I watched as my mother laughed. “Why do you ask? Don’t you want to get married someday, Karri-Lynn?”
“Not if I have to kiss him.”
She laughed harder. “Why is that?”
“Because RJ said I have to punch any boy who tries to kiss me and I don’t want to have to beat up my own husband. Would you want to hit daddy every time he kissed you? Geesh, you’d be hitting him all the time. Poor daddy.”
She held her arms out to the little version of me. “Oh, RJ said that, huh? He should have clarified that you can kiss your husband without having to punch him, darling.”
“Why?”
“Because, he’s going to be your ... umm ... Better yet, I hope he doesn’t correct that. That will teach him to try to keep you away from boys until you’re of an age and I can perform the ritual.”
“Ritual?” Branson asked, appearing next to me. “What’s your mom talking about?”
“I don’t know.”
“Karri,” he touched my cheek, “you’re crying.”
Seger moved to my other side. “Leave her alone, Branson. She’s allowed to break down when need be and I think seeing her mother for the first time since she was a little girl warrants that.”
“How come you do that?” the little girl, or rather me, asked my mother.
“Do what, honey?”
“How come you get the same smile on your face that daddy does when you talk about RJ and me? You look all weird, like you know a funny secret. RJ does it kind of too, ‘cept he doesn’t make me feel silly, like I’m a joke or something.”
My mother stood and put her hand out to the younger version of me. I couldn’t help but walk forward and whisper, “She seemed so tall to me when I was little.”
“She is tall, just not as tall as you,” Branson said. “Don’t get pissed but your mom is hot. I see where you get it from ... ouch! That hurt.”
“Then shut up and I won’t do it again,” Seger said, ready to punch the Fay again.
I watched as my mother led the little girl for ease of explanation to the edge of the water. “Karri-Lynn, what would you say if I told you that one day you’ll grow up and marry a very nice man?”
The little girl seemed to think about it. She squinted. “I’d say that I think you’re wrong.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t think RJ or Daddy will ever let me date a boy, nice or not. I asked about it once. I wanted to know about where I could find a prince like Cinderella and they both started telling me that boys were bad and that I wasn’t allowed to ever talk about them again. Is that true, mommy? Are boys bad?”
“No, sweetheart but your daddy doesn’t want to think about his little girl growing up at all and RJ doesn’t want to think about you growing up dating other boys. It’s all very hard to explain to you right now but when you’re older I’ll tell you everything.”
“Mommy?”
“Yes, darling.”
I pointed at her breasts. “When am I going to get ones that look like that?”
I laughed and took another step forward. “Oh gods, I really was just like Hilary when I was little. How did they not tape my mouth shut?”
As my mother tossed her head back and laughed, I moved closer to her, needing to touch her. Something powerful surged around me, causing a disturbance in the illusion. It faltered but didn’t go away.
“Karri-Lynn.”
Turning, I found my mother standing next to me in a long provocative white gown. I looked back at the version of her with the young version of me and arched a brow. “What the hell is going on here?”
“Watch your mouth, young lady. That is not talk for a woman,” the mother in the white dress said. I leaned back a bit.
“Mom?”
She smiled as a breeze seemed to come out of nowhere. It blew her long hair all around her, causing it to whip around and mine to do the same. “It’s me, honey. This,” she pointed at the scene of her and me before her, “is taken from your memories. It’s an illusion. It’s the demons way of trying to tear you down from the inside out. Do you understand?”
She put her hand out to me. “They want you to think that everything that’s happened was your fault, Karri. It wasn’t. Don’t let them win with that. You carry so much love for everyone around you that it’s easy for you assume responsibility for things you had no control over.”
I felt evil beginning to press in all around us. My mother lifted her arms and it stopped instantly. “I can’t stay long. I wanted to see you again.” Tears came to her eyes. “You have grown into a beautiful young woman. Though,” she touched my shoulder and turned me around slowly, “you’re too thin. You should eat more.”
“We keep telling her that!” Branson yelled out.
My mother laughed. “I can see why you keep him around, he’s rather amusing. In fact, you have made wise choices about those you keep close to you. Tripp has told us so much about you and the others. Your father hangs on his every word, still shocked that his baby girl followed in his foot steps.”
I glanced at Tripp and he nodded. “Mom, it’s really you?”
She laughed. “You certainly got your father’s need to be leery of everything.”
I grabbed hold of her and hugged. Standing a good three inches above her I kissed the top of her head. She laughed and squeezed me tight. “I think I’m shrinking.”
Evil did its best to push in on the illusion but failed. My mother drew back a bit and lifted my arms out. She didn’t look a day older than I did. Seger was right, we looked like sisters. “Karri-Lynn, please tell me that you haven’t been playing in the mud again.”
“Who me? Never.”
She laughed and I felt her power moving all over me. When I glanced down, I found myself completely clean, my hair silky and flowing free around me. I now wore a long white gown similar to hers. Straps of two-inch thick material covered my nipples and crisscrossed over my toned abs before moving into a larger bit of material that covered my crotch. A matching band of it covered my ass, hanging down to the sand. The sides were open all the way up. As the breeze continued, I realized what I was missing. “Mom, why am I not in underwear?”
