Chapter 18
CHAPTER 18
I was awakened by Dominic knocking at the door. After letting him in, I attempted to drift back to sleep while he stripped off his clothes and headed to the bathroom to shower, but couldn’t. When he crawled into the bed, I asked if everyone had returned. He confirmed that they had, but from his smirk, I gathered he knew I was mostly inquiring about Anand—it was hard to be Team Areleus and Helena when they wanted me dead. Enough of the Awakeners had been imprisoned to satisfy both Conventicles and significantly disrupt whatever strategy Peter had in mind.
“Nailah?” I wanted to see her again to make sure she was completely healed, and I was also curious to know if my fate had changed.
I placed my hand over his roaming fingers that were becoming increasingly distracting. Dominic found wicked entertainment in how my body responded to his slightest touch. Light brushes of his finger over the curves of my body caused heat to thrum through me, bringing a devilish smirk to Dominic’s lips and his eyes dropping to my nipples as they hardened to peaks.
“Nailah?” I probed.
“I’ve not seen her since my father took her to the guest house earlier. He assures me that she’s well.” A worried expression vanished as quickly as it had appeared.
“You don’t believe him?”
“I believe she is well. But I know there’s a reason he’s putting so much effort in keeping me from her,” he admitted.
There was definitely something Lord Areleus didn’t want revealed.
Despite the marked successes of the previous day, Dominic was uneasy as he watched me dress for dinner with my family. His stoic mask kept falling away to reveal his concern. He didn’t want me to go, and the effort not to express it or further debate it was apparent.
Once I was ready, he moved behind me, his arms circling me. He leaned down and whispered in my ear, “Are you ready?” The real question lingered over those words: “Are you sure?”
There were so many uncertainties, but seeing my family and making sure they weren’t vessels wasn’t any of them.
I nodded. Moments later he’d transported me to the apartment in the city that he shared with his sister. Releasing me, I turned to face him. He handed me a small ragged-shape pearl-color object.
“An Affinity,” he informed me as I examined it. After he invoked a spell and blood linked it to me, it hummed with a small vibration. “Similar magic will be pulled to it. Just place it on your parents and brother, and there will be a tug. Like magic drawn to like magic. It will feel like a magnet. Effort will be needed to pull away.”
Although I was impressed by it, Dominic wasn’t. For him, it was one of the things in their world that was obsolete.
“It must come in direct contact with them,” he reminded me as I got into the Range Rover he’d loaned me. Zareb, Dominic’s favorite hellhound, jumped into the back seat, and once I drove away, he shimmered and disappeared, the warmth of his body making his continuing presence known.
“It’s probably better if you stay outside, because there’s no way for me to let you in without it looking suspicious,” I told the hellhound as I turned onto my parents’ street.
He allowed himself to be visible, intelligent eyes looking at me. Drawing back his teeth was a reminder I was traveling with a hound of the underworld. He snorted, a chastisement for changing Dominic’s instructions.
“He said for you to stay with me. If you’re outside the door, you’re still with me. I can’t leave without you and it’s not like you can’t track me down if I do.”
Head tilted to the side, the dog gave me a considering look and another snort before cloaking himself again. I assumed it was his concession.
Seeing me pull into the driveway, my mom rushed out of the house and stood on the porch waving at me. Her presence was going to make it difficult to let Zareb out without it looking weird. Parking the SUV next to my brother’s, I hopped out in an overenthusiastic show of wanting to get to her for a hug, leaving the driver’s side door open. The display of emotion didn’t require a great deal of acting. I was happy to see her. I sank deeper into the hug. Slowly pulling away, I kept enough contact to rub the Affinity over the only place she had bare skin—her hand. My mother was rarely seen without a sweater.
“This is pretty,” she said, picking it up from the ground. Swiping the object over her skin hadn’t been done as gracefully and covertly as intended.
“I’m thinking of making it into a necklace and wanted Forest to check it out,” I lied. Of the many interests my brother had, he’d dabbled in jewelry making but soon lost interest.
“May I?” my father asked, joining my mother. I was grateful when my mother dropped it into his hand, giving me the opportunity to come in contact with him, the object, and me. He seemed less impressed. No tug. No magic in them.
Sure that I’d given Zareb enough time to get out the car, I returned to it to close the door before following my parents into the house.
“Rental?” My mother inquired, the skepticism tight in her voice as she gave the Range Rover another peek over her shoulder. My brother pulled his attention from it long enough to give me a long hug. Despite his sinewy body, he gave the kind of hugs that made the world fall away. They were the embodiment of a security blanket, and I held him tighter and longer than usual. Staggering away, he looked puzzled by my unusual display of affection. I was surprised by it as well. The dysfunction of the royals had given me a new appreciation for him and my family. I wanted to be near him, touch him, and know that if given the ability, he’d never try to claw my face or sic a violent person on me to have his magic returned. I doubted he’d ever give me a reason to take his magic.
“Can you make this into a necklace?” I asked, flashing him a grin that I hoped provided an excuse for my off-putting show of affection.
He examined it, his brows drawing together. “Really?” he asked, returning it to me and giving me another peculiar look when I grasped his hand to take it from him. Another negative result.
