by Kristie Cook
“Get this over with! We should be out there fighting!”
“Yeah! We should be fighting Daemoni, not each other!”
“But we have no future without a matriarch!”
I didn’t know where to take my gaze. I avoided the front of the room, definitely not wanting to see the council. I didn’t want to look into the faces of the angry crowd either. My eyes kept pulling toward Tristan, but I knew looking at him would only bring more tears. So I looked up, over the crowd’s heads to stare at a point on the wall. Across the room from us, a little higher than the rest of the heads, bobbed a familiar blond one.
Owen’s eyes caught mine for a second, then he looked away, as if unable to bear the sight of me. He stood against the wall with a woman on each side of him, one blue-haired and the other purple—Jessica and Lisa, the faeries. Is this his defense? Trying to show he’s already in love with someone else—two somebody elses? He couldn’t believe that would work. It would only be infatuation, faeries creating lust, not love. Everyone would see that.
Not that he looked in love. The crowd must have diluted the faeries’ influence because he didn’t have the same expression as he’d had at their cottage in the Tennessee woods. Instead, he looked composed and . . . calculating. As if he had something up his sleeve and simply waited for the right time to reveal it. Did Rina send him after the faeries? But why?
I followed Owen’s gaze to the old woman who’d cared for Lilith, sitting not too far from Owen and the faeries. Her face was drawn tight, making her look older. I didn’t remember her presence earlier and wondered why they’d brought her in. I could only figure that after Tristan’s trial, they planned to question her about Lilith—their relationship, why she was raising her, what she might know about Lilith’s mother. That thought made me physically cringe. Did I want to stay for that? I might learn something that would help me to believe Tristan . . . or I might not and instead subject myself to even more agony.
Nona, as Lilith had called her, was the only person sitting in the room, besides the council members and us. Everyone else stood, and as I finally looked at the crowd, I found a variety of expressions, all of them full of passion. Their spirits animated with the desire to fight or to protect, with rage or with worry, with hate or with love. Some had pointy ears and extra facial hair, as if they were about to lose control over their human forms. Others’ fangs showed, brought out by the anger and fear in the room.
“What about the Daemoni?” someone called out, the voice spiked with terror.
“Yeah! They’re attacking right now, and we’re doing nothing. They’ll win!” A voice agitated with the desire to fight.
“What about our children?”
“They have no future now,” a woman wailed. “What will happen to them?”
“What about the unprotected humans? The innocents?” Owen yelled louder than anyone, and many shouts rallied with him.
I saw then what Mom must have seen years ago, what council members now realized. Owen could become a great leader. He might try to push things a little too far, as Rina had once pointed out, but that was a sign of courage. He never overreacted to anything, but was passionate about his beliefs. And as seen now, he could control a crowd, keep them focused on the right things. He was definitely strong and powerful enough. No wonder he was their next choice as the father of my daughter.
But I could never be with him, even after what Tristan had apparently done. It’d still have to be by in vitro . . .
Oh, my god.
That’s it!
My breath caught as the obvious slammed into me twofold. Solomon’s words echoed in my mind: The best stories—and the best lies—are woven around the truth. It is up to us to discover which is which. The traitor knew about this girl with Tristan’s DNA and had intertwined that thread of truth into her lies to authenticate her claims. This wasn’t Tristan’s doing. He hadn’t orchestrated the Amadis’ downfall.
“Quiet!” Solomon bellowed once again.
“Martin, do you have a decision?” Armand asked, seizing the opportunity of silence.
Before Martin could answer, I jumped to my feet.
“Wait! You can’t prove Tristan’s betrayal with those results,” I said. Everyone stared at me with raised eyebrows, including Tristan. I took two steps forward. “In vitro fertilization. The Daemoni could have taken—” I swallowed my embarrassment and pushed forward, holding Tristan’s gaze as I spoke. “They could have taken Tristan’s semen and created this girl without his knowledge.”
Tristan’s face showed a flicker of relief . . . or affirmation . . . or something. Could I be right? If he’d told me the truth—that he had no idea how Lilith could be his daughter—then this was the only solution. The one he hadn’t been able to see. The Daemoni could have taken anything from him as soon as they captured him. They’d knocked him out with black magic, and he would have never known. He’d been telling me the truth!