“Well, darling, I would think you’d have figured that out by now. After all, Tripp is very attractive and was in perfect health.”
I jerked slightly. “Tripp, this is not my mother! This woman is talking about you and I having sex!”
“Yes it is. Trust me, Karri, I was as shocked as you to find out just how very much like you she is when it comes to a lack of modesty. Oh, and you get the sex thing from her. No question about it.”
My mother beamed. “Isn’t it great? Being in complete control of men that in theory could tear you apart is a high that you’ll never come off of.”
I covered my eyes. “Ah, I just got a mental image of you and dad. I think I’m going to be sick.”
“Karri-Lynn, there is nothing wrong with your father and I having sex. It’s natural,” she laughed, “well, maybe not natural when it comes to your father, he is quite a handful, but....”
I covered my ears and fought to keep from being sick. “Are you trying to get me to join a convent? Is that what you want? Just say it and I’ll do it. No more of this. Good gods, hordes of evil things have tortured me to the point I thought I wanted to die and they had nothing on this. Dad never had sex. You never had sex. End of story. They just beamed me down or something. It was an immaculate conception. No sex. None.”
She laughed hard. “Honey, we’re similar to Tripp. We didn’t die, we moved on to another plane where we are together and still very much in love.”
I paled considerably. “You’re saying you’re still doing dad, aren’t you?”
She wagged her brows.
“That’s it. I’m done. I can’t ever have sex again. It’s your fault.”
“While knowing that would normally make your father a very happy man, I’m afraid that he’ll not agree with your decision. He wants grandchildren.” She glan
ced over at the group of men I’d brought with me and nodded her head. “You found him. I knew you would. I’m sorry it took so long, Karri.”
“Found who and would you please put me in some underwear or something?”
“Okay, if you insist.” She snapped her fingers and I glanced down. I moved the thin bit of material out of the way to find a teeny, tiny white thong on me. I snapped around fast, checking my backside. There was a simple, thin, string of white there. “Mother, this is dental floss not underwear.”
“You own undies smaller than that,” Branson yelled out.
“And how do you know that,” Seger asked, crossing his arms over his expansive chest.
Branson shifted awkwardly. “I sort of went through her box of undergarments when we were moving her in this morning.”
My mother touched my upper arm and shook her head as she put healing energy over it. “Karri-Lynn, get out before you can’t. You will die long before you’ve had a chance to live.”
I cupped my hand over hers and smiled. “I have one last thing to do, mom. Then I’ll stop.”
She shook her head. “You can’t hide your intentions from me, Karri. It may work with everyone else in your life but I know you better than you know yourself. He won’t let you do it.”
“Who?”
“RJ, of course.”
That made me laugh. “Mom, I don’t know if you know this but I haven’t seen him since I was six. I wouldn’t know him if he walked right up to me. Well, I might if he proclaimed the day to be green bean day but that’s a whole other story. Besides, he doesn’t care what happens to me. He’s got his own life. I’ve got mine.”
My mother’s look hardened and I felt her energy scanning me. She hit horrific memories of my childhood after she died, that I’d kept hidden from everyone. Her eyes widened and she moved towards me fast, wrapping her arms around me and holding me tight. “Ohgods, baby, he didn’t know. None of us knew. We, your father and I, can’t get to your level of existence without the aide of one of our kind among you so we couldn’t have known, Karri.”
Ashamed of myself for not learning to be stronger sooner, I pulled back from her and refused to let her hug me again. “It’s no big deal. I’m fine.”
“Fine? That existence was not fit for an animal, let alone my baby girl.”
“Mom, I’m good now. Really. But trust me when I say that RJ could give a shit, Mom.”
When she didn’t correct me for my choice of words, I looked up to find her staring towards the group of men with tears in her eyes. I touched her arm lightly. “I didn’t meet any of them until after the fact. They don’t know what happened and I don’t want them to. Please don’t say anything about it.”
Nodding, she took my hand and turned to watch the illusion of the two of us playing in the surf. I could feel the love radiating off her. It wrapped around me and held me tight.
Suddenly, another person joined us on the beach. When I saw my father running full force at us, I covered my mouth. “Daddy!”
My mother clutched my hand tight. “That’s your memories honey, not really him. Do you remember what happened on this day?”
“Yes, dad and his men were attacked in broad daylight without warning. They were over that ridge going over some plans for something and it happened. Dad said that one of the demons they killed had a picture of me on him. So I assumed....”
“That the attack was your fault. RJ got hurt and you blamed yourself for it, even though he was healed within a week and it was not your fault. I couldn’t get you to understand that.” She looked behind me at the men. “He couldn’t get you to understand that either.”
Evil pressed in hard, this time breaking free. Two large sparterous demons fell from the sky and dropped on both sides of my mother and myself. She gasped and I rolled my eyes as I struck out hard and fast, ripping the red jewel from one of their foreheads with one hand and smashing my other hand through the hole. It caught fire and I kicked it away from me fast--silently cursing the outfit she put me in.
“Karri?”
