Chapter 14
“Really, Mother? Is that even going to fit in your place?”
Trina Heart stepped back to get a good look at the large wooden wardrobe. “I think so, and it will look magnificent with my new side tables.” She tilted her head toward the mahogany tables decorated with phoenixes in flight. “Besides, I’ve always wanted to visit Narnia.”
Glenn snickered behind him.
“I’m sensing a theme,” he said, his tone drier than the Sahara.
He didn’t sigh, he didn’t, but he was damn close. They’d gone to ten antique stores in three hours. He hadn’t even known there were ten antique stores in their neighborhood, and he’d lived there his entire life. It was as if they’d opened new ones overnight solely for his mother’s shopping odyssey.
Braed followed them from store to store like a dark cloud of doom. Somehow, his disapproving frown didn’t dim his mother’s enthusiasm. She teased Braed from time to time with the outlandish things she found, but he never cracked a smile.
Quentin wanted to crack him, even if his attitude didn’t faze his mother.
“After this, I’m out of transport orbs.”
She checked her watch. “The movie is going to start soon anyway.” She rushed to pay for her latest purchase.
“Do you really not have any more?” Glenn whispered.
“I’ll never tell,” he whispered back.
Glenn’s laughter was really starting to get on his nerves.
Damn hyena.
Quentin had started the day in a good mood, ready to spend some time with his mother. She’d called him last night to remind him of their mother-son day of antiquing and bad movie watching.
He smiled in anticipation of a campy movie experience, unlike most people who yearned for a cinematic masterpiece. Quentin and his mother wallowed in the swamp of terrible monster movies.
It was their thing.
Jaks had been annoyed by the entire concept, claiming Quentin already knew what vampires were like.
Quentin had found the conversation hilarious.
Two hours later, his feet ached, and his only purchase was a small container of paperclips shaped like vampire fangs to present to Jaks later as a gag gift.
He shoved the small packet in his pocket next to his remaining capture orb after his mother stole his bag to put her ‘treasures’ inside.
He was keeping it for emergencies. With so many people after him, it was best to have a backup, no matter how minimal.
“I just want my new place to have good furniture,” she argued when Quentin mentioned his sore feet.
“Didn’t it come furnished?” Glenn asked.
“If that’s what you want to call it,” she sniffed.
Quentin laughed. After working hard as a single mother to afford any comforts, Trina Heart had a strong urge to create a cozy space with the money allotted for new vampires.
Jaks provided all members with a stipend for their first two years after the change, until they could find their feet.
According to Jaks, not everyone took the entire two years, but vampire leaders watched over their own, or at least the good ones did.
Quentin was a bit proud. Apparently, Vlad hadn’t cared. He’d let the newbies stay at the mansion, but was convinced bringing in blood and having a place to live was enough provision.
He refused to coddle them.
Asshole.
Now that she had a clan stipend and no housing bills, his mother wasn’t going to hold back.
She still hadn’t decided what she wanted to do as a career in her newly lengthened life, but she’d confided in Quentin that she was going to take time to find something that she truly enjoyed.
She’d spent so long in the business world that she was ready to explore her more artistic side.
“I’m going to get popcorn. You two can fight over tasteful decor without me.” They probably would too. Despite Glenn’s haphazard clothing style, he had ‘opinions’ about home decorating. A facet of his personality Quentin had never known before.
The theater wasn’t busy. With only one person ahead of him in line, he quickly obtained his popcorn and soda. He was heading back to the theater when his arm was grabbed. He frowned at Braed’s tight grip. “What are you doing?”
“What I should’ve done when the trap at the mansion failed to work. Now I can get rid of you and get a favor at the same time.” Braed clicked a cold metal ring around Quentin’s wrist.
Quentin gasped as something yanked at his magic and sucked it away like a demonic vacuum. He doubled over, instinctively curling around the hollow ache in his gut. “What did you do?”
Braed smiled. It struck Quentin that he rarely saw that expression on the vampire’s face.
Not the time.
“Like it? It cost me a lot to buy an iron power limiter. I wouldn’t have known to get iron if your buddy Glenn hadn’t been bragging about your fae heritage coming in.” Braed’s grin chilled Quentin to his soul.
If he got out of this, he was going to sew Glenn’s mouth shut. They were interrupted before he could cut off Braed’s budding monologue.
“What are you doing? Get away from him!” Trina Heart slammed into Braed, pushing him away from Quentin.
“M-mother, stay out of it.” He tried to sound more forceful, but with his magic draining, so was his energy. Before he could say anything else, or at least warn her away, he collapsed.
Before he could speak again, Braed stabbed a syringe into his mother’s neck. “One hostage is as good as another,” he muttered.
Before his horrified gaze, Quentin watched Braed wrap an arm around his mother’s waist and drag her off.
“What’s wrong with her?” he heard a young voice ask.
“She had a little too much to drink in the bar,” Braed replied without pausing a step. “I’m taking her home.”
“Disgusting,” the kid’s mother said. She turned to see Quentin collapsed on the ground. “What about him?” she asked, but Braed had already made his escape.
“Q!” Glenn rushed over and dropped to his knees.
“Braed took Mom,” he blurted out.
“I’m calling Jaks. What did he do to you?” Glenn asked, already dialing his phone.
He thought he heard his name and Jaks’s, before the world faded away.
He woke screaming. The room rattled around him like an earthquake had hit the house. He recognized the room and the cat knick-knack that crashed to the floor.
Good.
Creepy thing.
His mother had bought it at a yard sale years ago, but Quentin had always thought the eyes were watching him.
Another wave of magic rolled through him, shaking the house to its foundation.
