Cold nipped at the tip of my nose, while a blush warmed the rest of my face. “Sebastian didn’t want me to tell you, either,” I admitted. “Maybe we could pretend I never said anything?”
I was still holding out hope for the do-over button, I guess. Instead, my dad shook his head in a way that made it obvious he wasn’t done chastising me, but he was willing to wait for a different moment to discuss things. “Let’s go inside.”
Indoors, oak logs crackled and popped in the fireplace
. Sebastian had tidied up. He must have used his preternatural speed to pull out our Yule log and some evergreen boughs, which he positioned artfully in the center of the Mission -style coffee table. Candles were lit around the room, and a few of the floor lamps had been switched to low, so pools of warm light added to the room’s general coziness.
I pulled off my boots and set them on the thick rug underneath the coat-tree. I shook the snow off my shoulders and hung up my jacket. Beside me I heard my mother murmur appreciatively, “Look at all the books.” She sighed. My mother was a serious bibliophile.
And, to be fair, Sebastian had a truly impressive library. I tried to see it as my parents did. Glass-fronted bookcases lined one entire wall of the living room, and still others were tucked in nearly every available space. Books were piled on the floor, in particular next to the leather wing chair he favored close to the fire. After removing her coat and boots, my mother moved into the room in order to greedily run her fingers over the titles.
“Is this German?” she asked.
“That one is Old German. The majority of the titles on that shelf are probably Germanic in one form or another. ” Sebastian came in from the kitchen at that moment, a silver tray in his hands bearing what looked like tiny tea sandwiches. He offered the tray to Mom. She took one a little hesitantly.
“I feel it’s a gentleman’s duty to always have the makings for proper tea about the house. That’s cucumber and cream cheese.”
Sebastian pointed, Vanna White-style, to the rest of the spread. “These are egg salad with dill. There’s some hummus and, for the meat eaters, some liver pâté. I hope they’ll tide you over until I can make something more substantial.”
After my mom made yummy noises, my dad took an experimental bite of the pâté. He nodded and scooped up three more. Sebastian set the tray down in the middle of the table. Barney came out from under the couch to sniff at the edges of the plate.
“You’d better eat up all the liver, Dad,” I said. “You’ve got competition.”
Dad chuckled a little as he settled down into the big couch. He affectionately scratched Barney ’s ear. I could hear her purr from where I stood by the door. Could it be? Had we turned the evening around finally?
Sebastian flashed me a you-can-relax-now smile, and headed back into the kitchen to whip up some culinary delight. Sebastian was a fantastic cook. I had no doubt he’d conjure up something tasty out of the leftovers in the fridge. His skill in the kitchen was one of the many, many things I loved about him.
Mom noticed my adoring gaze. “A man who can cook,” she said almost kindly, “that’s nice.”
I nodded and settled next to my dad on the couch. Barney fluffed her substantial girth around my father’s stocking feet and lay down on his toes. In a moment, her eyes closed in satisfaction; her claws kneaded the Persian rug. My dad had a strange kind of natural animal attraction. Even our chickens liked him, and he stole their eggs on a regular basis. I leaned back into the plush suede and let the warmth of the room soothe my nerves. My mother continued to peruse the books, and my father munched sandwiches by the handful. Barney began to snore. Our familial bliss was interrupted by the clomp, clomp of engineer boots on the staircase. Mátyás descended wearing tailored black pants and a matching Armani T-shirt. His hair was a stylized mess, which just added the final touch to his general Eurotrash fashion statement.
My mother looked up and took him in from head to toe. Her expression became instantly disapproving. My father sat up like a predator threatened by the approach of another male into his territory. Barney hissed. Mátyás glanced over the rim of his tinted glasses and sneered. “Ah, this must be the Lacey family. Somehow I expected you all to be naked, given that was how I first met you, Garnet.”
Nice.
My parents looked at me for an explanation.
Disheartened, I waved a hand in the direction of the smug figure poised on the staircase. “Mom, Dad,” I said, “This is Mátyás Von Traum, Sebastian’s son.”
“Son? Sebastian has a teenage son?” My mother asked, her tone full of outrage.
“Naked?” My dad sputtered. All the color had drained from his face, and he had a sort of stricken look, as though it just occurred to him that anyone might ever see his only daughter without clothes on. “Naked?”
“Oh, yes,” Mátyás purred. “And I’m no teenager. Certainly, older than Garnet here. Oh, and talk about awkward,” Mátyás said, continuing his way down the stairs.
