Chapter 14
CHAPTER 14
T aking a seat on my bed, I picked up my phone off the nightstand and distracted myself by scrolling through notifications. There were the expected missed calls from Cameron, plus from three other employees, including Lilith. Even Reginald, the tarot reader who’d confided in me that he was a witch and had relegated me to being suspicious at best. When I tried to get him to remember what he’d experienced in my home, he couldn’t because Dominic had manipulated his mind. Reginald could no longer recall being present while we stood in shocked confusion watching magic remove wording from a book.
There were calls from my mother and father wanting to know why I’d missed our monthly dinner. There were multiple texts from Forest reminding me of the dinner to make sure I’d be the buffer between him and my parents’ incessant questioning. His texts came at increasingly closer intervals, including one telling me to open my door because he was outside my apartment. When I was a no-show for dinner, his voice messages and texts became more and more agitated because my parents continued to ask him where I was. “I’m not your babysitter. Do better,” he chastised in his first message. A day later, his voice was entreating and heavy with worry. Not text, his preferred form of communication. A phone call. Even admitting he needed to hear me say I was okay.
I frowned at the messages from Jackson requesting we meet for dinner, drinks, or coffee including silly emojis and using Lulu, his nickname for me, in an attempt to come off as endearing. Even in his attempts to reconcile he was inconsiderate and arrogant. He knew I hated being called Lulu; I’d told him enough times. His response was to try to convince me that him saying it would miraculously change my feelings about it. With the rose-colored glasses of love removed, all the signs that the relationship should have ended sooner was a hard pill to swallow. At least he was the one situation I didn’t need to fix. I wanted him to stay away.
I needed to start mitigating the damage in my life immediately.
“How are you going to deal with this?” Emoni asked softly from the doorway.
“I don’t know,” I admitted, my hand covering my face. There wasn’t a concrete plan, but I knew it would involve lying. Lots and lots of lying and the worst kind: lies of omission.
Emoni’s lips were drawn tight, eyes full of sympathy that extended beyond just me having to mend my life. I was an other and there was no way around it.
“This changes nothing between us, Luna. You’re my Luna. Luna with the questionable taste in men,” she said, taking a seat next to me and wrapping her arms around my shoulders. She had no idea how much that meant to me, although it wasn’t the truth. I wasn’t her Luna anymore. So long as things wouldn’t change in our friendship, I felt like I could figure out a way to handle everything else.
Pressing her head to mine, she said, “We have this.”
“My taste isn’t that questionable,” I joked. “Dominic’s not that bad.”
“An immortal man who lives in the underworld and has no qualms about telling me—a stranger—that he’s going to kill Peter isn’t that bad?” Her brows rose. “How good is the sex?”
Snorting a laugh, I made a poor attempt at looking shocked and appalled by her assumptions.
“Drop the act. You two have definitely done the lusty dance more than once. The way he looks at you— The only thing stopping him doing it again is me and Anand being here. There were several times I don’t think even that would have stopped him.”
“He’s quite interesting, but his family dynamics are even more interesting. No, that’s not the right word. Daunting. Scary. Horrific. Those are the right descriptors,” I admitted.
Which led me to giving her a windfall of information. I revealed everything, from my initial meeting with Helena, her terrorizations, Areleus threatening me, and Dominic leaving his father for dead. Her mouth formed variations of shocked and disturbed O’s that remained throughout the detailing.
When the retelling was over, she released a weary sigh. “I don’t know what you want from him. If you want more, maybe an occasional visit from him to…” She shot a lewd look in my direction. “Because I know it was good. Because you’re guilty of looking at him like you want to do naughty things to him, too. Maybe it’s more than sex—he may be a decent person… No, wait, thing? Immortal being. Whatever. But if you want to clean up your life, I think it’s best to do it without him in it. Once Peter has been dealt with, don’t get pulled back into that world—the supernatural world—his world. You don’t belong there. I don’t see things getting better in that regard. You’ll always be used as a pawn if you stay in his life.”
I already knew that.
Emoni’s expression became shrewd as she tried to develop a plan to safely get me out of my situation.
“You should find out if Forest has anything to worry about. And your parents, could they be…whatever you are? What should I call you? Because Scaphium is a mouthful, and magic vessel…seems too generic? What are you, a magicless wonder?”
“Sounds like a terrible superhero,” I shot back, but I agreed. Dominic was convinced I was the only one, but I wanted assurance.
When I called for him, he was in the doorway to my room before his complete name had fallen from my lips. Emoni and I exchanged a look. His quick reaction confirmed my suspicion that he may not have possessed Anand’s preternatural hearing, but it was sharper than a typical human’s.
After I voiced my concerns about Forest and maybe my parents as well, he frowned.