“Good thing we didn’t do this at the manor.” Jaks’s comforting voice rolled over him.
“What happened?” Even as he said the words, memories swarmed his mind. “Mother!”
He struggled to sit up, only to be held down by a hand on his shoulder. A hand that belonged to his boyfriend, which he was going to bite off if he didn’t move it right away. His glare must’ve conveyed his thoughts because Jaks snapped his fingers to safety.
“Sorry, darling, but you just got your magic back, and it needs to settle before you rush into battle.”
“Where did he take her?” He rubbed his dry throat. It was as if he’d never consumed a drop of water in his life.
“We don’t know,” Jaks admitted.
“Do you think he’s working with Nikko?”
“Maybe, but unless we get confirmation, we can’t just rush in.”
“We’ll find him and get her back,” a new voice said, making Quentin turn to see his father enter the room. “Are you all right?”
Quentin pressed a hand to his racing heart. “I’ll be better once we find Mom.” His mind raced through all the magic he knew or had heard of. I think I have a spell I can adapt.”
“I’ll help,” Lars said.
He ignored Jaks’s frustrated growl. He loved the man, but this was his mother.
The ritual took ten books, three and a half hours, and six arguments to finish.
“Do you know nothing about runes? You can’t put those two next to each other unless you want an explosion.” Quentin erased one rune and penciled in another on the piece of paper in his hand, which he then copied with chalk on the floor.
Lars tilted his head to the side. “Are you sure? I’m certain this was part of a Babylonian ceremony I saw a few centuries ago, and they linked these three runes together.”
Quentin held in a frustrated scream. “If you have that ritual written down, I’d be happy to look it over. Otherwise, let’s go with the ones we are certain work. Babylon fell in 539 BC, more than a millennium ago, and weren’t you the one who told me fae have terrible memories?”
“Hurtful, son, very hurtful. Throwing my weaknesses at me.”
He was almost positive that his father’s pout was fake—stupid fae and their ridiculous youth. Lars appeared only a decade or so older than Quentin, like a blonde-haired, purple-eyed mirror version.
“Wait, are you younger than when I last saw you?” It suddenly struck him that his ‘father’ looked as if he’d dropped decades of aging.
“I’m not physically younger, but my magic has been restored. Being a bone wolf drained me, so I appeared older when I first transformed back. Now I’m at my proper appearance.”
Quentin stared at him. “I’m going to have to stop introducing you to people as my father.”
Lars laughed. “Other fae will understand, but to humans, you might want to introduce me as your older brother.”
A pang went through him. He had always wished he had a sibling. Of course, with the long fae lifespan, he might still get one eventually.
He shoved those thoughts away to be examined later.
Right now, he had to concentrate on finding his mother.
Who knew what kind of danger she was dealing with?
Quentin hadn’t gotten a ransom demand or any communication since she vanished.
As of now, they still didn’t know why Braed had stolen her.
Unless they were hoping to exchange Quentin for his mother and considered him the weak link to get to Jaks. That would be a mistake.
On their parts.
“Let’s focus on finding mother before we untangle your youth problem.” Quentin stepped back to examine the entire circle before giving a final nod. “I think it’s ready.”
Lars walked the line, crouching down now and then to compare a rune to the sheet in his hand where they had sketched their final decisions. “Looks right to me.”
“Does it pass your Babylonian standards?” Quentin teased.
Lars tilted his chin up and ignored the question. “Do you want to add your blood or mine?”
“Best add mine. It needs familial blood to work properly.”
Quentin grabbed the dagger from a bag he’d brought with him, along with the chalk and a large cloth for the final step.
Without hesitation, he slit a line across his palm.
Blood oozed out, gradually increasing from a drip to a smooth stream.
A pinch of magic had the droplets dispersing equally across the runes, completely covering each one from top to bottom.
Once he was certain there were no gaps, they were ready to begin.
“Hand!” his father demanded.
Quentin held out his injured palm.
Without a word, Lars healed the wound with a pulse of his magic, leaving no sign of the injury behind. Excellent. Now he didn’t have to explain to Jaks why he had cut himself after promising to keep his blood all for Jaks. Ritual work wouldn’t be a valid answer for his overprotective lover.
Quentin took a deep breath, then chanted the words needed to activate the ritual. His voice reverberated off the walls, each syllable echoing with his magic in an indecipherable rhythm. Electricity crackled in the air, and the runes on his hands glowed.
Lars sucked in a breath beside him.
“Show me,” Quentin commanded, pushing out his magic.
Snap. A sound like elastic breaking at the end of its stretch pinged through the room.
A map unfurled in the middle of the rune circle.
Lines built on lines until they broke apart, transforming into directions and colors.
Topography bloomed like an enchanted forest. Bright greens, dark greens, trees, and shrubs burst across the floor as if nature had taken over the space.
Through the middle of all that greenery, dozens of red arrows pointed the way.
“Quick, the canvas,” Quentin shouted. Sweat beaded on his forehead as he held the spell steady.
Magic poured out of him like water through a funnel.
It took all his energy to hold it back. To not run empty until he had nothing left to give.
His fingers and toes began to tingle, alerting him that he was reaching dangerously low levels.
Lars grabbed the cloth they’d picked up on the way back to the workshop. With a flick of his wrists, the clean, white canvas unfurled. He carefully aligned it along the map, making sure it was entirely covered. “Clear!” he shouted.
Quentin dropped to his knees and slammed his palms onto the floor. The spell flared a bright, eye-searing white, then settled. Spots blinded his vision, and before he could verify the map, cool darkness welcomed him.
Right before he passed out, he realized he probably should’ve let his magic settle before rushing into a ritual.
Jaks was going to scold him, again.