“How much older?” my mother asked quietly yet firmly, as though she didn’t really want to know the answer but she had to ask.
“Naked,” my dad repeated. This time it was a bit louder and less of a question.
“What difference does it make how much older he is?” I asked no one in particular. My father turned to watch Mátyás shrug into his leather trench coat. My mother clutched the book she’d been looking at to her breast with white knuckles. Barney jumped up on to the arm of the couch and dug her claws into the upholstery angrily. I continued, “I mean, so what if Mátyás is older than me?”
“Significantly older,” Mátyás answered. “Much like dear Papa.”
“What are you implying?” My mother said, and then turning to me, she repeated, “What is he saying? How old is Sebastian?
He doesn’t look that much older than you, but his son says he’s your age at least. Is Sebastian
our
age? Exactly how old is he?”
By the time she reached the end of her tirade, my mother’s voice was nearly a screech.
“Naked.” My dad’s eyes were narrow slits now. He was really steamed.
Just before heading out the door, Mátyás caught my eye and flashed me a “gotcha” smile. I returned an “I’ll get you later” stare.
“Garnet, your mother asked you a question,” my father said, still standing. Barney had fled back under the couch. Her tail stuck out. I wished I could join her. “And explain this whole naked thing.”
“Uh,” I started, but then quickly lost direction. I mean, my dad wasn’t going to like the image of Mátyás walking in on me after I’d had sex with Sebastian for the first time.
Then again, it wasn’t like I needed explain my sex life to my parents. I was a grown woman, over thirty, for Goddess ’ sake. My sex life was my own business, wasn’t it? Gah, I hated how I always felt like a kid when my parents were in the room.
“Well?” Mom prompted. “How old is Sebastian?”
A thousand years old—yeah, you could say Sebastian’s my older man. Ha. Ha. Sure, I could lie, but these were my folks. If anyone was going to see through me, it was them. I was considering muttering something noncommittal like, “There’s a definite age difference,” when Sebastian came back in the room with an easy, relaxed smile that indicated he had no idea he was wandering into the lions’ den.
Sebastian misinterpreted the sudden attention. “I just put dinner in the oven. I hope you like veggie soufflé.”
“He doesn’t look old enough to have a twenty-year-old son,” my mother told my father as if Sebastian wasn’t standing right next to her. “Maybe he’s had work done. You know, like plastic surgery. I understand that’s very popular.”
“Maybe he was a young father,” my dad offered. “How old does a guy have to be, anyway?”
“Well,” my mother scrutinized Sebastian like she was judging a chicken at the state fair, “he’d have to be at least sixteen, I would think. I suppose he could be thirty-six. Does he look thirty-six to you?”
Sebastian looked to me for an answer as to why he was being talked around. I mouthed, Mátyás. Sebastian ’s expression instantly darkened.
My father shrugged. “He looks seventeen to me. His kid looks older than he does.”
It was starting to be true. Sebastian never aged; Mátyás did—only very, very slowly.
“Would you like me to be thirty-six?” Sebastian asked in a silky smooth voice. I smelled cinnamon and baking bread, and I knew Sebastian was using glamour on my parents. Even with Lilith bonded to me, I felt a keen desire to believe anything he said right now. My mother’s tight face relaxed into a soft smile. My dad sat down. Barney sneezed wetly under the couch. “Then I am thirty-six.”
“Did you say dinner would be ready soon?” my dad asked, as though he’d forgotten the entire encounter with Mátyás. Sebastian nodded. “About fifteen minutes.”
I wasn’t sure how I felt about Sebastian using his magic to delude my folks, especially since I’d been working so hard to try to tell them the truth. Still, I had to admit it was disaster averted for now. I only hoped they didn’t remember this moment when their nonmagical worldview came crashing around their ears. “I’ll help you set the table,” I said.
“I already . . .” Sebastian started until he saw my I-want-to-talk-privately eyebrow arch. “Sounds great.”
“Talk among yourselves,” I jokingly said to my folks, who still looked a little dazed. My mother groggily went back to looking over the book she had in her hands. My dad reached for another sandwich. Barney pulled her tail in under the couch and sniffled.
“We could have told them the truth,” I said, munch
ing on a carrot stick from a tray of appetizers Sebastian had arranged on the table. I leaned against the counter and tried to stay out of his way as he cooked and fussed. Sebastian’s farmhouse didn’t have a formal dining room. We usually ate at the kitchen table, on which Sebastian always had a variety of tinctures, essential oils, and the like, brewing, steeping, or infusing. He ’d cleared all that away and put on a red and white checked tablecloth. Simple white china plates had been set at each place. He ’d broken out the good silver and linen napkins. It looked elegant but not overdone. My folks should like that.
