by Kristie Cook
Mom had already crossed the foyer and stopped at the doorway to the corridor that led to Rina’s office. She looked over her shoulder at Vanessa.
“The matriarch is waiting,” she said.
Vanessa still hesitated, and unable to help myself, I reached over and patted her arm. “You’ll be fine. Go on.”
I didn’t point out that she should probably worry more about being alone with Mom than with Rina. After all, Vanessa had been taught to hate the matriarch, but she’d chosen to be a total bitch to Mom all on her own. Of course, if Vanessa was fooling all of us, this could be her opportunity to take Mom out. I ran a check for mind signatures and found Julia’s in the same hallway Mom and Vanessa headed down. So neither would be left alone with the other. Which was probably a good thing.
Tristan and I led Charlotte, Blossom, Sheree, and Bree through the doorway from the main foyer and into the sitting room. The room looked the same as it always had—a fire burning in the large stone hearth, two brown leather couches sitting perpendicular to the fire with a table between them, and tapestries hanging on the walls. Including the one that covered an entire wall by itself and depicted the Ames family vine, with silvery-green leaves for the daughters and brown ones for the sons.
My eyes zeroed in on Dorian’s leaf, which had not yet separated from the vine like the other sons’ leaves had. I didn’t know if that meant there was still hope for him, or if the tapestry simply hadn’t been updated yet. Obviously, I chose to believe in hope. In fact, if the leaf were to fall off the vine in front of my eyes this very moment, I wouldn’t believe it. I’d yank the thing down, wad it up, and throw it in the fire before I took that to mean anything.
None of us seemed to be able to relax enough to sit in the sitting room. Charlotte and Bree stood by the fire warming themselves, Sheree and Blossom inspected the images in the tapestries, I paced, and Tristan watched me, though his mind didn’t really see me. It focused on the same thoughts mine did—all about Dorian. Where was he? Who was he with? What were they doing to him?
Mom returned in a few moments, sans Vanessa. “Bree, Blossom, and Sheree, we have guest suites available for you. Charlotte, I assume you’ll be staying in your own place?”
“What do you mean, staying?” I interrupted. “We don’t need rooms or beds or anything. We can sleep on the plane on the way back.”
“Alexis, you’re not going straight back. Maybe tomorrow night or the next day. Rina has plans for you all, but for now, you may as well rest.”
What are they up to now? Another distraction? I stared at my mother for a long moment, into her deep brown eyes.
“She needs to assess Vanessa and wants to spend time with her,” Mom explained. “She wants to spend time with each of you. Please be patient.”
Patient? When my son was out there? Yeah, right.
“Alexis, darling,” Rina said in my head, “relax. I promise you will not regret your time here.”
My nostrils flared, but I bit my tongue. I regretted every single minute I wasn’t searching for Dorian, but I kept my promise to Tristan that we would do as they asked.
“I’ll stay at my place, of course.” Charlotte finally answered Mom’s question when she realized we had little choice in the matter.
Mom nodded. “Very good. Can you stay here for a minute, though? I’d like these three to get settled, but I have something to ask of you.”
Char cocked her head, questioning Mom, but no explanation came. Instead, Mom led Bree, Blossom, and Sheree out of the sitting room and up the stairs to the second floor guest suites.
“Dorian’s room is on the third floor, right?” Blossom asked, her voice carrying down the stone stairs.
“Yes,” Mom answered.
“I can feel his presence,” Blossom said.
Mom didn’t say anything right away, but then replied, “I think you’ll make an excellent converter. You’re very intuitive.”
“I’d never thought about it until Alexis mentioned something before . . .” Blossom’s voice trailed off, but I knew “before” what. Before shit hit the fan. Before our safe house fell. Before Dorian was taken.
Mom murmured something to Blossom, but she’d dropped her voice low and they’d moved too far away for even me to make out the words. I didn’t bother eavesdropping on their thoughts. If Mom—or Rina, the Council, or anyone else—blamed Blossom at all, that was between them. Otherwise, Mom would be telling her what I already had: it hadn’t been her fault. The blame fell squarely on me, and I’d paid the ultimate price for it. The piece of my heart that walked in this world outside of my body had been taken from me.
