CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
We were minutes out from Henry’s secretive second property. Lexi texted Alexius for me, which meant Alexius could pass along the message that we were arriving alone to the Tribunal leaders who were part of the staggered chain of people following us.
So much drama over my human brother and our fucked-up uncle.
My brother, teased by Callahan for being stuck between two women who weren’t getting along.
My fucking crazy uncle who everyone in Los Angeles wanted dead now.
I was certain even Declan wished for it more than once when Henry carried him off.
“There it is,” Lexi said, leaning forward as I navigated the dark drive up to the home. “It’s dark, but that shouldn’t bother either of us.”
“You got eyes for this?” I asked, rolling to a park instead of hitting the brakes.
“I have a nose,” she answered.
“Text Alexius and tell them to stay down the hill at the start of the drive. They’ll be able to stop humans from coming up, and it’s for their safety. We don’t know what sort of nonsense Henry might have going on here. If there’s a fire or anything…”
“Definitely.” Lexi sent the text, then we got out together.
Our hushed, whispering voices felt loud in the silence around Henry’s home.
We moved toward the front door and found it was unlocked.
I peeked into every door, revealing the garage where Henry’s car was parked and another room that felt oddly familiar.
It took me a moment to recognize that Henry had recreated a sitting room from Jacob’s nest. A part of his fantasy, trying to find familiarity.
We took another few steps deeper into the house, finding the kitchen, and the scent of blood hit my nose.
Oh, no.
“He brought Henry here,” Lexi said, sniffing hard. “There’s blood.”
“Let me lead—”
“He’s here,” Lexi said, moving faster, thumping steps certainly giving us away to Henry, wherever he was.
She opened a door and ran down, and I followed her into the basement.
In an explosive bit of movement, she was slammed into the wall, snarling at the impact, and the one who did it was able to move back fast enough that I could grab him before he got to the other side of the room.
I hissed as I got in front of Lexi, blocking Henry from trying to make a second attack.
I saw the blood in his mouth, some dripping down and hitting his shirt, his fangs fully visible.
Lexi wasn’t unconscious, but I knew she would need a minute to collect herself.
Henry had gotten the jump on her again, as if he knew well that even a young werewolf was sturdy and strong enough to be a problem to anyone with little combat experience.
“You’ll stay right there, Everly. Don’t do anything you’ll regret. Someone could get hurt. You don’t want that.”
I hissed at his words, my anger rising as I witnessed the truth.
Declan on a table. Pale. So terribly pale. Blood on his lips. The scent of my uncle Henry underneath the stronger smell of Declan.
I was staring at my worst nightmare.
“What is wrong with you?” I snarled at him, my eyes flicking back to Henry.
“With me?” Henry seemed hurt. “I’m just trying to bring our family back together. What’s wrong with that?”
“It’s not…” I pointed at Declan. “It’s not what he wanted.”
“He was going to try becoming a werewolf sooner or later. He was planning on marrying that dog, so it’s the only natural conclusion to the relationship,” Henry countered.
Lexi growled as she pushed to her feet. “And they are far more violent and dangerous than vampires. Most of them die from infighting in their own packs, and that’s if the human survives the Change.
Being a vampire is a much safer choice.” Henry reached out and touched Declan’s cheek, and a wave of revulsion swept through me at the sight.
“And now the family can be immortal together.”
I took a jerky step forward. He was right about one thing, the only thing that had stopped me from launching across the room at him. Declan’s body could be injured. I didn’t know what that could do to his Turning now. I didn’t want to find out.
“You have to see reason, Everly. You have so many ins with the powerful. You can get us free passage out of this city. We can build a new home together. We can be a family again. After we lost Liam, it was broken. But—”
“We had our mother,” I reminded him. I tried my best to soften those words.
To talk to him as I fought the urge to attack.
I wanted to tear his limbs off and beat him with them.
I wanted the satisfying noise of hearing his vertebrae break as I ripped off his head.
I wanted to bury his dust in the garden and dance on it.
“Your mother was going to tell me I couldn’t come around anymore,” Henry snapped.
