Chapter 14
Chapter
Fourteen
“ C an she have the letter?” Connor asked as we stood from the chairs.
“I’m sorry?” Victoria asked in return.
“The letter. Can Simone have it? We’re here, so you’ve fulfilled your contract. I’d like my mate to have the letter. We believe it was written by her… ancestor .”
“Oh, well…” I read the shock on her face. “It’s, um…” The thought of parting with that letter never crossed her mind. The woman was an open book. And Connor said I should never play poker.
“It’s okay, Connor,” I said. “Thanks for thinking of me.”
“I’ll always think of you. And it’s not okay. That was written by your grandmother.”
Victoria whipped her head up to look—no, she didn’t simply look. Her gaze felt heavy. She glared at me.
Before she could ask, I held my hand up to stop her. “Get me the test and I get the information I’m looking for, I will tell you. We’ll need allies in this. All of us. We live together or we die apart. There is no in-between.”
She handed me the letter. “Here,” she said. “It’s been in my family for so long, but it belongs to you.”
“Thank you.”
“Right,” she said. “If you two will follow me, we’ll get that testing done.”
I slid the letter inside the backpack and then replaced it on my back as I stood to follow her, Connor at my side. She led us back to the bank of elevators, this time taking us down to the lowest level.
Now, when the doors opened at the bottom, we were met with the exact image of a laboratory I had in my head. The exact. Bright, overhead white lights illuminated the entire floor. Floor-to-ceiling glass windows rather than walls. Glass doors that slid open. People in lab coats wearing latex gloves and goggles. Computers and machines. I had no idea what they did or how they were used.
She led us to the closest room and the doors automatically opened for her. We followed her inside, where we were met by a woman who introduced herself as Margaret who wore a pleasant enough smile but was otherwise covered by a white jumpsuit and goggles. “What can I help you with today?”
“These are very important clients, Margaret,” Victoria said. “She needs a blood draw and her results need to take precedence over all others waiting in the queue.”
“Really?” Margaret eyed me up and down. “That’s an unusual request for DNA testing.”
“I’m sure it is,” I replied. “But it’s important. So…”
“That’s not a problem. Have a seat.” She pointed to a rolling stool and I sat in it. It rolled backward until it hit a bank of pull drawers behind me. Connor walked over to stand next to me, placing his hand on my shoulder.
I wasn’t particularly eager to get stuck by a needle. On the list of my favorite things to do, that wasn’t close to the top. Still, necessary for saving the world and all that.
“Name?” Margaret asked.
“Simone. Lamia,” I replied.
Margaret typed my name on the computer along with other things I didn’t pay attention to before walking back over to me with a syringe that she’d printed a label for while we waited. It said: Simone Lamia. * Priority *
“Please put your arm on the counter,” she said. I did so, watching as she ripped open an alcohol pad. She swabbed my skin, let it dry for a second, and then I got the stick. The vial filled with dark, oxygenated blood. Margaret pulled out the glass tube, stuck the label on it, and laid it down while she pulled the needle from my arm, and stuck a cotton ball and tape over the puncture.
“There. That’s it. We’ll get this processed and let you know the results as soon as possible.”
“Thank you, Margaret,” Victoria said.
“Yes, thank you,” I said, too. Connor gave a head nod.
“Do you have other business in Birmingham or would you like to wait in our cafeteria?” Victoria asked.
I looked at Connor. Even though we couldn’t do anything for a couple of hours, there was no way he’d let us go sightseeing and risk us becoming one of the sights being seen.
“Cafeteria,” Connor answered for the both of us. “Thank you.”
We took the elevator to the third floor. The whole floor encompassed the “cafeteria.” They could only call it that because they served food, but they had it laid out like an all-you-can-eat buffet in a major hotel resort on the Vegas strip. Jeffery and I had vacationed in Vegas once. I remembered eating cheese and mushroom ravioli while he snacked on sushi rolls in the same visit. I smiled at the memory. Finally. With Connor as my mate, I was finally able to remember Jeffery without all the grief attached. I liked that for both Jeffery and I.
“High class,” Connor muttered. Understatement. In every respect. “I’m going to have to tell Luc about this place,” he said to me. “There’s no way witches should eat better than we do.”
“What? Luc buys the wrong brand of kibble?”
Rather than grumble, he pulled me against his side to kiss the top of my head. Although I wasn’t super hungry, they had a dessert bar. Uh… yes, please! “Meet you at a table, sexy.” I winked then sauntered over to grab up a plate.
And when I sat down holding a plate filled to capacity with every chocolate or cream-filled treat imaginable, I realized that Connor and I couldn’t go any further together until I confronted this travesty of justice. “I think we need a break, Connor.”
