautious, which made sense considering she’d purposefully been hiding for all these years.
The trees began to thin, and beyond the edge of this wooded area was a clearing with a small pond and a little shack jutting out of its center. Jax held his hand up, and we all stopped short and fell silent.
“Nona, someone’s here,” a young child’s voice said.
“It’s okay, Lilith,” said a scratchier voice, one that sounded as though it belonged to someone elderly. The second mind signature with the blank thoughts must have belonged to her. “They are friends.”
At this, we took several steps closer and emerged into the clearing, seeing the faces of the voices for the first time. Oh! My breath caught, and my hand flew to my mouth. Partly to keep my heart from flying out because it had jumped into my throat.
They crouched on the other side of the pond, and now they both stood. The elderly woman’s dull gray hair sprouted everywhere in a wild nest, seeming to have a life of its own as she lifted her head up to us. Her light gray eyes looked our way, but I had no idea if she actually saw us through their milky lenses. She hunched over in a stoop, her hand resting on the child’s shoulder.
The child. The child took my breath away.
“Tristan,” I whispered, grabbing his arm. We both stood frozen in complete shock.
This girl, this Lilith, looked nothing like I’d expected, how I’d envisioned her for the last several months. I looked so much like Mom, who appeared to be Rina’s twin. Tristan had once mentioned my features—brown eyes, dark auburn hair, and light olive skin—gave me away as an Amadis daughter. I assumed our genes dominated in our daughters, giving us all a similar, distinct appearance. But this girl . . .
She stood a couple inches shorter than Dorian, but since he was taller than average, I guessed them to be the same age. And her hair was a darker blond than his, but otherwise . . . she was a spitting image of my son.
“Friends and . . .” the old woman paused for a moment, “. . .some are even closer. Family.”
Holy shit! Can it be? Is she for real? I waited for something in my heart to pull toward her, some kind of mother-daughter connection we surely had to have. I’d been looking forward to this moment for so long, but the emotions I’d expected didn’t surge through me. I felt nothing but a shocked numbness. She apparently felt nothing for me either, because her eyes skimmed over me and dismissed me. But when she looked at Tristan, they stopped, and something flickered in them. Recognition? But how?
“Family?” Lilith echoed. “Family like . . . like my brother?”
The woman never had a chance to answer. The last few minutes had passed as if in slow motion as we took in the scene, Nona and Lilith, and their conversation. Now someone pushed the fast-forward button, and everything sped in a blur.
The third mind signature appeared back in my range—a very familiar one. One I hadn’t felt since we’d been on Amadis Island. In the Council Hall, waiting for the coronation ceremony to begin. When Julia had threatened Rina.
“Alexis and Tristan,” she thought. The other voice, the other person no one else had sensed then, and no one seemed to now. “Finally, they found her. And now it is time . . .”
At exactly the same moment, Julia’s face twitched in my peripheral vision, and then she was suddenly on the other side of the pond, gripping the old woman in a chokehold.
“Explain this,” Julia demanded. “Explain this girl!”
The woman choked and gasped for breath. Lilith’s eyes grew wide at the threat to her caregiver, and her sweet face, so much like my Dorian’s, immediately changed. Her hazel eyes narrowed to slit
s. She bared sharp, pointy teeth. Her features twisted into those of a monster. Then she flew our way in a blur. She hit Jax first, and he dropped like a stone. Then she whizzed by Owen, and he, too, fell to the ground.
“Owen,” I cried out, springing toward his still body.
But the girl already zoomed at me now, a noise like a siren escaping her throat.
“No, Lilith,” Nona yelled. “Stop!”
Lilith halted in mid-motion. But not out of obedience. Tristan’s hand was up, palm facing her, paralyzing her with his power.
I dropped to Owen’s side and took his limp hand into mine.
“Why?” I cried, heartbreak ripping through my throat and causing my voice to crack.
But I knew why. I knew why Rina had taken her, why our daughter had been kept from us, away from everyone, why I didn’t feel as I should about her. Why she needed to be kept a secret.
Her Daemoni blood was too strong.
It overpowered her Amadis blood and humanity. Evil dominated her. She’d never be able to lead the Amadis, so her existence failed them. Rina had told me they would have killed me when I was an infant, if the Daemoni power was too strong in my blood and there had been no hope.
But . . . they hadn’t killed this girl, which meant . . .
“Lilith, you don’t need to do this,” I said, conviction now strong in my voice as I slowly rose to my feet. “There’s no reason for it. You don’t have to be this way. We can help you.”
The hatred in her eyes flickered, then dissipated. Tears welled up and spilled over her cheeks. “I’m sorry! I’m so sorry. But I can’t help it.”
“Alexis—” both Nona and Julia warned at the same time. I waved them off.
“I understand, Lilith,” I said. “Sometimes we can’t control our feelings. But we can help you. You can learn to be different.”
I lifted my right hand and pushed Amadis power her way. She yelped, but she didn’t writhe in pain as the vampire yesterday did or Sheree had when I’d tried to help her change over. Maybe Lilith wasn’t as bad as everyone thought. Maybe she simply needed Amadis power and real love—love only her parents could give her—to overcome the Daemoni blood.