Chapter 5
Chapter Five
Raiden
I enter my house with a curse on my lips. I found nothing—not a single goddamn clue that will help me protect Tabby or figure out whatever this secret tree might be. Now what the devil should I do?
Moments later, I stride into the library.
Ronan sits in the room’s cozy armchair, studying Tabitha like an intriguing puzzle.
I would be jealous if I didn’t know how crazy my twin is about his mate.
And since Ronan is ridiculously happy with Kari and believes every wizard should follow in his footsteps, I’m convinced Ronan is plotting my downfall into an equally harmonious state.
Unfortunately, that’s not possible. Ronan somehow overcame the family curse. I never will. I don’t deserve Tabby anyway.
“Did you find anything useful? Or shall I take over preparing my family for burial?” she asks as I step farther into the room.
I send a glare my brother’s way. “So much for secrecy.”
“They’re her family. She has a right to be involved.” Ronan’s gentle chiding chafes.
I hate when my slightly older brother is right. “You may go.”
“I’m quite happy to. It’s painful to sit here and watch you make an ass of yourself.”
“Bugger off,” I say with mock cheer.
Ronan salutes and teleports away.
“Where are their bodies?” Tabby prompts.
“Let me worry about this. You have enough on your plate, dealing with grief and—”
“I need something to do to take my mind off the pain. I’ve been trying to figure out this puzzle so that my father’s sacrifice wasn’t in vain, but—”
“Tabby…” I sigh. She isn’t going to bloody let this go. “I found nothing except your father’s final update to The Peers and People of Magickind. It should be published next week.”
Tears pool in her hazel eyes. “He finished the update hours before he died.”
Her father’s work, primarily keeping said volume up to date with all the births, deaths, and matings of magical families has always confused me. “Everything he recorded was public knowledge. Why keep track of it? For posterity?”
She shrugs. “The older generations care about such things. Father loved his work passionately, enjoyed marking the passing of time by recording every magical family’s momentous occasions.”
“I can’t imagine sitting down to read page after page of someone’s family tree.”
My last word hangs in the air. We both freeze. My thoughts start whirling.
“Tree?” she chokes. “Father kept family trees for a living. Maybe…”
“…we’re not dealing with a real tree.” I rush across the room and grab her shoulders—and try to ignore the sting of desire that overwhelms me every time I touch her. “Do you know of any family tree your father kept secret?”
“No. He took care to correspond with all families, no matter how Privileged or Deprived. Most people volunteered their family changes. Deaths, while sad, were always promptly reported. Matings, usually happy occasions, as well. He didn’t always hear of a mate-breaking right away, but often within a few months. ”
“Can you think of any circumstance in which that wasn’t the case?”
“No.” She pauses. “Wait! Just one. That same trip when my father took me to that mysterious office in London I mentioned. The evening before, he took me to a human hospital.”
“Which one?”
“I don’t remember. It was quite late, and I was so young.
I just remember meeting a human couple. The woman had just given birth.
She held her daughter once, cried, then gave the child to other humans.
Her husband pleaded with my father to strike the child’s name from his books.
I remember asking him who the family was, why he would ever record a human birth, and why they wanted to keep the baby a secret.
He never answered except to say that I was never to repeat the incident to anyone.
He never spoke of the humans again. That’s the only secret I can recall. ”
I pace the airy room. “You went to the hospital before he took you to the office?” At her nod, I go on. “We must find that building. Do you remember anything? A street name? A landmark nearby?”
She frowns in concentration, then shakes her head. “Beyond a few vague memories, there’s nothing. “Sorry.”
I shouldn’t expect more now. She’s grief-stricken and overwrought. I don’t dare heap more on her while she’s hurting. More than anything, I wish I could hold her, soothe her, love her.
She would only push me away—with good reason. The best I can do now is find the “tree” her father died trying to protect and conceal it for good. That may be the only way to keep Tabby safe.
“If we can find that office, perhaps he left something there,” I suggest.
“Perhaps. But I wouldn’t know where to start looking for it.” She frowns. “Why would Mathias have a sudden interest in a human baby girl born roughly a quarter century ago?”
“I don’t know. But if there’s a connection, I’m going to find it. And deal with it. I don’t care if it takes my dying breath. Mathias will never come near you ever again.”
Tabitha
Raiden makes a call to Bram Rion in low, secretive tones that infuriate me. This is about my family and my future. Yet he intends to keep me in the dark?
