Oh, god! She knew!
“Relax, Brea, if you pass out, it’ll make us look bad,” Jase was behind her, his hands on her waist for a long, steadying minute, his mouth next to her ear. “Okay?” Brea nodded and swallowed. “Can I get you something to drink? There’s all kinds of stuff in the kitchen,” she offered with an overly bright smile and too high voice.
“Tea? I love all types, plain, please,” Annie told her, smiling and watching Brea leave. She saw the looks in their eyes; saw how they watched her move, how their worry translated into a scent she easily recognized.
“I’ll go help,” Nick said after hugging Annie. “I think she’s a little nervous.”
“Huh…” Jase looked around the large room. It suddenly seemed much larger and then he realized the furniture had been rearranged. He gestured to what now looked 189
like a comfortable pit facing the fireplace. He leaned back in one of the recliners.
“Phones broke, mom?”
“I haven’t been out to visit in a while, Jason,” she smiled winningly at her son.
“And Nick did invite me out to meet Breanna.” She looked around at the new arrangement, nodding in approval. “Very nicely arranged. I like it.”
“Sometimes Nick is just too polite,” Jase sighed, taking another look around the living area. “I think Brea did it while we went for a run this morning.” He knew she’d be curious. He was her only son, her only child. Making certain Brea was good enough for him would be at the top of her list.
Annie laughed, her head shaking. “Nick is as much you’re other half as you are his.”
“Brea, relax,” Nick took the shaking mug of tea from her hands before she spilled it and burned herself. “Annie isn’t judgmental.”
“She’s his mother!” Brea hissed anxiously, pacing and setting out the coffee she’d poured for Jase and the large bottle of water for herself. Eyes widened. “Oh, god, will your mother show up next?” She swayed slightly, gripping the table and upending the bottle of water with a long, long swallow of the cold fluid. She’d filled the bottle with ice, water and a couple lemons and it wasn’t helping.
Nick groaned, taking the coffee and tea into the other room. Dark eyes went to Jase with a slight jerk to the side.
“Here…..” He set the coffee on the table and handed Annie Bishop the large, 190
fragrant tea. “Brea blends tea and I think this is one of the fruit ones she makes. I like it. Be right back, Miss Annie.”
“Hold a minute, mom,” Jase was up and following Nick into the kitchen. “Where’d she go?” Their eyes swept the room, nostrils flaring to catch the scent that was exclusively theirs now.
“She was in a panic when I came for you,” Nick went to the large pantry and pulled the door open. “Brea….”
“Just…um…searching for…something….”
“On the floor?” Nick laughed and gripped her hands, pulling her to her feet.
“It was either go voluntarily or end up there anyway,” she mumbled, bare feet trying to cling to the nicely colored tiles beneath them.
“Brea, come and sit down, my mother has some information about your family,” Jase caught her when she suddenly straightened and stumbled forward. “I asked her to talk to some of her friends. She’s involved in a lot of art things with the community and the local college in Cutter’s Cove. She makes pottery and has a lot of friends who might have known your parents.”
“You….you spoke to your mother….about me?”
“You aren’t a secret, babe,” Jase stroked one finger down the side of her face.
“You’re our family now.”
Nick didn’t like the high voice or the wide eyes filled with too many emotions at once.
“Brea, Annie knows people who know stuff,” Nick said carefully. “Just come into 191
the living room and sit down because if you pass out on us, she’ll see how mental we are and it won’t be good for our independent reputations.” Brea let her head fall against Jase’s chest and laughed.
No matter what, they always found a way to make her laugh.
“Does she know?” The sudden burst of panic new. Girls always got the bad end of the reputation stick when it came to sex. Always.
They barely heard the whispered words.
“She’s like you, isn’t she? Oh, god, that means she can smell……”
“What I can see is that you’ve made the two most important young men in my life very, very happy,” Annie Bishop stood behind them, smiling at the stunned hint of blush on the cheeks of the boys she’d watched grow into strong, caring men. “I love the tea. You’ll have to show me how you blend it, Brea.” Before anyone could speak, Annie Bishop had her arm around Brea’s waist, guiding her from the two men and into the open living room.
Jase and Nick were close behind. Brea sat in the corner of the sofa, her knees drawn up and arms around them. She felt cornered. She felt frightened but she couldn’t pinpoint what she was frightened about. Frightened, no, no…..well, maybe, a little.
Frightened that she’d not be accepted as readily as she was with Jase and Nick.
Frightened of letting them down somehow.
Nick perched on the wide arm of the sofa, his palm on her neck, stroking softly.
“Brea….have you seen your parents in any of your dreams?” Jase asked suddenly, sitting on the edge of the recliner across from her. The question did the trick, 192
though, her attention focused and lips pursed in that damn sexy little pout.
“My dreams? No. Well, not lately….I used to dream about them all the time,” she shrugged. “Places we went on vacation and just fun things we did.”
“Mariana wasn’t just here to visit, Brea. We asked her to….” Jase dropped his head, one palm up and rubbing the back of his neck.