This meant Lilith really was his daughter. And I’d have a decision to make. Which explained Tristan’s expression. He felt relieved to see I believed him about being faithful . . . but worried about what this would do to us, if we made it out of here together. He’d said he’d raise someone else’s daughter if he had to. Could I do the same?
My decision would have to wait. The crowd’s noisy response drowned out my own thoughts.
Martin banged his fist on the table. “Enough.”
“Is there a way to prove this?” Chandra asked.
“Of course not,” Armand said. “And as such, we must proceed. We cannot take the risk this is another lie.”
“You can’t prove it’s not true either,” Mom challenged.
“You can’t be certain either way,” I added. “What happened to innocent until proven guilty?”
“This is not America,” one of the Middle Eastern mages said. “Nor a democracy. Martin, what is your decision?”
“But she might be right!” someone said from the crowd.
“Which means the Daemoni are part of this,” someone else said.
The audience let loose with another outburst, some members supporting me, others backing Armand, saying the risk wasn’t worth their lives.
“Even if it’s true, he could be working with them,” Savio said. “They can produce all kinds of his offspring, and they get the boy.”
“That’s all we need to remember,” Armand said. “More proof that Tristan is the traitor.”
“Does your vote remain then?” Martin asked, looking up and down the table. Everyone nodded.
“We agreed at recess that he ought to be banished,” Savio said. “We move forward with Owen and Alexis.”
Martin rubbed his forehead with this thumb and forefinger. He opened his mouth to speak, closed it again. He looked at Tristan and then at me with blue eyes that darkened and softened with each heartbeat. As if to say he was sorry.
Tears sprang to my eyes.
“No. You can’t,” I whispered, holding Martin’s eyes as I shook my head slowly. And when he didn’t respond, I nearly shouted, “No! You banish Tristan, you banish me, too. You won’t control me like this!”
I pushed one of the warlocks to the side and latched onto Tristan’s arm.
“Get her out of here,” Armand barked. “Get them both out of here.”
Someone grabbed me from behind—another guard. I gripped Tristan’s arm, holding on tightly. The guard yanked at me. My fingers slipped. The warlocks pulled on Tristan from the other side, and Tristan easily went with them toward the door.
“No!” I screamed, my hands held out toward him. “Tristan! No!”
I fought against the guard who carried me toward the opposite door, but he held me with all his strength. I yelled out a variety of profanities, letting the anger consume me before the pain did as I watched them take Tristan away from me. The current reality blended with the past, when he left me crying and begging for him to stay at the safe house. When he left me, left us, both Dorian and me. My heart cracked, and
I knew when it broke into a million pieces again, it couldn’t possibly be put back together a second time. Tears flowed down my cheeks. Please. No. Not again.
“Bree, you must say your piece now,” Lisa the faerie whispered as the guard dragged me by. “This is the time!”
“Now or never, Bree,” Jessica said. “Or everything will be for naught.”
My eyes went wild. Bree? She’s here?
“Wait!” Lilith’s witch stood up so fast, her chair fell over behind her. Everyone stopped and stared at her, including the guards holding Tristan and me, surprised by her clear and strong voice. “You are mistaken.”
“Excuse me, old witch?” Savio drawled.
The woman’s upper lip curled in a snarl at the insult. “There was no outside fertilization. The Daemoni didn’t take Tristan’s seed.”
My stomach tilted as she looked at me. I’m wrong? But . . . that could only mean . . . The old woman’s milky eyes began to clear and change color. Her body straightened and lengthened several inches until she stood to nearly six feet tall. The wrinkles smoothed, and the blotchy skin cleared to a golden tan. Her gray hair transformed into thick, wavy golden strands, and her eyes finally settled on a matching golden color. And my stomach more than tilted—it dropped. Is this Tristan’s mistress?
“In fact,” she said, her sparkling gaze still directly on me, “no one can take Tristan’s seed except Alexis. The faerie stone is a fertility stone.”
