Chapter 38
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Xander takes a step inside, and when nothing untoward happens, he waves me forward. He closes the door behind us, and my boots squeal across the marble floor as he pushes me back against the wood.
“Stay here while I clear the house.”
I blink at him and knock his hand away with an indignant huff. “Urm, no. We can do it together. It will be quicker.”
I take a step forward, and he shoves me back with a low growl. My back hits the door, and it rattles. “Stay. Don’t move.”
He’s more shifter than angel sometimes. Bossy bastard. I refrain from barking at him, as the stay comment was a bit much, but I settle for a salute… with both middle fingers.
Xander stalks off. I grumble as I wait pressed against the door, my silver knives gripped in my sweaty hands. We both know that he’s being ridiculous.
The entrance hall—that’s the only way I can describe it—is huge.
It’s more modern than the outside of the house would lead you to believe.
White marble floor and wooden wainscoting three-quarters up the walls.
Beautiful wooden stairs twist up in front of me.
Xander clears the first room to the left.
I can see it’s an empty office, and Xander then opens the door to the right.
It’s an empty sitting room. Another door and… It’s a bathroom.
I groan and bump my bum against the door. This is going to take forever. “Waiting like a damsel in distress,” I grumble, and then I grind my teeth.
Not even five minutes later, I might have to shift to replace the enamel on my teeth. Xander waves me forward. I rush towards him and follow him into a living room.
Ann is sitting silently in a chair facing a wall of windows that looks out onto a massive back garden.
“I’m going to arrange some security,” Xander grumbles from behind me.
I turn my head. I belatedly notice his sword has disappeared, so I cram my knives into their respective holders and nod. “Okay, thank you.” He grabs his phone from his pocket and steps away to make a call. I focus back on the silent woman in the chair.
“Ann?” I whisper.
When I get no response, I rush towards her, and I gently touch her arm to get her attention. She blinks up at me and smiles, but her bottom lip wobbles, so to stop it she firms her mouth. “Tru? I’m sorry. I didn’t hear you arrive.”
She doesn’t look hurt, which is a relief. But her eyes are red-rimmed, as if she’s been crying. “Are you okay? When both of you didn’t answer my calls, I got worried. So… urm… Here I am. Why are you alone? Where are your guards?”
“Oh, I sent them away for the day.” Her eyes drift outside.
Arseholes. They shouldn’t have left her, I think with a flash of anger.
“I’m sorry, Tru. I’m not the best company.” She takes a deep breath, as if fortifying her next words. “Are you here because you’ve heard the news?”
“News?” My pulse rockets. “Oh no. What the heck has happened now?”
Ann meets my concerned eyes. “Oh my dear, I’m so sorry. You haven’t heard? Your grandfather Denby finally passed away.” Ann’s rainbow eyes drift back to the garden.
“What?” Finally passed away? “What?” I wobble on my feet. “But that’s not possible… I have his horn. I came here to find him as I need to return his horn.” My hand drifts up to pat my forehead.
He’s dead?
Shit, no wonder he didn’t answer his phone. My body suddenly feels heavy. I sink into a chair next to Ann.
Is this my fault?
My hands tremble, so I tuck them underneath my knees and I wait awkwardly for her to say something. Anything. But when the silence stretches and my nerves vibrate inside me like an elastic band pulled too tight, I clear my throat.
I guess I will have to prompt her.
If I don’t ask and get an answer soon… I will think the worst.
Is this my fault?
“Ann, what… happened to Denby?” The question makes me feel bad because she’s hurting. Even though she rejected him in the café, I can see from the grief written all over her how much she loved her mate.
Is it… Is it because he gave me his horn?
“That man. Of course he didn’t tell you,” she mumbles under her breath as she takes in my wide eyes and pale face. “He always enjoyed the drama. I should have realised he didn’t tell you. I can guess if he did you would have refused. What did he say when he gave you the horn?”
“He said little, if anything. He told me to go hunt down the witch and slammed the horn into my forehead.” I rub my head again with a grimace.
She lets out a bitter laugh. “What do you know of unicorns?”
“Nothing much.” Nothing at all.