“I’m thinking my son did something he should have discussed with you first, Brea,” Annie looked from one to the other and then at Brea. “You smell human.
Well….not completely….” Wide grey eyes blinked, the full explanation of the scent breaking through to her. She looked pointedly from one male to the other. “I see. Well.”
“Oh, god,” Brea breathed and closed her eyes and feeling the heat searing her face.
“That’s why we asked for information.” Nick said carefully. “Is the scent not there because she’s never used those other parts of her?”
“She has a very small part of her that is actually human. Maybe I can scent it better because of the friends I have with the arts community,” Annie opened the grey leather purse hooked on her shoulder. “I brought photos. Borrowed them from some friends,” she flipped through some things and pulled out a small packet. “They’re of you, Brea and some of your parents’ friends.”
“How did you know them?” She took the packet, her fingers shaking as she opened it and looked down to see her mother and father at one of the events held at the school a year ago. Some photos were older; some recent. It made her smile even as the tears formed.
193
“I made copies, Brea, those are for you. Jase told me you lost all your things in the fire,” Annie watched her eyes well with tears as she nodded. “You don’t know about your parents’ history. Their past. Your past.”
“I was born here,” she shrugged. “I had photos. I still have some, online. My father always had a camera aimed at us, from before I was born, even,” she smiled, swiping at her cheek. “I don’t understand what you’re trying to tell me.”
“Your heritage, Brea.”
“My….you mean lineage?” Brea shrugged, still confused. “I think they were from Ireland a long time back, but I’m honestly not sure. I never cared much for the past.”
“Brea, she means more than that. It’s like us being wolves,” Jase began slowly.
She’d handled that well enough. Except for the show me your fangs thing. That still made him a little snarly.
Brea sat upright, staring at him. “I don’t have fangs,” she whispered.
“Brea….” Jase exhaled slowly. “No, you do not have fangs.” He raked two hands through his hair.
“Brea, the garden you just planted outside….isn’t it a little curious that the vegetables are already four inches tall?” Nick asked cautiously.
“I have a green thumb. It’s like the healing thing,” she shrugged. “It’s just part of who I am….my parents told me that all the time.”
“But it’s not all of who you are,” Jase jumped on that sentence. “There’s more that….people didn’t tell you….and they didn’t tell you because they were keeping you safe.”
194
“People…..you mean my parents,” she looked up at Nick and then across at Jase.
“You think they didn’t tell me on purpose.”
“The threats didn’t begin until your parents vanished, Brea.” Nick pointed out logically.
“That’s silly. I’m being threatened because my parents were killed? Then why not just kill me, too?”
“They tried,” Jase reminded her quietly.
She considered this, her breathing ragged.
“Why? We never bothered anyone. They never bothered anyone. It was just us.
The three of us….” She looked down at the picture she held. “I don’t know why. Why didn’t they just put me inside the building and let me die there?”
“I don’t have those answers, Brea. I’m fucking glad they didn’t,” came the growling words, Jase’s hands clenched to keep the little control he had when he thought about her words.
“I think it’s something from the past, Brea. Something that happened before you were born and something that happened because you were about to be born,” Annie Bishop sipped her tea. “I don’t want you to hurt, Brea. But you can’t deal with the present without knowing about the past, especially in your case.”
“You don’t believe I’m strong enough to deal with this…..this whatever it is,” she said flatly, looking from one to the other.
“I think….” Annie said just as flatly. “You’ve been thrown a lot of crap in a really short amount of time and frankly, I’m not sure I’d be able to deal with all of this.
195
Especially them.”
“They make me laugh,” Brea said with a half shrug. “Even when I don’t feel like it. They make me feel….like I’m home.”
“Do you know anything about the supernatural world?” Annie decided to jump into the middle. Too much information was far smarter than going into a situation blindly. She understood her parent’s choice, but since they were no longer here to help, Brea deserved the truth.
“Umm…..supernatural….like ghosts and….and wolves?”
“And fairies and demons,” Annie said clearly.
Brea sighed, eyes rolling a little.
“Fairies are something I grew up with. Until I was old enough to tell my mother no more, my room was filled with them. All kinds. They even got into my dreams. Even the other night….but I was me…an adult…talking to fairies in a dream,” her tone easily showed her humor.
“I don’t think it was a dream, Brea. I think they’ve been trying to find you for years,” Jase laughed at her expression, one of those tawny brows arched. She was clearly questioning his sanity.
Brea cleared her throat. Several times.
“Fairies….trying to find me…..” she knew her mouth was about to say something regrettable and closed it.
After all, she’d laid on the grass in the backyard with two wolves not five hours ago. Maybe she’d been hit on the head a little too hard and she was really in a hospital, 196
in a coma, having wildly lucid dreams.
“Whatever you’re thinking, babe, you’re wrong,” Jase met the abruptly innocent expression with a sigh. “We’re not crazy. And you’re not dreaming.”
“How do people keep getting inside my head?” She hissed suddenly.
“No one’s inside your head,” Nick laughed, his hands on her shoulders. “Relax.
From the look on your face, his guess was pretty accurate.”