“What?” he laughed as he asked.
“I thought I could do this, ignore what was glaringly evident. But I don’t think I can.”
“Do what, Simone? What’s glaringly evident?”
“I thought I could accept it, but…” I pointed to his plate. “Fruit, Connor? In a room full of eclairs, tarts, puddings, sundaes, cream puffs, cakes, and pies, you chose fruit?”
He bit back a laugh. “Baby—what am I going to do with you?”
“Nothing, seeing as I’m leaving you.”
He dropped some blueberries on top of a tart that he snatched from my plate, picked it up, and took a bite. “No, you’re not. Can’t get rid of me, Simone. We’re connected. That’s forever.”
His voice got all drippy with sex and I’d never cursed a huge buffet more in my life. A huge buffet or the fact that I had demons or whatever they were trying to kill me.
“Promise me that when this is done, you’ll do that one thing—the twist—that I loved so well. I need a few rounds of the twist.”
He raised his eyebrow at me. “I thought you were leaving me?”
“You put blueberries on a tart. Eat a cream puff and I’ll do that thing where I drop down and?—”
Connor shoved his hand over my mouth. “Woman,” he grumbled. We both looked down at his rapidly tenting jeans. “I’ll give you so many rounds of the twist, you won’t know what day it is when I finally let you up for a breath.” Then he dropped his hand to pop a few blueberries into his mouth, sans tart, so I raised an eyebrow and he took another bite, shaking his head at me and snickering. I loved his body, but I made my point.
“Thank you, you know, for being here with me.”
“Wouldn’t be anywhere else.”
“I know. This was all set up by the universe; it’s not that you particularly like me—but thank you.”
“Hey—” He twisted my chin to get me to look at him. “It might’ve been set up by the universe, but I like everything about you, sweetheart. The universe gave me you because it knew you were the exact woman I needed in my life. The woman I’d have the most fun with. The one I’d care for the most. The universe was just our matchmaker.”
“If you don’t kiss me now…” I whispered until he pressed his lips to mine.
“Damn,” said a woman’s voice somewhere behind us.
“Where can I get me one of him?” another asked.
“Sorry, ladies,” I called out over my shoulder. “He’s one of a kind.”
The women laughed as they went about their business.
And, in my humble opinion, to get me to believe that he really cared about me, he ate—gasp, horror!— cake . The kind with coconut frosting. Tender and moist. He piled berries on top, but he ate it.
If they’d given us a private room, Connor and I would’ve had time to play several rounds of slap and tickle before Victoria finally showed up to retrieve us. But thank the good universe, she did.
“Come on up to my office again,” she said. “I can go over your results with you.”
Phew! We hopped up from our seats to follow her out of the cafeteria. The elevator ride felt like it lasted forever. When we walked into her office, Connor and I dropped into the same seats from before while Victoria rounded her desk.
She turned her computer screen for us to see. “This,” she said, “is your genetic profile.” Victoria pointed to one column. “These”—she pointed to another section on the screen—“are your closest relatives.” We looked closely at the names. “But this is curious.” She clicked on one of the names. “See?” Victoria pointed out a string of horizontal lines in a column that I figured had to be a section of my genetic profile.
“What am I looking at?” I asked, squinting my eyes because everyone knew that if you squinted your eyes, you understood things better.
“You and she share a common ancestor. But you’re here.” She again pointed to my column of horizontal lines. “She’s here.” Victoria pointed to a different column of horizontal lines. And that was when it clicked. “It appears as if you’re cousins. But she has all this as part of her genetic profile, but you—yours stops. I don’t know what to make of it.”
Well, I promised I’d fill her in on everything even with Connor literally breathing down my neck in full-on mated protector mode. Clearly, he’d changed his mind. But Victoria deserved to know.
Why was keeping this secret so much easier than spilling it? The truth shall set you free and all that. I was pretty sure the people who said that didn’t have demons or whatever out to kill them, though.
“This might sound crazy,” she said, sounding a little sheepish. “But to me, it looks like she’s your first cousin hundreds of generations removed. I know it doesn’t make any sense, but the DNA doesn’t lie.”
My heart seized up knowing what I was about to do next. Understanding clicked in for Connor through our bond. I not only felt his emotions, but he gave my shoulder a squeeze and when I looked at him, he raised his eyebrow while nodding his agreement.
I sensed goodness in Victoria. I sensed her family lineage. An old family. Powerful. Of course not as old or powerful as mine, but considering my grandmother was the first witch, we sort of had to count me as an outlier.