Her mouth turned up in a soft smile toward me. Of course she wasn’t Tristan’s mistress. She was the golden lady from his memories.
“You’re a faerie?” Robin asked with shock.
The golden lady’s lips pulled up in a smile. “Yes. I am Bree. And I must stop you from making this horrible mistake.”
“What do you know about it?” Savio demanded.
“I know quite a bit about it,” Bree said. “Much more than any of you. Did you not hear? I am a faerie! I may not be part of the Otherworld anymore, but I know exactly what is going on here, and you are about to destroy the Amadis.”
“Explain yourself,” Julia demanded.
Bree’s golden eyes sparked with anger at Julia’s tone. “Just as you demanded in the Everglades, but you never gave me a chance. I will start with the girl, whom you also told me to explain. And I will tell you, and you will finally listen to me.”
Her expression toward me softened, and then, when she looked at Tristan, she smiled. She sauntered to the front of the room, all eyes following her.
Bree peered at each of the council members as she strode the length of the dais. “The girl has a name. Lilith. And she is my daughter.” She turned to me again, her stunning gold eyes capturing mine, and I could do nothing but stare back, mesmerized. “But she is not Tristan’s daughter. She is his sister.”
My breath caught in my throat. I blinked. Then, as if we were all controlled by the same puppet string, everyone’s heads jerked toward Tristan. I knew his face well enough to see the range of emotions play out—shock, confusion, anger, and then rage.
“LIAR!” he bellowed. Then he disappeared.
Chapter 24
Tristan moved so fast at the faerie even my eyes couldn’t see him. The next thing I knew, the faerie held up her hand, and Tristan appeared, bouncing off an invisible wall she’d thrown up. He landed on his feet a yard away from her, and his eyes sparked so brightly with anger, I expected them to burst into flames.
I broke free from the guard’s slackened hold on me, and rushed to Tristan’s side.
“Tristan,” I said softly, placing my hands on his bulging forearm, “relax. She’s not hurting anyone. Please calm down.”
He glanced down at me, and his eyes softened . . . slightly. Then he lifted his eyes to Bree, and a low growl rumbled in his chest.
“I won’t stand for your lies,” he said. “We don’t need your faerie bullshit!”
“I tell the truth, Tristan,” Bree said, her gold eyes wide and sincere. “I am your mother.”
Tristan leaned in toward her, and his voice came out low, each word distinct. “I don’t have a mother. The woman who gave birth to me was an abhorrent Daemoni witch who died over two centuries ago. So drop the faerie antics. They’re not helping anyone.”
Bree shook her head, and the light sparked off her Otherworldly hair. “That’s what they told you, Tristan. They wanted you to believe I cared nothing about you so you would hate me. They wanted you to themselves, to raise you their way, not mine.”
“They said you tried to kill me! You wanted me dead.”
“No, my son. All part of their lies. The truth is . . . I loved—love—you. I always have.”
“Faeries don’t love! You don’t care about anything in this world!”
“But I did. I still do. It’s why they took you from me. You couldn’t experience love, not for their purposes. When they saw how much I cared for you . . . they didn’t expect that at all. They didn’t know I was a faerie. They saw the witch you saw just a bit ago—a couple hundred years younger, but the same witch. They thought I served them. They would have never allowed me to be your birth mother if they knew.”
Tristan’s hands flew to the sides of his head, grabbing at his hair. He blew out a rumbling breath—a growl of anger or exasperation, I wasn’t sure. I placed my hand on the small of his back and felt his muscles pulled taut under my touch.
“Why then?” he demanded of Bree. “Why would the faeries get involved? Why did they care?”
Bree tilted her head. “It wasn’t the faeries. It was the Angels. Do you really think they’d let the Daemoni get away with creating a warrior . . . someone like you . . . without a plan? They played a part in it all along, planning how you would eventually come to their side. They came to the faeries, asking for our help. I’ve always favored the Angels, favored Heaven’s ways, so I volunteered.”
Martin shifted, the movement catching my eye. His eyes narrowed. “That would mean you’d have to give up the Otherworld and live in the physical realm for eternity. No faerie would do such a thing.”
