Authors: Judy Teel
"He wouldn't have," I reassured him, and somehow I knew it was true. Wrapping my arms around Cooper's waist, I pulled him in tight against me. I rested my head on his chest, the beat of his heart steady and strong under my ear. "No matter what happens, we'll make it through this." Without using the plan that Mehk had suggested before we settled down to wait for sunrise.
Cooper propped his chin on top of my head and his chest expanded under my cheek as he pulled in a deep breath. "I don't know how," he said, his voice a deep rumble under my ear.
"We've dealt with tough situations before."
"Not genocidal monsters."
"Is that even a word?" I asked, trying to lighten the mood.
Cooper's arms tightened until I wondered if he might crack a rib. "I don't want to lose you."
"You won't. I promise."
He pulled in another long breath and let me go. "I hope that's a promise you'll be able to keep." He turned me around, dropping his arm across my shoulders as he faced off with Mehk. "Everyone's waiting. We have a lot to discuss."
*
*
*
Cooper took Mehk and me to Ryker's old suite where he said the others were waiting. As we stepped into the spacious apartment, the hushed conversations between the practitioners, Dr. Barrett and Rosalind stopped in mid-sentence and their attention landed on us. Butterflies jumped around in my stomach, reminding me of the one and only time I'd let a teacher talk me into something. A minute into my speech about George Washington to my fellow seven-year-olds, I threw up on my shoes and ran off the stage crying. On the upside, no one ever asked me to perform in front of an audience again.
I'd seen a lot and done more since then and was fairly certain I wasn't going to puke. So I muscled past Cooper, crossed the main room and sprawled into the last overstuffed chair next to the sofa like I owned it. If the silent stares hadn't clued me in that today's little get together was going to be unpleasant, the lack of pie on the table did.
In her usual spot on the sofa, Mistress Raevinne folded her hands in her lap and gave me a hard look as Cooper and Mehk pulled up two more chairs, making our merry circle around the coffee table complete. From the chair across from me, Dr. Barrett leaned forward. "I commend you for keeping your secret," he said to me, his accent a little stronger than usual. "Well done."
Mistress Raevinne blasted him with a shot of her signature disapproval. "We shall see," she declared, lifting her nose in the air.
"While I agree that after our current difficulty is resolved it might be useful for her to learn more about her heritage," Dr. Barrett said, returning her frown with one of his own, "I do not condone dragging her off to face a coven tribunal like you want."
"Being properly assessed is hardly a tribunal," the older practitioner argued.
"That is a matter of opinion."
I cleared my throat. "I'm right here, you know."
"Another fact we're all painfully aware of," Rosalind said.
Cooper's cold gaze landed on her. "If she hadn't risked everything by shifting so that she could fight the Tor'nysoos, we wouldn't be alive to even argue the point."
"Were you aware,
Aesei Siian
, of what she was?" his new lieutenant countered. "And the danger she posed to this Clan as your
mate
?"
"None of this is moving us toward solving this crisis," Miller cut in. His gaze bore into mine. "But for the record, this was not the reveal I was expecting."
I made myself sit still under his scrutiny, a torture that reminded me of his grandmother and her ability to see through all levels of crap to the truth. The only one who seemed mild-mannered was Erika.
"There's only one way to stop the Tor'nysoos," Mehk said, the quiet note of command in his voice bringing everyone's focus to him.
I gripped the arms of my chair. "No. We just haven't thought of another one yet." Though it was true that I wasn't sure how I felt about Mehk's unexpected appearance in my life, somewhere along the way I'd realized that I wasn't ready to lose the chance to find out.
"If it works," Mehk continued, "it should suck the
Suir aosar
back into the Fourth World. The breach will seal and they'll be trapped."
The tension in the room rippled with a spike of excitement. "We agreed last night that it's a terrible plan," I protested.
"Tell us," Mistress Raevinne commanded him.
Mehk glanced at me, a fierce determination in his sapphire blue eyes. "If the Tor'nysoos is weakened, I can take it into the Fourth World to the village that was created there. Destroying the fountain and the spell it holds, will seal the monster in. It can never return."