Char remained by the fire, I paced again, and Tristan waited patiently for Mom to return, which didn’t take long. With just the three of us, she must have felt more herself, because her whole body sagged, as though she’d been keeping up a pretense of strength and leadership for everyone else’s sake and could finally discard it. She and Charlotte exchanged a look and then fell into each other’s arms for a long embrace. For the first time since I’d returned from Hades, I saw real emotion on Charlotte’s face.
My heart, already in pieces, broke into smaller ones for her.
Her son was officially a traitor. How does a mother deal with that? Dorian hadn’t chosen to leave us for the enemy, but Owen had. He’d deserted his primary job of protecting me right when I’d needed him most and had possibly done the exact opposite—hurt me worse than anyone could physically do. He’d basically told me and the rest of the Amadis, including his mother, to fuck off, because he’d rather serve Kali. The very soul that had hijacked his father’s body. I knew how I felt about that, but couldn’t imagine Charlotte’s feelings. Actually, being a writer, I probably could imagine them, but didn’t want to. I had enough bad feelings to deal with already regarding Owen and my own son.
“Well, we’re not dead yet,” Mom murmured as she still held her long-time friend.
“Then we must be getting stronger,” Char said. She gave Mom a final squeeze before stepping away. They traded small, sad smiles. “Which we’ll need to be.”
“Yes, we will.” Mom continued scrutinizing Char’s face.
“I’ll be okay, Sophia,” the warlock said. “I have a lot of faith.”
Mom studied her friend one last moment, then finally nodded. “Go get some rest. I’m sure you need it. Can you muffle the room for me first, though?”
“Sure.” Char said her goodbyes to all of us, and then she headed for the door while moving her hands around and out. She gave Mom a final nod before disappearing to the place she kept on the Island.
Mom rushed over to me and threw her arms around me again, just as she had when I’d first come off the jet. She held me tightly against her while one hand stroked down my hair and back.
“Honey, I am so, so sorry,” she said, her voice a little choked. “I really am. I’ve been trying to be what everyone else needs me to be, but all I can think about is our boy. Our little boy out there, probably scared to death. I keep trying to think of how we can do something, but—”
I pulled away from her to see her face. “What do you mean?”
Since she couldn’t hold me in her arms, she took my hands into hers. “You’re right, Alexis, this wasn’t supposed to happen. Not now. Not like this. Dorian was kidnapped, and if he were any other Amadis child, everyone, including Rina and the Council, would be all over it. But . . . unfortunately . . .”
“They’re not,” Tristan finished for her.
She shook her head, her eyes filled with misery. “He’s an Amadis son. It’s his destiny. And nobody can argue with that fact, not when it’s happened consistently for over two-thousand years.”
“But you don’t agree with it?” I asked, hope fluttering within me. If I could convince Mom to back me up, maybe she’d persuade Rina to change her mind, and the Council would have to accept her decision.
“It doesn’t matter what I think. Or you, either of you,” she said, looking to Tristan and then at me. She r
eleased my hands to push her own through her hair as she turned and paced a few strides before turning back. “That’s what you need to understand. I want to go after Dorian as much as you do, honey. And Owen, too, the little . . .” She didn’t finish, but I could imagine what she wanted to call him. “Believe me. But I meant what I said on the phone. We have a duty. Thousands of people—billions if you include all of humanity—need us.”
Anger replaced the hope I’d felt only moments ago, and my muscles tensed. “I told you. I get it.”
“I don’t think you do,” she said. “But you need to. Earlier today, when you and Blossom were about to work that spell—my sense focused on you. I knew what you were doing, and I secretly hoped it would work. But Alexis, I was also in a meeting with Rina and the Council. She was too tired to be in the room physically, but she attended mentally, which meant her mind had been open to all of us. When I sensed the truth about you, she knew, and the whole Council did, too. You can’t be doing stuff like that.”