“I did,” Bree said, turning toward him and the council. “I saw their need, and if I didn’t do it, if none of us did, the Daemoni would have created something much worse than Tristan. A beast with no goodness at all, no conscience, a killing machine.”
“And they trusted you?” Julia demanded. “Knew you wouldn’t turn on them?”
“Not at first, but they requested this favor, so they’d already devised a variety of challenges to test my loyalty, to be certain I served them and God. When they were satisfied, they sent me into this world as a witch, someone who would meet the Daemoni’s criteria for their warrior’s biological mother. They planted me so I could give Tristan their goodness and my faerie blood.” Bree took several steps toward the dais. “Don’t you see? The Angels wanted Tristan to be here, serving you, not the Daemoni. They planned this all along.”
“How can we trust you?” Martin demanded. His eyes had gone from pale blue to so dark, they almost looked purple. He leaned forward, his knuckles white as he gripped the edge of the table, his body tense as if he used every bit of control he had to keep himself from attacking Bree. His voice came out as a growl that rivaled Tristan’s. “You’re a faerie!”
Jessica, who’d been standing with Lisa in the shadows, stepped forward. “We’ll just have to show y’all.”
She and Lisa went over to Bree and grasped her hands in theirs. Then they all lifted their hands together into a peak over their heads, which they leaned together. The light in the room darkened and colorful sparks rained down on them. Then I lost them as the whole room disappeared in darkness.
I found myself in a different place and time. I stood on the side of a mountain covered in green grass and gray boulders, reminding me of pictures I’d seen of Ireland. Bree floated in the air above me with a blinding light surrounding her. She appeared to be alone, but a clear voice with an unearthly quality spoke.
“Thank you, Bree, for aiding us,”
the voice said. “We understand this changes your existence, and we celebrate your commitment.”
“I do it for you, my Angel. And for God,” Bree said.
“And we, the Angels, will be with you forever. You may feel outcast, but know you are not. You will rejoin us all in the Otherworld when your time comes. Now go. Do your duty. Create the most powerful warrior for the Amadis.”
The light disappeared, and Bree dropped to the ground. Then the scene changed. Bree sat in a hut made of sticks, looking quite different. The light glinted off a few golden streaks, but her hair was now a dull, dishwater blond, and her eyes were no longer shining, but a muddy yellowish-brown. She wasn’t exactly ugly, but not as vibrant and striking as she was as a faerie. She sat on a wooden stool, drinking from a mug.
“Drink it all,” croaked an old woman, obviously a witch, who stood by the fireplace, eyeing Bree. “Every day, morning and night. Jordan’s potion might cause changes in you, but it is mostly for the baby.”
“But I am not with child yet,” Bree said.
“We are still preparing you,” the witch said. “Just as we are preparing the chosen father. He is very handsome, with enough Amadis blood. Soon, you will meet.”
The air around us wavered, and the scene wasn’t much different, but time had passed. We were still in the hut, but Bree no longer sat on the stool. Her hand pressed against her swollen belly as she waddled toward the bed.
“I am certain it’s time,” she said, and her face tightened in pain.
“One more dose, then,” the witch said, handing Bree a mug.
The scene changed again, and we were now outside what appeared to be the same hut. Bree chased after a small, tow-headed child, both of them laughing. When he turned to look at her, my breath caught. Dorian, I thought at first. But of course not . . . it was Tristan as a little tot, no more than two or three years old. She scooped him up in her arms and held him closely to her in a loving embrace. Then she gave him the stone, showing her viewpoint of what Tristan had shown me earlier, when my telepathy still worked.
The air wavered again, and Tristan now looked more like six or seven years old, again running around outside the hut. Bree apparently had been watching him from her perch on a fallen tree trunk, but now she glanced around, alarm all over her face. She stood, placed one hand over her enlarged belly and called out, panic lilting her voice. But Tristan never made it back to her. Two men—vampires—shot out of the nearby woods, grabbed Tristan, and blurred away, too fast for a pregnant Bree to catch. She fell to the ground sobbing and screaming, “My son! My son!”