“What I’m about to tell you is definitely going to sound crazy.”
“O kay …” she answered, drawing out the ‘kay’ to like five syllables worth of unsure expression.
“The reason I’m here is because a powerful witch had me connect with an even more powerful ancestor?—”
“You spoke with an ancestor?”
“A couple of them,” Connor said, giving my waist a reassuring squeeze.
Her mouth dropped open, as it would have. Communicating with the ancestors wasn’t something your average witch could pull off. And even though neither said, I got the feeling that those who could manage it only talked to relations. But again, considering where I’d come from, it seemed that I belonged to every witch’s family.
“They sent me to the witches’ archives in the Orkneys,” I continued.
She jerked her head back. “You went to the archives?”
“Yes. Connor and I spent hours inside.”
“The archives let you inside ?” she almost shouted.
“You get she’s important.” My mate jumped in, clearly losing patience. Victoria looked at him and slowly nodded. “Right. So if you know that, what are the chances that the archives wouldn’t?”
“They’re the reason I’m here in the first place,” I said. “And I can tell you that she”—I pointed to the computer screen again—“registers as my first cousin hundreds of generations removed…” I let out a heavy sigh. “Well, it’s because she is.”
“I’m afraid I don’t understand,” Victoria answered.
“Yeah… I’m pretty sure you do. Not wanting to accept an answer is way different from not understanding it.”
“But you can’t… You can’t…” She repeated herself without bringing anything more to the table.
“I am the granddaughter of Lilith.”
Victoria gasped and stumbled back from me far enough to hit the window behind her.
“Adam, my biological grandfather, was a nasty piece of work. That was why Lilith left him. She and Adam had Peter and my mother, Shoshana. So if we’re first cousins, then she has to come from Peter’s lineage.”
“Peter and Shoshana were the children of Adam and Lilith?” she asked while she slowly moved back to her chair behind her desk and sat down. “Peter and Shoshana?” she repeated.
“Yes. The magic of the garden wasn’t gifted to Adam. It was gifted to Lilith alone. When she left with the children, she took the magic with her. There was no serpent or forbidden fruit. Lilith was a strong woman who took her kids and left an abusive marriage. But Adam wanted the magic back. Eve hadn’t been gifted it. So he searched out Lilith and Shoshana, who by then were both married to strong, confident, loving men. The man my mother and Peter considered their father, Zohar, and my father, Baruch.”
“Zohar and Baruch…” Victoria mumbled.
“Both men held magic, although not as strong as Lilith, my mother, or even Peter. That gift of powerful magic was gifted to women. My grandmother helped them to grow as witches.”
“So what happened?” she asked, leaning way in conspiratorially.
“Adam launched a surprise attack on the day my brother and I were born. My grandmother used her magic to help me escape.”
“But why attack? Killing the magic users wouldn’t give him magic back.”
“He wanted my mother to marry his son with Eve to gain control over my mother’s magic and, well, mine.”
She sucked in a long breath. “I have to say, what you’re telling me sounds unbelievable. If this is true, then why haven’t we sensed you before this? Every super in the world would’ve ended up at your door, drawn in by that kind of power.”
“Lilith bound her,” Connor said. “She bound her magic until she was old enough to meet her protector.”
“And that’s you?”
“That’s me,” he agreed. “But you knew that.”
She nodded. “I did. I feel like something bad is about to hit. Like imminently.” She sighed. “I can’t shake it.”
“That’s because it is,” I said, wishing I could give the woman better news. “When I found my mated protector would be when the shit was starting to hit the fan, so to speak. The bindings could only hold me for so long and they were slipping, which is how Connor and I were finally able to come together. With our meeting, the bindings are slipping more every day and at an expedited rate.”
“Who’s coming after you?”
“We don’t know. But whoever it is aims to control my power by controlling me—and they’re bad news.”
“That doesn’t fill me with joy,” Victoria responded.
“Nor I,” I said back. “But the time is coming when everyone will have to choose. Do you side with good or do you side with evil? No one can escape this.”
“So you’re talking Armageddon-level bad?” she asked.
“Unfortunately… Yeah,” Connor said.
“What can I do?”
“You’re choosing us, then?” I asked.
Victoria jerked her head back as if I’d smacked her. “What kind of witch would I be to go against Lilith? Of course, I’m with you.”
I relaxed a bit. I felt her goodness, but that didn’t mean she’d jump right to helping me. We all had free will. “I need the name and location of my first cousin if you have it. Then I need you to start finding supers and at this point, mortals who understand the stakes and want a future for their children and grandchildren. A fight is coming, whether we want it or not. We need to prepare.”