“Maybe you should stop focusing your sense on me,” I suggested not too kindly. “Especially when Rina’s mind is connected to yours.”
She let out a sigh. “Easier said than done. You’re my daughter. He’s my grandson. I can’t stop worrying about you. It’s not a conscious decision to focus my sense on you right now. I can’t help it. It goes to you automatically.”
Great. Tristan and I exchanged a look. This would be a serious problem if we continued with our own plan to rescue Dorian. With everything else going on in the world, she could surely train her sense on those things, but saying so now would only tell her we were up to something—something she, Rina, and the Council wouldn’t sanction.
“I can’t just let him go, Mom,” I said quietly.
“I know, honey.” She drew me back into her arms, and if I wasn’t so angry about the whole thing, I might have finally cried. It felt good to be held by my mom again. “Trust me, I know. But unless something changes, you’re going to have to. At least make it look like you are. If I can find a way to persuade everyone that rescuing Dorian is in all of our best interests, I will. But so far, I haven’t been able to. Even pursuing Kali or Owen can’t be justified in their eyes. Not when all of humanity need us elsewhere.”
I could tell by her voice, by the way she held me, by the exhaustion in her eyes she truly had tried. And she would keep trying in her own way.
“In the meantime,” she said, “I have to keep you on track. There are too many lives at stake. Too many souls. So please don’t hate me for it.”
“I could never hate you, Mom. I love you.”
“I love you, too, honey. And Tristan and Dorian. Very much. Maybe . . . maybe we’ll find a way.”
She left us with that bit of hope at the entrance to our wing on the third floor. But after the warmth of the heart-to-heart wore off, I realized there really wasn’t much hope in what she’d said. I was glad to know she hadn’t completely dismissed Dorian, that she loved him and wanted to keep him with us. But she didn’t want it badly enough. Not as badly as Tristan and I did. We would risk it all to save our son. Thank goodness we had others who were willing to help.
* * *
I awoke in our suite at the butt-crack of dawn, no longer able to sleep, although it had only been four hours since I’d laid my head down. The other side of the bed was empty—Tristan apparently couldn’t sleep either. I found his mind signature in the gym behind the mansion, and his thoughts were tightly focused on Lucas as his body beat the hell out of a punching bag. I let him be and felt out for other minds that were awake. Three so far—Mom, Vanessa, and Ophelia, the head of staff in the mansion.
After laying in bed until I couldn’t lie there a second longer, I showered and dressed, then made my way to the kitchen to find Ophelia already pouring coffee for me in the dining room.
“Ms. Alexis,” she said with a curtsy. “Chocolate croissants and strawberries?”
I didn’t feel exceptionally hungry, but now that I thought about it, I couldn’t remember the last time I ate. “Some bacon, too. Thank you.”
Ophelia inclined her head, then disappeared, only to reappear a minute later with my breakfast. I’d barely begun eating when Mom joined me at the table, followed by Vanessa, who looked considerably calmer than she had the last time I saw her.
“She spent almost the entire night with Rina,” Mom said silently to me. I lifted a brow. “You can talk to Rina about it later.”
Vanessa only stayed long enough for Ophelia to bring her a glass of what might have looked like tomato or vegetable juice to a Norman—it even had a celery stalk and a parsley sprig for flourish—but I knew better. The vampire took her breakfast and disappeared. Mom shook her head after Vanessa left.
“It’s still hard to believe, but can’t be denied,” she said quietly.
“Her conversion or that she’s my sister? Because I’m not sure I totally believe either yet.”
“Oh, I sensed the truth about her being Lucas’s daughter decades ago, but he would never confirm it, even when we were together.”
“Seriously?” I demanded. “You knew, and you didn’t bother to say anything to me? To anyone?”
