“Oh my God. You know who made the stone?”
“Of course, but it was no one person and I take great pride in saying that I assisted in the creation of something momentous.”
“You’re the head of the coven, why would you turn to the dark side?”
“I never turned, I was always there. The coven was a tool for me. A mask to hide my true intentions.”
I started to tremble. “What are you going to do to me?”
“Too many questions girl. Too many.”
Behind him the door opened and Claire rushed in.
“Abram what are you doing?” she cried.
The look of disgust Abram gave her sent a chill through me. “You,” he pointed at her. “This is you, you’re doing. All of it.”
Claire stilled. “Let her go. I was just coming to talk to you.”
“Oh, about the vampire? No, you weren’t going to tell me that.” He frowned.
I’d assumed she’d told him already. I thought that was one of the reasons why he came so quickly.
“How did you find out?” Claire asked, she glanced at me.
“I told you years ago, you couldn’t hide anything from me. You did a very good job of hiding this girl though.” He flicked his hand toward me and a glass ball surrounded me.
My curiosity surpassed the fear that gripped my body and I couldn’t take my eyes off them.
What was he talking about? How had Claire hidden me?
“Abram please. Let’s talk. Let her go.”
“You’ve embarrassed me enough wife. Keep whatever lie you were about to formulate to yourself. I knew she was with the vampire from the first night he came to get her. Like mother like daughter.”
My mouth dropped and I stared at Claire who had tears in her eyes.
She lifted her hands and attempted to cast a spell but the same way I faded away from Tristan was the same way we faded away too.
Faded to nothing.
Then darkness took me as my head felt light.
My last thought was...
Claire.
She was my mother...
Chapter 11
Tristan
***
I teleported to the castle, right back to Gabrielle’s room. The door was open but there was no sign of her.
No fucking way was I going to just sit down and watch shit go down and not do anything about it.
No way in hell.
And no way was I going to play nice either. Truthfully, I was panicking because I tried to sense her but I couldn’t. I couldn’t feel her anywhere.
Where is she?
Where the fuck was she?
I shouldn’t have let her go. I should have been quicker and followed her, not pussyfoot around with Ivan and Virgil about what I should do.
Two dark masses appeared before me in Gabrielle’s room and my brothers stepped out of it.
“What are you doing here?” I snapped.
“What does it look like we’re doing?” Ivan shot back. “We’re not impervious Tristan. One demon. That was all it took to kill mother. You are my brother. I will not lose you.”
“Nor, I,” Virgil added. “You aren’t thinking straight. Things never work out when you just run in head first without a plan. We’re here to help.”
“I can’t sense her.” I told them stepping past and making my way down the hallway. They followed me.
Us walking around the castle like this would cause a stir but I didn’t care.
“Where would she have gone?” Virgil asked.
Ivan grabbed my arm and pulled me back. “Look brother, I know on any given day we’re at each other’s throats but we’re brothers, and more importantly were friends. Tell me everything. Tell me so I can help you. A big bomb was dropped on us this morning by finding out she’s part vampire. It’s a lot to take in. You’ve spent time with her, tell us what’s going on.”
I sighed, looked from him to Virgil and decided they should know. So, I told them. I told them everything. Everything about the visit to the seer, my theories and what I’d seen.
“She’ll be a threat. Abram will see her as a threat and not because she was with you.”
“There’s something more to Abram than what he’s showing,” I growled. Right now I didn’t give a fuck about Abram and the damn etherstone. That was what we were talking about when Gabrielle teleported to Saphiro. I just wanted to find Gabrielle.
Why can’t I sense her?
I couldn’t sense her anywhere, or feel her.
Ahead of us Pru and Juliana turned the corner. They looked pissed as all hell when they saw us.
“You,” Pru cried rushing toward us. A ball of fire formed in her hand and she threw it at me.
Virgil put out his hand and turned it into smoke.
Juliana tried to teleport but Ivan held up his hand and froze her mid attempt and pulled her to him. She was inches away when he suspended her in the air and she could neither move nor talk.
“Let her go,” Pru demanded.
“Pru, I really can’t stand you either. You think you’re hot shit but you don’t know who the hell you’re messing with.”
“I’m aware of who I’m dealing with Tristan.” Fire blazed around her hair, expanding by the minute. “You knew the laws and yet you still broke them.”
“Fuck the laws.” Ivan answered for me. “Where’s Gabrielle?”
Pru narrowed her eyes at him. “I thought you came for her.”
“Yes, I did come for her,” I answered. “She’s not in her room. Where is she?”
The fire around Pru subsided. “I don’t know. I can’t find my mother either and the etherstone is gone.”
“What!” Ivan jumped back in. “You people allowed the stone to be taken?”
“We didn’t allow anything. We have all sorts of magical wards protecting it.”
I’d seen it for myself. They did have wards protecting it.
“So who took them down?” Ivan stepped forward.