“It is doubtful. But I can check,” he suggested.
“Check? Like you did with me? No, I’ll ask. They don’t mind talking about peculiar things on their bodies.”
A bruise on my mother’s thigh was a week-long conversation. I could easily find out whether they had any magic marks. The mystery remained of when I got mine. I’d had the marking all my life, or for as long as I could remember. At what point had I come in contact with the person who’d sentenced me to such a fate? The sooner I found that out, the sooner I could figure out what to do about it.
“I need to call my parents,” I told them. With a nod, they both left my room.
My mother answered the phone in a rushed, soothing voice that sent daggers through me. I hated that she was worried about me. “Luna. Are you okay? You missed dinner. No call, no text. Nothing.” Irritation thrummed along with the concern. “What’s going on?”
“I’m fine.” My voice was preemptively drying for the falsehoods to follow. I wasn’t good at lying to my family. “I just needed some time, so I took a mini vacation.”
“Oh honey, is it Jackson?”
Not at all. My mother was aware of the seismic changes my life underwent after discovering Jackson had cheated. Our breakup wasn’t the uncomplicated type of separation where two people just decide the relationship isn’t working out and end it, giving those involved the chance to slowly accept and deal with their significant other no longer being in their lives. Allowing a person some time to pack and find a new living space. No, it wasn’t as civilized as that. It was abrupt, emotional, and tumultuous, forcing me to pack up, stay with Emoni, and make a performance of living a normal life while dealing with a broken heart. If I’d stayed, he’d have hounded me for forgiveness even more.
“I know it still hurts.” Since whispering wasn’t a skill my mother had mastered, she stage-whispered to my dad. “Our Luna is still brokenhearted,” she told him. “It was her first love and you know how those things are.” Jackson wasn’t my first love, but in my mother’s mind, high school romances didn’t count. “Poor thing.”
“Mom, I’m fine,” I assured her. “I just needed a break. It’s been a long time since I had a vacation, so I took one.”
“I invited you on vacation with us,” she touted. Assured that I was safe and not pining over my broken relationship, my mother was free to be her normal self. “We wanted you to go.”
“It was a vacation to celebrate your anniversary. Why would I agree to go on that? You realize that’s weird, right?”
“How is it weird?” No explanation would convince her otherwise. Why not take your children on your thirtieth wedding anniversary cruise? Cuddling with your adult children, normal as the sun rising and setting. Not seeing a problem sharing intimate moments with the results of it sitting across from you.
“I miss seeing you,” I told her. That was the most truthful thing I’d disclosed in this conversation, and I felt a twinge of guilt because of it. The monthly dinners were something I appreciated and had taken for granted. Hearing my mother’s voice made the void seem wider.
“We miss you, too,” my father said over the speakerphone my mother had placed me on. A video call from my father interrupted the call. I answered to find their faces next to each other.
“You look good,” my mother piped out, surprise in her voice as if she’d been expecting a bedraggled mess. “I’d say the vacation did you well.”
I looked better than I felt.
“Thanks?”
“Where did you go?” my dad asked.
I told them I rented a cottage Airbnb where I did nature walks, read, and went kayaking.
“Good. And Jackson? Where do things stand with you two?”
During our relationship, he’d managed to burrow his way into my parents’ hearts. They’d expected us to get married. But they weren’t so blinded by his charm to approve of me continuing the relationship after his betrayal. My father, being a pragmatist in all things, understood it was a possibility. Love made people more forgiving and less rational at times. After learning of the reason behind our breakup, he simply said, “We’ll support any decision you make without judgment.” The last part was a complete embellishment that he could barely push out without voicing his true opinion. My mother was tight-lipped during his speech, her eyes widening from the effort to restrain from commenting and be in accord with my dad. I knew what she desperately wanted to say: He cheated. Work to get over him and move on.
“There’s no Jackson.” And further conversation about him wasn’t necessary. With everything else going on in my life, he was the last thing I wanted to discuss. “Can we have dinner tomorrow?” I asked, bringing a smile to their faces.
“Invite your brother,” they instructed before getting off the phone. I had planned to because I wanted everyone present during my questioning. As soon as I ended the call, I called my brother. The heaviness in his greeting immediately lifted once he heard my voice. Relief flooded his voice when he spoke.
“Glad this call isn’t a hostage negotiation,” he teased. Forest hated phone calls and preferred the succinct communication afforded by text messages. He remained convinced that phone calls were reserved for parents, grandparents, scams, and probably hostage negotiations.
“How many negotiations have you handled?” I teased.
“None so far, but the way Cliff and Nancy were acting, you’d have thought we were just minutes from getting one about you,” he said. “Don’t go MIA again, sis.”