“I said I sensed it, but I didn’t know for certain.” Mom reached across the table and placed her hand over mine. “Until she decided to come to us, there were too many risks and no benefit in spreading possible rumors. She didn’t know for certain until the other day, right? I feared what she might do to you if she knew, and also how it would affect you if I told you, especially if my sense happened to be wrong. She was Daemoni. Our enemy. Things might have been different if I’d known what she really wanted back when I took Tristan.”
“She told you about that?” I asked, somewhat surprised Vanessa disclosed so much. “How she’d wanted to convert when he did?”
“She told us many things. She didn’t think herself ready then, but I might have been able to help her.” She sighed sadly, but then her voice lifted. “But it all happened the way it was supposed to, and she’s here with us now. As I said, Rina will tell you more when you see her.”
I finished chewing my bite of croissant as I watched Mom. “I know it’s how we’re supposed to be, but you sure did forgive easily. Vanessa hasn’t exactly been your biggest fan for the last thirty years.”
“That is how we are, Alexis,” Mom said. “We forgive. But we may not forget. I won’t forget what she’s done to you and me, to other Amadis, and to innocents, but it’s all in the past. She’s not the same person anymore.”
“Hmm . . . ” came my only response.
Mom pushed her chair away from the table and stood. “I need to get some work done before Rina wakes up.”
“How’s she doing, anyway?”
Mom grabbed the back of her seat to push it under the table, and the corners of her mouth twitched, but I didn’t know if she was trying to force a smile or fight a frown. “Not well, to be honest. Not as well as I’d hoped she’d be by now.”
My brow puckered. “I thought maybe since she stayed up all night, she was doing better.”
“She took a long nap yesterday afternoon to be ready for you and your guests.”
“Oh.” Not the news I’d wanted to hear.
“She did warn us that she’d never fully recover, but I’d hoped she’d been wrong. She tires easily. She has me doing a lot on her behalf for official business and Julia taking care of other tasks.” Mom’s eyes darted around the room as she inhaled an unsteady breath. “I honestly don’t know how much longer we have with her, honey. Although . . . she can be quite stubborn, so who really knows?”
She gave me a quick smile and a hug before hurrying out of the room, as though trying to escape the subject. Mom and Rina had never been very close. Mom had resented Rina and the Council after my birth because of the control they tried to exert over both of our lives, but I thought there were lots of hurt feelings between them that went back further. In fact, I suspected their relationship began to deteriorate when they w
ere both Normans, before Rina had left Mom to go through her Ang’dora. Now, however, it seemed as though Mom wanted to make up for all of their history. Maybe she wanted to close the gap in their relationship because hers and mine wasn’t as close anymore now that we had separate lives. Or maybe she simply knew time with her mother would be short, as she’d just said.
I pushed my plate away and stood, not wanting to be here alone. Not wanting to think about losing Rina.
I considered releasing some stress by working out with Tristan, but I had the feeling he wanted time alone, and I really didn’t want to spend my energy on beating up a sandbag. I didn’t want that kind of release. I wanted answers, direction, guidance. Since I was stuck here, I figured I might as well make the best use of my time. And I knew the place that might hold the secrets I needed to know. With the house so quiet, it was a perfect time to check out the Sacred Archives.
Apparently I wasn’t the only one who thought so.
Chapter 8
When I rounded the corner between Rina’s office and the hallway to the Sacred Archives, I found the door ajar and my grandmother inside. The room glowed around her in that luminous way it does, and she looked as majestic as the day I first met her, wearing a pale pink ball gown, her chestnut-brown hair tumbling in curls down her back, her skin healthy and beautiful. Although she was over a hundred years older than me, she didn’t look a day over twenty-seven. She, Mom, and I could practically pass for triplets. Until you looked into Rina’s eyes and saw the wisdom of time, or into Mom’s and saw the strength one could only gain from decades of living with heartache. Me—you still saw youth and inexperience. In fact, I did look a few years younger than them, more like early twenties or younger. I often felt like a child compared to them, and nowhere near ready to serve as matriarch. Good thing I had a long time. Even if Mom was right about Rina, hopefully we had a few decades or longer of Mom holding the seat of matriarch before anyone had to rely on me.