“Sounds like you have a fox in your henhouse, my lady. Or maybe it’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing.” Virgil taunted.
“No, we don’t have anything like that here. No one would do such a thing.”
“Pru, you’re problem is you’re like sheep,” I said to her getting up close in her face. She stepped backward and shook her head. I had a pretty darn good idea who took the fucking stone and I wasn’t going to waste time fucking around by sparing her feelings. Her very high opinions of her father was shit to me. “You don’t see what’s in front of you, even when it’s glaringly obvious. Who put the wards up Pru? Was it you?”
She really did not like my tone. “My father put those wards up. Surely someone snuck in here and took them.”
“You know there’s no way no one would be foolish enough to do that. Steal from the castle, the headquarters of the Coven of Shadows. Really? Your father put the wards up and he took them down.”
“Mind what you say Tristan, I will kill you.” Tears ran down her cheeks. “You can’t just come in here and accuse him of something like that. You fucking asshole.” Another fireball blazed in her hand. The flames were hot. Hot like I imagined hell to be and they grew hotter but I didn’t move.
A dark sphere appeared behind her. A portal similar to my black smoke.
Out stepped Lucian, surprising all of us.
Pru looked behind her and something in her softened when she saw him. Again this was the case of seeing something that was obvious to me and not anyone else unfold itself.
Those two had always had that spark of chemistry and attraction, but they would probably resist it until it killed them. Pru was too focused on following the rules and Lucian was too busy being alpha male.
Maybe things would change now though.
“Seemed like this was close enough to a cry for help.” He said to me, in reference to my conversation just last night, but he was looking at Pru.
Pru who was looking at him. I sensed the crumble of emotion in her.
“Thank you for coming,” I said to Lucian.
“Had to come.” Lucian looked to me, then returned his gaze to Pru. “It’s true. Abram has the etherstone. Spies from my pack saw him in the woods. A Transcluce Demon travels with him. They also picked up on the witches essence. We don’t know what their plans are.”
Fuck!
Abram had Gabrielle.
“Where did they pick up the essence?”
Lucian shook his head. “It was so faint we cannot tell. We can’t track any of them.”
Pru started to shake and more tears streamed down her cheeks. Lucian put out his hand to her hand holding the fireball and took it from her into his own hands.
I’d never seen anyone do that. I didn’t know he could do that, but it seemed he’d dabbled in magic just as much as me and we had more in common than I realized.
He took the fireball and made it float, then in a similar manner to the spell Virgil cast he turned the fire into snowflakes.
As Pru broke down and her haze of fire faded, Lucian shocked the shit out of me by taking her hand and leading her away from us.
Mesmerized as I was, I couldn’t waste any more time here. That’s what this was. A waste of time I didn’t have.
I turned back to Ivan and Virgil. “I have to find Gabrielle,”
“Go, we’ll take care of things here.”
I opened a water portal. I couldn’t sense her and couldn’t feel her. So I did the next best thing and went to the person who I knew could see all.
The seer.
I just hoped he would help me two days in a row.
***
The seer smiled when he saw me.
His eyes were all there looking at me, giving me all manner of nerves.
“Wow, you’re back.” he lifted a small china cup from a tray beside him and took a sip of a dark thick liquid in the cup. An eyeball bobbled to the top and his forked tongue licked it. “Can I offer you a drink?”
I frowned. “No thank you. Seer, you know why I’m here. I feel like you could have told me more yesterday.”
He started to laugh and set the cup back down. “You know the good thing about being me?”
“What’s that?” If I were in a better mood I would have taunted him about the disgusting whatever that was in his cup.
“There aren’t many like me. Not the good ones anyway. It’s why you all keep on coming back for my services. Means I can do whatever the hell I want and play with you people how I wish. It’s what comes with being in demand.”
“How can you be such an asshole when shit is literally going down. You told Gabrielle she was more powerful than you. To know that you would have had to know her powers.” I thought it yesterday and Gabrielle said something along those lines.
“I know some of them and they were all more powerful than me. If I had told you everything, and if I do tell you everything you will never have the experience of finding out certain things for yourself. How did you feel when she told you she wanted to be with you? How did you feel when you saw her appear right there in your arms not an hour ago and you knew she was just like you? You knew, you figured it out and you knew she could truly be yours.”
The asshole was right. He was right, but it didn’t make me feel any better.
“None of that matters if I can’t find her.”
“So many visitors in such a short space of time.” He laughed. “So many I don’t know what to do with myself, and I never know what to offer you. Forgive my terrible manners.”
I didn’t know what the shit he was talking about.
“Who else came to see you?”
“You twice, you by yourself, you with the witch. Pretty girl by the way. Then the mage.”
He was trying to tell me something. “Mage?”
“Yes. Nice woman, what a horrible life she must have lived having to give up her daughter like that to be raised by humans of all the creatures. She did good though. Good plan. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”
“What are you saying to me?”