Pulling her backwards I went to snatch the other sparterous’ red jewel. It caught my arm and bent it back fast, taking me to the ground. I spotted the guys running towards me out of the corner of my eye and grabbed a handful of sand.
“Hey,” I said, catching the demon’s attention. It looked at me and I threw sand in its eyes. It jerked back fast and I spun, kicking its feet out from under it and sending it to the ground. I crawled over it fast, yanked the jewel out and punched its empty hole. Rolling quickly, I narrowly avoided going up in flames with it.
Riston was next to me in an instant, shocking the hell out of me. Reaching down, he pulled me to my feet fast. “Are you hurt?”
Why wasn’t he frozen? Worse yet, why did he glance at my mother? He could see her? This was not good. Confused, I glanced past him. “Branson, I thought you tossed a magikal whammy on him. Why the hell is he walking around fine?”
Branson swallowed so hard that I could see his neck muscles working overtimes. That was never a good sign. “Uhh, just go along with him. I swear that I’ll, uhh, wipe him clean when we’re done. Yeah. That’s it. I’ll clear his memory then.”
My mom laughed as she grabbed my arm. “Karri-Lynn, where did you learn to fight like that? I am certain that you did not learn it from me.”
“A vampire taught me most of it but these guys have done more than their share of teaching me how to handle different types of demons. Are you planning on yelling now because I feel like I should go to my room or something?” I glanced down at the outfit she put me in and sighed. “I also feel like I’m going to pop a nipple. Can you please fix this?”
Riston stared down at me with a look, which had me worried that he was about to tackle me to the ground and have his way with me.
“And being under him would be a bad thing, how?” my mother asked.
My eyes widened. “Tell me you weren’t just reading my thoughts.”
“I could, but that would be a lie.”
Tripp stood behind Riston with a huge smile on his face. “I can’t believe you remembered to kill them that way. I didn’t think you were paying attention that day, Karri.”
My mother snorted and wagged her brows. “I can’t see how she learned anything with you teaching her like that.”
“Like what?” Branson asked.
Tripp shook his head. “No, don’t....”
My mother grinned. “Well, he was a very good personal tutor. His reward system would have made me study hard too. I especially like how he’d ask Karri to recite the various demons and how to kill them while he was,” she glanced downwards, “doing a little research of his own.” She winked. “Withholding when she stopped saying them was genius, Tripp. What do that call that way of teaching? Orgasm incentives?”
“Victoria, are you trying to get me killed a second time around?” he asked. “I thought we were friends.”
She laughed. “Oh, don’t worry about him. After what I just learned being in my baby girl’s head, he deserves to be reminded of what he never made an attempt to claim. It serves him right that another man won her heart before he did.”
Something crashed into Riston, sending him flying backwards and hitting the ground fast. I ran to him, worried that he was injured. He winced a as he got to his feet but seemed fine. Tentatively, I ran my hand over his arm. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” he glanced at my mother. “I’m fine.”
“Mom, did you just knock Riston on his ass with your power?”
She didn’t answer. Instead, she put her hand out to Tripp. “Tell them how you were finally able to do what no others could.”
Tripp shook his head.” Victoria, I don’t think that’s really something that needs to be advertised.”
She put her hand up. “Tripp.”
He shrugged. “Fine. Karri really did agree to marry me.”
“Don’t sound too happy about it,” I said, hurt that he had to be forced to even admit it.<
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“Karri, it’s not like that. I’m just trying to give someone the same respect I’d want if I was in their shoes. I wouldn’t want it thrown in my face that you were happy with someone else. Would you?”
My mother smiled. “I was right to pick you, Tripp. When word came to me that my daughter still hadn’t been claimed I knew that she needed someone special in her life to fill that gap. You,” she ruffled his black hair, “more than stepped up to the plate.”
“What are you talking about? You didn’t send Tripp to me and I didn’t need anyone.”
I looked at Tripp, expecting him to back me up. What I got instead was something I wasn’t expecting. “I’d do it again in a heartbeat, Victoria. She’s as amazing as you said she’d be, even more so.”
Backing up, I shook my head. “You were with me because my mother asked you to be? Wow, umm, I don’t even know what to say to that.” It felt as though I’d been hit in the stomach. I snorted as my emotions raged. “And the academy award goes to, you my faithful second.”
He made a move to come to me and I put my hand up. “No. Don’t.”
“Karri-Lynn, please, you’re not understanding how things work.”
“I understand that you didn’t think twice about playing with my emotions, Tripp. Am I wrong?”
The illusion began to crumble. My mother reached out fast and hugged me tight. “I love you.”
“Mom, what’s ... ?”
She hugged me tight and then looked at Riston. “Take care of my baby.”
Riston wrapped his arms around me tight as the illusion began to swirl. I tried to go to my mother but he held me to him. When the swirling stopped, I found myself standing knee deep in the snow in what appeared to be a blizzard. Riston held tight to me, his fingers skating over my exposed skin and dancing close to the edge of the strips of white cloth. My skin burned with pleasure everywhere that he caressed it.
Tipping my head back, I sighed and rocked my body against his. “Why did my mother say that to you? Why would she tell you to take care of me?”
He ignored my questions and held tight to me. “Are you cold?”
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