“It was last minute and the only thing on my mind was getting away,” I said, continuing with the lie.
“You let that pretty boy stress you like that? Don’t.”
“Pretty boy?” I teased, a description often used for my brother and one he hated, even though most people would be flattered by it, perhaps even trade on it. Coltish and tall, Forest had a slim build that gave the impression he worked out. We shared similar red hair, but his hues leaned closer to copper. The last time I saw him, it was darkened with azure woven through it, complementing the colorful sleeve of tattoos up one of his arms. Despite our contrasting appearances and personalities, we shared a lot of characteristics. His face was a definitive oval shape, with wide brows and lips fuller than mine. I cringed when Emoni described them as ‘kissable,’ which quickly forced a repulsed plea from me: “Don’t kiss my brother.” I had a feeling he’d hate me if he knew it was a promise I urged her to make. All his flirting and banter with her was in vain.
“Good for you. Take all the vacations you need but don’t get back with that loser.” Why was Jackson the topic of everyone’s conversation? Were they able to see the real pain and my struggle through the fa?ade I put forward? “If you talk to him again, tell him to lose my number.” Disgust rang in his demand. “If I’m not responding to his messages and answering his calls, take the hint, asshole.”
I laughed. Forest was an unflappable supporter of relationships. Period. If he’s my boyfriend, he’s a cool guy. Break up, then you quickly downgrade to asshole.
“So, you’re coming to dinner?”
“No,” he whined. “I had dinner with them when you were a no-show. I just can’t with them.”
“Please. I want to see you too,” I pleaded.
“Fine,” he conceded with a groan. “But tell Nancy and Cliff I don’t want to hear it about my new career.”
“Keep calling them Nancy and Cliff and you won’t have to worry about them discussing your career. They’re going to spend the evening ripping into you about calling them that.”
Forest’s passive-aggressive show of defiance was calling them by their names. Initially, they pretended it didn’t bother them, thinking it would discourage him. It became a challenge for Forest to make sure it did.
I swallowed all my questions about his new career. I guessed he’d moved on from being an apprentice electrician. Curiosity burned in me, but I pushed it aside, deciding to get answers when my parents ultimately examined him about his new journey . Despite my brother’s claims he hadn’t missed me that much, he didn’t immediately get off the phone. When our conversation ended a half hour later, I was surprised by the rumbling of my stomach in response to the smell of pizza wafting into the room. I must have been recovering from the days without food.
Cutting my reprieve short and returning to the living room, I found Anand and Dominic on the sofa and two large pizzas stacked on the nook being ignored. Emoni padded the length of the room, taking sips from her vodka-filled coffee cup between pressing the bridge of her nose.
“What’s the worst that would happen if you all became known? It would give us autonomy and not allow you all to perform magic on us without us knowing?” Emoni asked, Dominic’s intense eyes watching her carefully as if deciding whether to answer her. I was sure she’d been peppering him with questions since she’d left my side.
“How would you enforce that abnegation, human woman?”
We both glared at the tone of superiority and derision that drifted over the word ‘human.’
“I think you’ve underestimated us,” Emoni countered.
“I believe you’ve overestimated them,” he said in response. “Once they are no longer required to remain secret, they’ll have license to do whatever they feel is necessary to survive, which would mean decreasing your numbers. Shifters have infiltrated your military and law enforcement; they thrive on that structure. The numbers won’t be any use if you’re dealing with preternatural speed and access to tech-witches who can disrupt all your technology, and witches who can do spells to manipulate human minds or whatever they please to do to them.”
Emoni frowned, reminded of what had been done to her.
“Vampires with preternatural speed and the ability to compel. There’s no defense against that. It only takes a look for them to enthrall you. If humans rose up against the supernaturals, what would prevent them compelling humans to turn on each other? And , it doesn’t take long for them to sire humans to vampires. The vampire bond formed between the sire and sired means they will ally with their creator. All human connections are forgotten with their vampire rebirth. Yes, you have the numbers, which is a benefit, but seeing the division and discord that exists between humans, how likely is it that those numbers would benefit you?”
We had numbers in our quiver, but that wasn’t the advantage we believed it would be. Emoni was taking the news worse than I had. She looked defeated. Dominic’s confidence that even in the middle of a potential civil war among the supernaturals, they would put that aside to subjugate humans only added to her troubled frown. She’d finished her cup and had refilled it.
“Now that it’s your job to uphold the secrecy of supernaturals, you must reinforce it, and they have to know that the onus falls on them if it’s violated,” I interjected. My assertion sounded more pleading than intended. The mocking amusement fell from his expression, his depthless amber eyes turning sincere.
“I will.” A satisfying promise in his simple words.
Perceptive as usual, Emoni hadn’t missed the exchange between us. Although she hadn’t fully warmed up to either Anand or Dominic, her demeanor had relaxed significantly.