Ha, I thought they were the creature equivalent of light beings. But after meeting Denby, I changed my mind. There is nothing light about unicorns. I shiver. The way my body moved while I was fighting those vampires…
My leg bounces, and I have to press it down to stop it from jumping.
“Horns can be gifted. That’s why no one went after that witch.
” She looks mournfully at my horn necklace, swallows, and twists her hands.
“Our magic is so unusual compared to other creatures’.
They classify us as shifters, but we’re not, not really.
We can pass our magic to others within the herd.
It’s inherited magic.” Ann adjusts her pale blue cardigan and picks imaginary lint off her grey trousers.
“When a horn is gifted… the bearer of that horn dies.”
My mouth pops open. “Oh no.” My throat makes a weird gurgling sound.
“We should only do the magic near death. Originally it was a practise solely used on the battlefield. Once your grandfather gifted his horn, it was only a matter of time”—her voice cracks—“before he succumbed.”
Oh God.
A big warm hand wraps around the back of my neck, and the trickle of the angel’s power anchors me to the chair.
I close my eyes for a second and then reach up and blindly grip his wrist. I need more skin contact.
I’m so glad Xander is here. “This is a nightmare,” I mumble.
“Why would he do that?” I didn’t know him.
Hell, I didn’t like him. He was bloody horrible…
but has another man sacrificed himself for me?
Why would he do that?
Was it out of guilt?
My chest burns, and a heavy silence once again takes over the room as we both struggle through our emotions. I think I’d be a puddle wailing on the floor if it wasn’t for Xander’s grip on my neck.
“Frankly, I don’t know how you survived without your horn.
That’s why it came as such a surprise that you are a unicorn.
Perhaps it’s your vampire nature that kept you alive for so long, or perhaps it was because you were just a little girl when your horn was—” Ann gets up from her chair and goes to the window. She leans her head on the glass.
It was a fae warrior. He saved me.
“You will not know, as he didn’t tell you, Denby’s horn has the power of his father and grandfather. Your great-grandfather and great-great-grandfather.” She smiles thinly. “That’s why you will feel so strong, even more so if you combine your power. And over time, you will only get stronger.”
“I don’t understand.” I stare at her with utter confusion.
Inherited magic? It’s just one horn.
Ann turns towards me and glides back across the room.
“Three generations of combined magic transferred into a single horn.” She places a delicate hand on my collarbone; her fingers rest against the necklace.
Her smile is so sad, and her eyes shine with tears.
“Now four.” She drops her hand from the bone necklace.
“You probably don’t realise what a horrific thing the witch did to your horn. ”
“I know,” I whisper, a lump in my throat.
Ann places her hand on my cheek. “Yes, I see you do.”
“Looking at it makes me feel sick. Did R-R-Ryan”—gosh, my father’s name sticks in my throat. It’s a struggle to say his name—“take my horn to absorb my power?”
“That I don’t know. The magic is sentient to a small degree.
Both parties need to agree, to be willing.
When”—she pauses and her face crumples with pain; she curls forward into her hand and rubs her chest—“Ryan stole your horn. When he took it by force, no spell in the world would have allowed him to absorb your power. The witch found a way”—she glares at the bone necklace—“to bastardise your unicorn magic. But the necklace only uses a fraction of your horn’s magic.
“I am so sorry, Tru. What you had to live through doesn’t bear thinking about. So you don’t have to wear that disgusting necklace anymore. I know the magic to combine the power of your horn with the power of the horn your grandfather has gifted you.”
“But… don’t you want the horn back?”
“Oh, child, that isn’t possible, not anymore. Your death would be the result if we removed the horn. It is yours by birthright, and it’s a precious gift. It is your herd line, and I would never take it away from you.”
“What about R-Ryan? Shouldn’t he have inherited the horn? Is he even alive?”
“No,” she says firmly. Her eyes flash with hate so visceral that it shocks me.
“He’s dead. He killed a pureblood vampire and was hunted down and executed.
The vampires are vicious when protecting their precious purebloods.
There was no protecting him from his fate.
I can only presume that she was your mother.
You’ll have to compare her name to your DNA results.