“Oh?” My curiosity was finally piqued. That was new information. A sliver of fading red went around my vision, a vignette. “Why would she do that?”
“She thought I hoarded too much of Liam’s time and then took too many liberties with you children.
But she didn’t think about how we’re family.
You’re mine. You’ve always been mine. All of you were except her.
None of this would be without me. Liam wouldn’t have married her if I told him not to.
He wouldn’t have dared.” Henry’s eyes were red, and I wondered if Henry ever used any vampire abilities on anyone in the family to get what he wanted over the years.
“I need you because I can’t handle the loneliness.
You need me, your uncle, who carries the family history and makes sure you have a place in the world.
We’re family, and I’ve always been the patriarch.
That doesn’t have to change. No more needing to watch another generation die. ”
I was so grateful that Lexi said nothing and didn’t move.
This speech, this idea he always had of us, this revelation about my mother…
I needed to hear all of it. Every single sentence was another point in my justification to brutally kill this man who I had once loved.
My darling uncle had a sick mind that only the adults at the time had noticed but not known how disturbed it truly was.
Beyond that, this gave everyone else time to get here. If Henry did escape, there would be a lot of very powerful supernaturals out there to deal with it.
“Jacob tried to stop this, and in fear of retribution, I stayed away. But clearly, it’s fate,” Henry said, smiling like everything was coming up roses, and we would all go have a picnic in the sun.
“You became a vampire without my help at all. And look at you, with the ability to sway the minds of our leaders. This is good! This is perfect!” Henry looked at Lexi.
“And you brought his first meal. So he can get over her.”
“You would be giving him a death sentence. She’s a member of Callahan’s pack, and we cannot drink from other supernaturals.”
“You’ll handle Callahan because you have Alexius wrapped around your finger, don’t you? Well, between your legs, but it’s how you women get control of men and play politics in the world you don’t belong in. That will have to stop for us to leave and be a family. Disgusting choice of a man.”
I took the awful comments, the misogyny I had never noticed as a young girl.
There was the reason Declan had seen the old family stuff and I never had.
There was the reason he looked at Declan as if he was the second coming and I was a messy little orphan girl he needed to shove into a bath and scrub raw but would always be dirty.
“Okay,” I said softly. I could play the games. I could control my temper long enough. Lexi would take the best opportunity to get Declan when she could. I needed Henry to buy that I was willing to keep talking.
“You must have hated that my mother climbed up the ranks at the nest,” I said, neutral for the moment.
“Oh, certainly. I was so grateful that she found a way to get herself killed and stopped being the second biggest barrier between me and having my family back. I tried, Everly. There were no replacements. They were never good enough. They were never mine, and one of them really tried. Sweet, quiet, mousy girl who knows to stay silent when the men are talking. The other is more like you now.” He made a face.
“I miss the little you.” He put his hand out, a reference to how small I had been.
“Always searching for approval, quiet in the corner until spoken to. You were a good little girl. Now… we’ll figure out house rules.
It’ll be for the best. You’ll see. No more violence, no more aggression.
We’ll just be a family. A normal, happy family. ”
I was screaming internally. It was psychological warfare, and Henry probably had no idea what sort of awful things were actually coming out of his mouth.
“How did you hide all this from Maria? You take her blood as a member of her nest. It’s a token amount, but… it should be enough. Was it the spell?”
“You learned about the fae deal I made?” Henry frowned until I nodded, then he sighed heavily.
“The fae made the spell around me slippery enough that she never pressed the issue of taking her blood. Made none of them ever look too closely at me. I could easily pretend everything was okay, and they treated it like it was okay. They never investigated my paperwork any deeper than seeing it suited them. It cost me the entire fortune I had made stealing a little off the top from Jacob for two centuries. Every penny and everything I owned.”
“Which is why most of your pictures of Declan and me are after you made the deal. You had to make new ones. You had to find anything you could from before the deal to recover what you could of the bargain.”
“And I had been robbed of seeing and guiding you both growing up!” Henry hissed. “By that pretentious murderer and his even more murderous father!”
“Jacob never killed anyone.”