"It's a bad plan," I said again.
"Sounds simple enough," Rosalind said.
"Except for that weakening the monster part," I cut in. "And then dimension hopping it into the village."
"What happens to you?" Cooper asked Mehk.
I scowled at Rosalind. "Also, let's not forget keeping the Tor
in
4-D while the fountain gets busted up."
"Mehk," Cooper repeated, his tone equally commanding. "What of you?"
The Demon-Were met and held Cooper's gaze. "I'll be destroyed with the creature." Cooper's nostrils flared, but he said nothing.
"If this is so, why was it not done ten thousand years ago?" Mistress Raevinne huffed.
A self-depreciating smile touched Mehk's mouth. "We didn't think of it."
The practitioner blew out a sharp puff of air from between her pursed lips, clearly conveying her disgust over such incompetence.
"Why can't we repeat what they did then?" I turned to the practitioners. "You're strong. The barrier you created around the compound proves that. You could make a new trap."
"That kind of dimension weaving is beyond us," Erika said quietly. "It doesn't exist anymore."
"What did you mean by, 'dimension hopping'?" Miller asked, his scrutiny zeroing in on me.
"What? What's that you say?" his grandmother snapped. "Can the girl do this?"
Dr. Barrett and the practitioners passed a significant look between themselves that was as close to wordless conversation as any mortal could come. Miller turned back to me. "Can you?"
"I'm Demon-Were," Mehk interjected before I could answer. "A blending of races and a dash of ancient magic accomplishes what is needed."
"Cool magic tricks are the least of our worries." I reminded them. "We need other options."
Mehk's gaze softened. He studied me, as if trying to memorize every inch of my face. "Only when the fountain is destroyed and the village with it, will this world be safe."
His focus transferred to the others, meeting their gazes one by one. "We were made stronger, faster, and harder to kill for only one purpose. To protect you from this threat." He turned back to me. "Can we avoid our destiny?"
"I can't support a suicide mission," I growled.
"How do we destroy the fountain?" Cooper asked.
His words plummeted like a stone, sending ripples of silence out from it.
I stared at him, shocked. He leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees and stared at his clasped hands. "Thousands for one, Addie. We can't say no to that."
I surged to my feet, trembling with fury. "Then I'll carry the Tor'nysoos into the trap. And I'll find a way to escape the fate that you two so easily accept."
Mehk stood and walked toward me, his steps slow as if he carried a great burden. He stopped in front of me and cupped my face in his hands, startling me.
His gaze roamed over my hair and my face and then came back to my eyes as his own welled up with tears. "Only the blood of a direct descendant of the original Were and practitioner lines that first set the magic can unmake it."
"Then it can't be done. All of those blood lines have been diluted or have died out," Rosalind said.
Mehk stepped back and dropped his hands to his sides, pride and misery fighting for dominance in his expression. "No. As my daughter, Addison carries them both."
*
*
*
I sat at a corner table eating dinner, breakfast and an early lunch, take your pick. The mess hall was deserted, and told myself that it didn't bother me. The reaction of Bone Clan to my Were-Demon disclosure wasn't a surprise, and I had bigger problems to worry about.
After Mehk's public bombshell about my full heritage, he'd requested to speak with Mistress Raevinne alone. The combined adult super-stares of her and Dr. Barrett were enough to chase me out without a fight, topped off by Cooper avoiding looking at me as he and Rosalind stomped off for their own meeting. Based on the anger rolling off of him, I didn't think Rosalind was going to succeed in the dressing down she probably planned because of his relationship with me.
I wouldn't have minded the cheering up that witnessing their argument would have given me, but instead, I schlepped off to the kitchen to pile up a couple of plates with leftovers. True, I'd spent a lot of years going hungry, so I knew how to deal with it. And the number one rule was, don't, unless there isn't a choice.