Denby got you a copy of the guild file; there’s no mention of a child in the report. ”
“Oh, okay.” Say it as it is, Granny Ann… Wow.
At the back of my mind it was always there… the knowledge that the man who haunted my sleep had killed her.
There’s a dark corner in my head where the nightmares reside. Flashes of memory with dripping blood and brown hair. Something inside me whimpers and roars at the same time.
My leg bounces again. So my father is dead, and it looks like he killed my mum. I am glad I don’t have to hunt him down. Wow, I truly am an orphan. I push my raging thoughts away to deal with later. Xander moves closer to me, offering his strength without saying a word.
“I’m sorry,” I rasp out. “I’m being inappropriate. I can come back when it’s more convenient.”
“No, sweet girl. Now is a perfect time. You are my herd. I will do everything I can to keep you safe, and the thing around your neck needs to go.”
Herd, I mouth. Ann has said that a few times.
The unicorn equivalent to family. I have so much yet to learn.
“If you’re sure.” I fidget uncomfortably in the chair, and Xander lets go of my neck.
I squeeze his wrist in a silent thank-you and let my limb plop back into my lap.
“So you think you can… urm… fix my horn? Combine the magic?” I get back to the nitty-gritty.
The sooner I get out of this house, the better.
Ann nods, and before I think any further, my hands are reaching to take the necklace from around my throat. “Please, please fix it,” I say with a hint of desperation as I hold the necklace out to her on a shaking palm.
Ann glides towards me, and with a nagging thought, I pull the necklace away from her reaching hand.
“It won’t hurt you? Please say it won’t hurt you.
” I want to double-check before I agree to anything.
I’ve already had two men die on my behalf, and I don’t want anybody else to sacrifice themselves for me.
“No, Tru. It won’t hurt me.” I stare into her beautiful eyes as I try to ascertain if she is telling the truth. I can’t tell.
“Xander?” I don’t say it, but I’m asking him to use his mumbo-jumbo angel-power lie-detection skills.
“She believes her words.” He answers my silent question.
I nod and release my hold on the necklace. Ann’s eyes widen, and I viciously bite my lip to stop any words of apology from falling out of my mouth.
I’m not sorry.
“Okay,” I say instead.
“Okay. I will warn you the power is great. You will have the combined magic of four unicorns. When you first met your grandfather, what did you feel?”
I tilt my head to the side as I think. I remember the feeling; I take a deep breath and aim for honesty. “Power, but also a darkness that made my skin crawl.”
Ann nods, not at all upset with my answer. “Power and darkness. That feeling you had, remember that feeling because that might happen to everyone you meet once I combine your magic into the horn.”
“Oh great. Skin-crawling power is just what I need.” I cringe at my words. I don’t want to be ungrateful. “Sorry,” I mumble.
“Creatures are instinctive,” she continues, ignoring my slipup, “and I will not beat around the bush, Granddaughter. If I do this, people will fear you.” She shrugs her narrow shoulders.
Great, that’s me not working in the café. Do you want a dose of evil with your cappuccino? The customers will love me, not.
Gah, you’re still being ungrateful, Tru.
“Although power is subjective, and it could manifest differently. I can’t remember a horn ever being gifted to a female of a herd, only the male line. Perhaps that is what went wrong.”
Yet they can believe someone gifted one to a witch?
Perhaps the magic should have died with the unicorn.
Perhaps the magic shouldn’t be inherited at all.
But what do I know? I’m only going off the bitter experience of a little girl and the horror of a hacksaw.
Plus the burning need to get rid of this necklace and get my magic back inside where it belongs.
Ann shakes her head. “The amount of power you will have access to will be great. It will be a lot to control, a lot of responsibility.”
“With great power comes great responsibility,” I mumble, quoting Marvel Comics Spider-Man and the Peter Parker Principle.
I look inside myself. Can I handle it, and do I have a choice? The horn is already stuck to my forehead, and I can’t deal with the worry of the bone necklace. I have Story, Dexter, Justin, and for the time being, my angel to keep me on the right path.
Fate has brought me to this point, this moment in time, and it feels right… as if it is meant to be.
“Please, will you combine the magic?” Ann nods.