Nothing about the current situation was innocuous, but everyone seemed okay with moving on to me figuring out if my family were vessels of Tenebras Obducit magic, too.
I filled a glass with water instead of more alcohol. Tomorrow morning I planned on speaking with Cameron and didn’t want to do so while dealing with a hangover.
With the exception of the dinner with Dominic’s family, I’d never seen him eat, and watching him eat pizza fascinated me in a way it shouldn’t have. Emoni, who kept her distance from everyone, stayed near the nook, taking small bites of pizza, her brows drawn in with thought.
“I don’t really understand you. You’re a wolf shifter who doesn’t shift. But if you were a real wolf, you’d need to hunt for food,” she asserted, pulling a piece of pepperoni from the pizza and eating it. “You have to desire raw meat at some point, right? I’m sure if I gave a lion a steak medium rare, he wouldn’t eat it.”
Of all the things revealed to her, she found shifter magic the most intriguing. Or maybe it was Anand, because he was a defunct shifter.
“If that’s all he had to eat, he would,” he countered with a smirk.
She considered it. “I don’t think that’s true.” She looked at him. “Can you eat? Do you eat? Do you sustain life just by magic?”
I went to the kitchen and got my friend some water. Her consumption of nearly half a bottle of vodka was showing in her boundless curiosity and lack of filter. Taking it with a grateful nod, she gulped it and didn’t stop until it was nearly empty.
“I don’t like this,” she eventually admitted to the room. Liquid brown eyes showed a disturbing level of sorrow and angst that I’d never seen on her before. Intrigue had eked from her expression, leaving behind a solemn troubled look.
“The situation or us?” Dominic scrutinized her, not as a threat but as the reflection of what would happen if they were to reveal themselves.
“Both,” she acknowledged. “I don’t like feeling helpless. And knowing that you all live among us and we just don’t know, how do I go to work tomorrow, with customers moving throughout the café, and not suspect at least some of them are creatures of magic?”
If she was calling them that in her head, of course the situation would spiral.
“Supernaturals have always walked among us, Emoni,” I said in an attempt to comfort her.
“What about the Broad Street wiccans?” she blurted, referring to the people who could be seen dressed like they were about to attend a Renaissance fair or Steampunk festival. “Or the People of the Night?” They were just as flamboyant as our Broad Street wiccans with their theatrical midnight-black or platinum-white hair and dark clothing, depicting the vampire noir look from old films.
Emoni had been dismissive when I told her about one of my contacts with Dominic when he’d accused me of being a witch. She’d considered it quirky. The abstract thought of the supernatural wasn’t that scary, but when the curtains were pulled back and it was revealed that they could control your life, making you a marionette in their puppet show, things got darker. Being faced with the violence, politics, and instability of the house of cards was anxiety inducing.
“The people who dress up in their little costumes to stand out in the most ostentatious way?” Domonic inquired.
Emoni nodded.
“They are not creatures of magic.” His lips twitched with an emotion I couldn’t place. “Creatures of magic prefer to blend into the background. Go unnoticed among the unremarkable. Shows of magic and power are often used to intimidate. There’s no need to intimidate or put on displays for the l—” He stopped abruptly before he could finish saying ‘lesser.’ “Humans,” he amended. We both cut our eyes at him.
That could change in a blink of an eye if the Awakeners got their way and supernaturals were revealed to the world. There would be demonstrations of power and violence to intimidate us into subjugation. My heart began to race at the idea and the thud of it jerked Anand’s head from Emoni’s direction to mine.
“Worrying about it won’t change anything,” Anand said.
Great, the King of Comfort has spoken.
Dominic had sat back, hands clasped behind his head, in anticipation of further interrogation by Emoni.
“Find comfort that there are more people who want to stay hidden than there are who want to be revealed,” Anand added, leaving out the part that two sects existed to do just that. The current Conventicle and the Conventicle-in-waiting that was plotting a hostile takeover. Their objectives aligned but not their means of enforcement. The Conventicle-in-waiting was more violent, choosing to deal lethally with any threats to exposure. The current Conventicle tended to coddle more, allowing threats of exposure to be handled at the expense of humans. The awaiting Conventicle wasn’t opposed to that, but there would be dire consequences if that were to happen. My preference was a takeover; however, their extreme nature wasn’t limited to their kind and they saw me as a threat and wanted me dead.
Anand’s head whipped to the door. Several beats later, there was a knock. With the discussion of the Conventicles, Peter, and the Awakeners, I was tentative about answering the door. Perhaps I hadn’t been convincing enough to my brother and he was stopping by to visit. I peered through the peephole.
My breath caught.
Areleus and Helena.