Shoving another forkful of cold quiche into my mouth, I watched Mehk slip in through the front door. Since he couldn't miss me, being the only person in the room and all, he immediately strolled toward my table with that easy-going gait he had.
"May I?" he asked, gesturing toward my second plate, still overflowing with food.
"I can always get another." I focused on spearing a chunk of melon like it was the most important thing I had to do that day.
Mehk cut a piece off the gigantic meatball in the pile of spaghetti I'd pilfered. "There's a vampire in the compound," he said, after a moment.
"Is there?"
"You sound like your mother," he said, chuckling.
I abandoned the melon and shoved a big forkful of baked apples into my mouth, glad to focus on the spicy warmth of the cinnamon instead of the guy who'd stirred up so many feelings in me. Usually, I had no problem deciding what I thought about someone. I didn't like that with him it was different.
Mehk ate quietly with the studied casualness of someone who needed a discussion to start, but had no clear way in. "He has the mark of the Bellmonte line," he said after a while.
I gave him a hard stare, my reflexive distrust rising to the surface. "What would you know about that?"
He scraped up the last of his pasta and slathered it on a bite of garlic toast. "They're an old family."
If Mehk had known them, that was probably the understatement of the millennium. "I'm guessing Bellmonte's from one of those original family lines that seem to be so important to you. Let me guess, our sworn enemies for all time?"
The bite of bread went into his mouth and he studied me as he chewed. "Occasionally."
"I sense some kind of fatherly warning coming."
He smiled, and the sadness in it cut straight to my heart before I could stop it. "A lifetime of knowledge in a single conversation?" He picked up my brownie from his plate and held it out to me. "All right. You're smart not to trust those with unfinished business."
I took the brownie and told the sadness to go to hell. "That doesn't take intelligence."
"And you love the
Aesei Siian
."
"Not ashamed of that." Breaking the large square in half, I held out one of the pieces.
"Someday you might have to choose," he said, taking it.
"No, I won't." I bit into the thick chocolatey wonder of Dr. Barrett's brownies. "Lord Bellmonte's head on a stake would make my day. If Danny was next to him, I'd have a party."
"All right. Last piece of advice." Mehk put his half of the brownie back on his plate. "Should the time ever come, don't be afraid to use them for your own purpose."
Should the time ever come, I'd take off Bellmonte's head myself. I finished my brownie and took back the other half. "Did Julia ever summon you after her sisters interfered?"
"No one could keep Julia where she didn't want to be." Heartache misted through Mehk's eyes. "We married at St. Paul's two weeks later."
Anger latched onto the desolation I'd fought so long to control, heating the space around my heart until it stung. "Where you abandoned me?"
"Sister Melody was the only person Julia trusted."
"And she was found floating in a lake the week after the date on my paperwork at the orphanage." One of many dead ends in the search for my parents. "After she was reported missing, the records office at the orphanage was broken into."
Mehk leaned back in his chair, his brows drawing down. "We took every precaution. The suppression spell Julia placed on you. The secrecy."
"But in the end, it was the orphanage's outdated policy of renaming abandoned babies that protected me." And made it impossible to find my family. I leaned forward, that hunger to know tightening my stomach. "Who was after us?"
"I..." He pulled in a deep breath, steadying his emotions. "We found a cabin in West Virginia, deep in the mountains. Your mother brought the garden back to life. The hunting was good. I delivered you there." Mehk stared at his plate.
"For a few weeks after you were born, we hoped... All I ever saw was a footprint, but that was enough. Julia concealed you in a bundle of old blankets and clothes and we escaped that night." He looked up. "We always thought it was her family that wanted you dead."
He held my gaze, regret seeping into his dark blue eyes. "We secretly made arrangements with Sister Melody and then split up. While I laid down a series of false trails, your mother doubled back. When she felt it was safe, she left you at the church."
I waited for a feeling of sympathy to soften through me, or a self-righteous rage that they hadn't fought harder, done more. My whole life I'd wanted to know why my parents hadn't kept me. And now that I did, I still didn't know what to think, what to feel.