“Follow the mage, she cries for her daughter. Maybe the two of you can find her together. It’ll be like old times witch and vampire coming together. He’ll like that you did that too. Do something for him that he couldn’t do.”
Him...
Who was he talking about?
Shit, I didn’t have the time. Time was what I didn’t have so I left. Quickly.
The only mage I knew was Claire.
I picked up on her essence and I felt the sadness reaping off her in waves.
I sensed her, followed it, then I found her. I stepped out of my portal and stopped in my tracks when I saw her. Shock flew through me when two golden dragons stood on either side of her.
Golden dragons like Gabrielle’s. Just like them.
But where were we?
I knew this place. Knew it well and hated coming here so I never ventured down these paths.
We were at the chasm where my uncle died trying to seal a breach from one of the hell dimensions.
We honored him by placing a stone sculpture of him slaying a wraith demon.
It was the demon who got him just as the breech sealed. It killed him instantly. We honored him with the sculpture because while one got him he was able to stop hundreds from escaping. Just him. One vampire from the Order of Raphael.
I wasn’t aware that Claire even knew him, yet she wept at his tombstone like she did. She’d castrated herself on the ground crying like her world had ended.
I walked up to her and she lifted her head.
I’d never really spoken to her all that much. Mostly I figured she couldn’t stand me the same way Pru couldn’t so I kept my distance.
As I looked at her it all came together in my mind. The pieces of the puzzle started fitting together.
I figured it out.
“Claire. Why are you here?” I asked. I wanted confirmation. I wanted to hear her say it.
“I failed,” she cried.
I figured it out, all of it but I was just going through the motions.
With all the information that had been thrown at me and from what I could see it wasn’t difficult to figure it all out. After all I was the one who saw what others couldn’t see.
Things that looked obvious to me.
Claire was Gabrielle’s mother and her father was my uncle.
My uncle Neo.
Half witch, half vampire.
Chapter 12
Tristan
***
I knelt beside Claire and she straightened up.
“You’re Gabrielle’s mother?”
She nodded, slowly. “Yes, I am.”
“Her dragons look like yours.” I looked at the magnificent beasts standing inches away from us.
“You’re the first person to see them in a long time. I haven’t unleashed them since Neo died. They comfort me. Unlike Gabrielle’s who bond with her, I set mine free so they can live in Pandir, where they are most happiest. That was Neo’s idea. He took on the role of my protector.”
“Why would he never mention you?” It sounded like he more than loved her.
“He wouldn’t have. It would have been too dangerous. Your father was completely against us. Of course he would be, me being with your uncle would have caused a war. We... knew each other when we were younger. I was just a witch no older than my daughters and it was clear that we loved each other. My parents wanted me to marry Abram because he was older, a strong member of the coven and his father was coven leader. He was a good choice. I did it to keep the peace and I regretted it.”
“What happened?”
“After Juliana was born I started seeing Neo again after I suspected Abram wasn’t what he appeared to be. I didn’t know what he was doing. I feared he was part of the Society. I still fear it.” The Society were the group of Razul followers who were always plotting to free him. “It was my fault. I placed Neo in that position where we had to hide and see each other. I should have either never married Abram or I sh
ould have left him to be with Neo. I shouldn’t have hid. Then we weren’t careful and I got pregnant. Our magic was out of control when we were together and I got pregnant with Gabrielle. Neo and I planned to take Pru and Julianna away from here and be somewhere we could raise our baby without the threat. But he died. He died here. I knew Abram suspected my affair with your uncle when he changed the laws and issued the death sentence for a witch from the coven to be with any being from the Shadow World.
“That was nearly thirty years ago.” I remembered it well. This was why.
“Yes. I did the only thing I thought I could at the time. Abram thought the baby was his but he would have known she wasn’t from the minute he saw her. I went to stay with my sister witches under the pretense of helping to write a spell book. While there I told him I lost the baby. My sisters helped me cast a spell to erase Gabrielle’s past. Me, Neo, her, everything. The bloodline couldn’t be traced. I placed her in the care of humans because I thought it was safest but we gave her guardians to protect her should she ever come in contact with dark forces.”
“You knew who she was when she came here.” She had to, if only for the talk of dragons.
“Yes. I absolutely knew and Abram suspected it. I saw it in his eyes the minute she arrived. Then every day for the last few weeks I watched his suspicion just grow. We never said as much to each other, other than agreeing that we should be careful with her powers, but neither of us wanted her to use her powers, or explore her powers because they would show mine. People would know I’m her mother. It would be obvious. I command the elements, I can manipulate magic and bend it to my will. There’s a lot I can do and no one had to teach me. It came naturally. It all came naturally. I was worried he would see it, he was worried everyone else would see it, but he was worried for other reasons too. Gabrielle is a powerful being. She was immune to the etherstone and she’s possibly one of the only beings who could go up against anyone from The Society. He doesn’t want that to happen.”
I sighed in complete frustration. “Claire we have to find her.”
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