“I’ve got fairies calling me to their forest when I sleep and you think that’s normal?” She demanded incredulously.
“For you, I think it might be,” Jase waited, watched her. “You don’t want us to protect you from the truth, that’s not how you want life, Brea.”
“I’m not sure we agree on what the truth is,” she said carefully.
“You believe what we showed you this morning. How is this different? Because it’s about you?” Jase watched her tongue swipe along her lower lip. “Mariana is psychic.
She can…delve into a person’s mind and see….”
“You let her read my mind? You….” Brea pushed up from the sofa, spinning and facing them both. “She put me to sleep. Didn’t she? That….that conniving blonde….” Brea lifted one corner of her lip and growled. “She wanted you two.”
“But she didn’t get us, Brea,” Jase said quickly.
“She did not read your mind. What she can do is tell us if someone had been controlling you,” Nick spoke quickly when he saw the small hands clenching into fists.
“Or if someone had been shielding you from the rest of the world.” Brea went still.
197
“Why would someone want to shield me from the world? Am I dangerous?”
“Shield you as in hide you from the others,” Jase told her. “Think about what you told us about your dream. Think about the conversation, Brea.”
“I was ignorant,” she said softly. “I didn’t know….” Her eyes flew around, stopping at each one of the people watching her. “I didn’t know because no one told me. But they wouldn’t answer me. They wouldn’t….and then they couldn’t because someone….some thing….attacked…..said he was grateful that they brought me to him.
He said…..he said I was a half-breed….and the other one…the little doctor one…..he said something about a shield….”
Nick was up and pulling her back to the sofa when her face started to pale, her body swaying a little.
“It was a dream,” she insisted, breathing heavily. “It was a dream.”
“Brea….” Annie waited until Brea faced her. “I have a couple other photos to show you.”
Brea nodded and waited, looking at the pictures laid out on the sofa. Her hand shook, her finger tapping on the first photo.
“She was in my dream….but not….not like this,” her gaze moved to the second one. “He’s the doctor one….I don’t know what he is, but it felt like he was examining me. He said I had a shield around me,” she looked up, fighting the panic inside. “He touched my ear, told me not to move and called me a child.” Annie held her breath, glanced warningly at her son and waited.
Brea shook her head slowly, her hand hovering over the last photo. His clothing 198
wasn’t modern. Not very modern, at least, but it didn’t look like a very old photo.
“He was the one who wanted me. Said he’d been looking for me…..and called me a half breed….but it wasn’t…he didn’t look like this,” she looked up at the faces watching her. “He didn’t! He had horns and his skin was like a horse….a very dark horse. It looked hard and shiny. It was a dream,” she finished, hoarsely. Hopefully.
“Brea, do you want the truth? The information I found out from my friend?”
“How…how do you know them?”
Annie sighed and tapped the photo of the older woman. “She’s one of my instructors in the pottery guild I belong to. We’re getting ready to begin the summer art festival season. I’ve known her many years. He….teaches at the University extension in Cutter’s Cove,” she said with a smile. “He teaches ancient history.”
“Tell me, please,” she wasn’t aware of the pleading quality in her voice, the desperate sound that had Nick pulling her to sit back against the sofa, her knees drawn up and arms around them.
Annie took a deep breath, closed her eyes and opened them slowly.
“Your father was from northern Main
e. Your mother from a small village….in North Carolina. She was on a college trip when they met in London. According to Wade,” Annie smiled at Brea. “He swept her off her feet and had no choice but to fall madly in love with him. She returned home the end of the summer with your father a week behind her and two months pregnant. They were married in North Carolina.”
“Is….is there family? His family? Her family?”
“Yes and no,” Annie answered softly. “His family refused to accept his choice, 199
their decision. He chose you and your mother, Brea. Your mother’s family lived in the small village in North Carolina. Your father was welcomed there and they started their life. Wade said they were happy. The family was….the village….was preparing for the biggest celebration they’d ever known, setting that date for your birthdate,” she stopped, looking around and sighing. She held up a palm and went into the kitchen, the sound of drawers and cabinets and then silence. She returned and handed Brea a clean hand towel.
“Thank you. Why….she doesn’t look old enough to have been in the village with my parents,” Brea burst out, swiping at the tears on her face. “And him…..neither of them look older than thirty.”
“He said to tell you….you’re a mere child by comparison,” Annie repeated with a crooked grin, glancing over at Jase and then at Nick.
“He told me that in….in the dream. He looked so young and talked like….as if he’d been around for eons.”
“Which should be really interesting in the years to come.” Jase looked at Nick and they both frowned.
“Interesting how?” Jase forced the words out, really not liking the look on his mother’s face.
“You marked her….you both marked her,” Annie made the comment, not making it a question. “Which means you’ve both taken her blood. And she might not have bitten you….I won’t ask…..but she’s taken your……you’ve kissed and exchanged fluids, let’s say.”
200
“Oh, god.” Brea hid her face in the towel. “This can’t possibly get any more embarrassing.”
“It’s my mother, don’t bet on it,” Jase sighed. “Mom….the point?”
Breanna Page 16