When he rings off and turns to leave, I grab him by the shirt. “If he told you where to find this office building, I’m going with you.”
He shakes his head. “Too dangerous.”
“According to you,” I say tartly.
Raiden raises a brow at me. “Because it is.”
“You don’t decide for me. You’re not my mate.” I shrug.
His icy blue eyes narrow. “The child you carry is mine. I have every right to care about your well-being.”
“Care, yes. Decide, no. Either I go with you, or I’ll resume this search alone. If Bram knew that easily how to find the place we seek, then someone else will, too. Unlike you, I’m likely to have privileges to enter, given that I’m his next of kin. What reason will you use to access his paperwork?”
Raiden clenches his jaw. “Since Bram is a Council member, I’m confident he can pull a few strings.”
He’s right. In fact, we both are. Between his connections and my familial relation, we should have no trouble viewing whatever my father might have stashed in the building.
“Should we be wasting time arguing, or should we be working together? What could happen, really? It’s a Council building in the middle of the day. Others should be there. We’re doing nothing wrong.”
Raiden hesitates, looking like he’s about to refuse.
“Hello?” Nathanial Wolvesey calls from somewhere in the house.
I shiver. From the moment I arrived, Raiden’s father has looked at me far too sexually. Since I carry his son’s child, it’s particularly unnerving.
Raiden cups my shoulder and scans my face. “Did my father do or say something that made you uncomfortable?”
“That he understands why you desire me so much—before he assured me the two of you have passed women between you over the decades.”
He winces. “Bloody hell.”
I don’t ask if Nathanial was lying. The truth is all over Raiden’s face. Pain bulldozes me. He’s treated women like interchangeable playthings. Convenient energy sources. Likely still does, me included.
“He said you wouldn’t mind if I allowed him to—”
“He’s wrong. I mind. A great deal.” He clenches his teeth, but he meets my gaze. “I’m sorry.”
Sorry for his behavior or sorry his father revealed the truth? I shove the question away. “I politely refused, in case you’re wondering. I won’t be alone with him again.”
His expression tightens. “Nor will I let you.”
“Hello?” Nathanial’s footsteps across the gleaming hardwood floors come closer.
Raiden doesn’t hesitate. He grabs my hand. “Let’s go.”
As always with teleporting, a loud sucking noise fills my ears. Then eerie silence. Suddenly, I lose my balance, and a sense of tumbling through air overwhelms me. The weightlessness, the not knowing which way is up and which is down, makes me slightly ill.
A moment later, we stand outside a neo-modern office building. Built in the 1960s and topping about five stories, the concrete structure was carved with magical runes between each tier of white-draped windows. The air here feels heavy. I don’t see a soul in sight.
“It looks abandoned.” Eerily so, in fact.
He frowns, grabbing my hand tighter. “Bram said the Council ministries no longer use this building. Apparently, it’s been the source of human speculation, particularly the meaning of the runes.”
“I recognize some of the symbols. Magic, mastery, truth, fate. Death.”
Raiden shrugs, his wide shoulders looking almost menacing in a dark trench. “Unless it’s relevant to what we seek, there’s no time to decode. I have an uneasy feeling. Let’s move quickly. I don’t want you out in the open where you’re vulnerable to Mathias or any eyes he might have watching.”
“He likely has no idea where I am.” If he did, I would already be in danger.
Raiden hustles me under the building’s portico, deep in shadow, and pins me with a glare. “It won’t take Mathias long to figure out that you weren’t killed in the attack. Or that you’re carrying my youngling. Once he pieces all that together, he’ll be on us.”
Dear God, I never considered the ways in which Mathias might find me.
But my father would have recorded my birth, so the evil wizard knows I exist. Since I’ve never mated, he won’t find a mate listed for me in The Peers and People of Magickind.
The fact that I carry Raiden’s child won’t be listed until the youngling’s birth, but even so, a wizard with Mathias’s cunning and resources could easily learn the truth.
After all, he hasn’t managed to outwit most of the Council and stay a step ahead of the Doomsday Brethren by being a half-wit.
“Fuck.” Raiden runs a hand through his long, pale hair. “Once he starts pursuing us, I know where he’ll look first. Until we can find whatever your father hid and get it to safety, we can’t go back to your house. Or mine.”
“I fear you’re right.”
“I’ll tell Ronan to warn my father away for now. He won’t be happy, but eventually I’ll set everything back to rights. I hope.”