The soufflé smelled great. I could detect the scent of onion, garlic, and something green like asparagus. My stomach growled in anticipation.
“I think we’ve got enough to worry about, don’t you?” Sebastian said, as he straightened out his pile of recipes on top of the refrigerator. “What possessed you to tell them about me, anyway? I thought we’d agreed not to bring that up.”
We hadn’t actually agreed to anything, but I didn’t feel like arguing the point. Clearly, telling them
had
been a mistake. “Mátyás started the age thing, and anyway, do you plan to use your glamour to have them forget Teréza too?”
I knew he couldn’t actually do that. Glamour only worked in small doses, and he couldn’t retroactively make someone forget something with which they had actual physical contact. I only made the snide comment because I was cranky about how the whole evening had turned out, and I was getting tired of talking around all the important stuff in my life. I kind of wanted my parents to get in the know sooner rather than later.
“Teréza’s out there,” Sebastian said.
“Yeah, I know, we have to deal with her.”
“No,” Sebastian said. “I mean, out there. In the yard.”
I felt the hairs on the back of my neck rise at the thought. I pulled aside the curtain on the window over the sink. “What, you mean like right now?”
Sebastian nodded. “We need to get your folks back to their hotel soon. I have to deal with her.”
There was a “once and for all” that hung, unspoken in the air. Sebastian’s jaw twitched as if in grim determination.
“What are you planning to do?” I asked, glancing back at him. “I thought she was supposed to be headed to her grave.”
“Apparently not. She showed up ten minutes ago.” His eyes didn’t quite meet mine as he fussed around the kitchen. I doubted Sebastian actually “forgot” digging a grave for his ex. Clearly, he was embarrassed that she ’d been next door while we were dating.
The window rattled in the wind. A carrot piece lodged itself in my throat. Still holding the curtain in my fingers, I leaned over the sink to look in the direction of the little cemetery in the adjacent lot. In among the tilted, crumbling, snow -covered headstones, I saw her. She stood just beyond a waist-high monolith, staring hungrily at the farmhouse. The yard light made her skin pale and hooded her eyes. With her ragged coat and straggly hair, she looked like a specter.
“Shit,” I said.
“Yeah, that pretty much sums things up,” Sebastian agreed.
“She can’t get past the wards, can she?” I asked, quickly closing the curtain. Sebastian’s answer didn’t hearten me. “Maybe. But I sent Benjamin out to guard the property as added protection.”
My brain stalled on the first part: “ ‘Maybe’? What do you mean ‘maybe’?”
“It’s my blood magic that set the wards; the same that keeps her alive. ” Sebastian flicked on the oven light to check on the soufflé. Satisfied, he turned back to me. “I don’t really know how it all works, but since I can pass through the wards, I suppose it’s possible she could too.”
“We re-warded the place when I moved in,” I reminded him. “Lilith’s magic is here too.”
Sebastian nodded, pulling aside the curtain over the back door’s window to peek out at her. “I think that’s why she looks so pissed off. She probably doesn’t like the scent of another witch in my house.”
Step back. Had I known Teréza was a witch? That creepy feeling crawled across my stomach again. I felt dizzy and had to grab onto the counter for support. “Uh, ‘another’? How powerful a witch was, er,
is
Teréza?”
Just then the door from the living room swung open, and my dad leaned in. “Everything okay in here? You guys aren’t fighting or anything, are you? Hmmm, smells delicious.”
As it happened, the oven timer chose that moment to go off, so we ushered my folks in. Even though the glamour should have worn off, my mother seemed to have completely fallen under Sebastian’s spell and made very appreciative noises about the table setting and the coziness of the kitchen in general. My father complimented the chef after nearly every bite. Barney muscled the kitchen door open and then brazenly licked soufflé batter from the bowl in the sink. Throughout the meal, I kept my eye on the back door. I half expected Teréza to come stumbling through any minute and destroy the evening again. The December wind, or maybe it was Benjamin, groaned around the gables. Sebastian was much better at acting relaxed. He smiled and joked easily with my parents. Meanwhile, I couldn ’t shake the image of Teréza rocking back and forth mournfully among the headstones. How were we going to get my parents past her without incident? Would she attack them? What did she want anyway? Teréza seemed quite determined to kill Sebastian at the restaurant. Was she just a mindless corpse bent on destroying her creator? It might be unkind of me, but I certainly hoped so for Sebastian’s sake.