Forest’s eyes narrowed as he put more distance between us. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Can’t I just be happy to see you?”
“Yeah, but don’t be weird about it. Okay?” He gave my parents a look which tacitly gave them the same orders. He shoved his fingers through his hair, which was longer than he’d ever worn it. He had a new tattoo on his hand.
“So, what misguided friend of yours gave you access to a ride like that? He must be new in your life because he doesn’t know you well.”
“That’s quite presumptuous of you to assume it’s a man.”
“Your friends are smart and they’ve seen you drive. And after seeing you park, no one who values their vehicle is going to give you access to something that expensive. Clearly this man’s decisions are being influenced,” he teased.
I made a face and found myself fussing with his hair before he knocked my hand away. I was being weird and needed to stop. I was being more suspicious than the hellhound could ever be.
“That’s what insurance is for,” I shot back, putting some distance between us and making an attempt at normal behavior.
“Who’s the new man, Luna?” he pressed. I could hear the enthusiasm.
“Just a new friend,” I said, making a face that urged him to pursue another line of questioning. My parents looked like meerkats trying to get snippets of my life without being intrusive.
“I wish Emoni had joined you,” he said, taking the hint. She’d only come a few times to family dinner and had been offered an open invitation by my parents to return whenever she’d like. My brother enthusiastically cosigned on the offer for an obviously different reason.
“She only likes you for your comfy hugs that you dole out so infrequently. It’s our little indulgence,” I teased.
“And my charm,” he countered. “Don’t forget, I’m charming, too.”
“Let’s discuss this alleged charm over dinner,” I suggested, hooking my arm around his waist and moving to the kitchen. “And the new body art,” I added.
Sitting at the kitchen table, I looked over the new addition to the multitude of tattoos on his body. “Thinking about getting one?” he asked.
I had never paid as much attention to them before, which caused my parents to stop mid-set up to wait on a response. They wouldn’t care that I wanted one, but they didn’t seem to be wholly convinced that I was over Jackson, and the addition of body art would only serve to confirm it.
“No, not now. But sometimes I want to cover my birthmark,” I admitted.
“Your birthmark is a conversation starter,” my mother asserted, placing lasagna and bread on the table.
“What conversation is that? ‘What’s up with that freaky mark on your back?’”
“It’s not freaky, it’s adorable. The only thing freaky about it was it got darker instead of fading. By the time you were five, it was noticeable.”
“What?” I stumbled out.
She shrugged. “I took you to the pediatrician about it. He said it was odd but never seemed concerned about it. I didn’t think you had a birthmark, it went unnoticed for so long. I didn’t feel like mother of the year for missing it.”
You didn’t notice it because it wasn’t there. My head flooded with questions that I wasn’t sure she would be able to answer twenty-one years later. Was there a seismic event, like me being lost for several hours only to be found and marked, or something as simple as a stranger touching me to give me a compliment, that my mother failed to tell me about in the many recountings of my childhood?
Shoveling salad into my bowl, I reined in the racing questions so that I could probe without causing alarm.
“That’s weird. Did Gloria notice it?” Gloria was my mother’s friend who watched me when I wasn’t at my grandparents.
“No, I thought she’d be the first. She was so attentive to you all.” My mother faded into grave nostalgia about Gloria, a woman she’d befriended in the salon. They’d become fast friends and she’d watched me and Forest.
“She was so fascinated by you two. Absolutely adored your curious natures.” My mother offered me a tight smile. The many stories of my childhood showed that my parents often saw that curiosity as a blessing and a curse. My mother’s reminiscing eclipsed into sadness. Gloria had moved away in my teens. They stayed in touch initially but eventually their daily conversations where she’d call to chat with my mother and wouldn’t get off the phone until she’d spoken to us faded. She’d always seemed just as invested in our lives as our parents were. When the calls stopped, my mother wasn’t the only one who felt her absence.
Now, I couldn’t help but wonder if there was more to Gloria’s absence.
“Have you attempted to get in contact with her?” Forest asked. I was grateful that I wasn’t the only person asking questions.
“She no longer has the same number. I searched for her on Facebook and Instagram, hoping to reconnect, but no luck.”
Hearing the sorrow in my mother’s voice, I changed the subject, but the nagging feeling that Gloria’s presence in our life wasn’t coincidental remained.
“So, Forest, what’s your new adventure?” my father asked, swooping in to change the subject and lift my mother’s mood. Or at least redirect her because she quickly switched gears to mother mode. Forest grumbled a curse under his breath. He endured the interrogation by keeping his mouth full to avoid answering their questions, winking at me when a different set of questions were cast at me when he wasn’t able to answer.
When my father left the table to get dessert, Forest scrolled through his phone while sipping from his wine glass.
“Werewolves are real? What the fuck?” he sputtered, putting his glass down. More curses of disbelief came as he continued to scroll.
Turning his phone, he showed me what was trending on Twitter. Variations of the hashtag and a video of a man clearly changing from an animal to a wolf. Knowledge of the supernatural world wouldn’t come in with a whimper but rather a bang. And it had.
Taking out my phone, I scoured my social media account to find variations of hashtags, comments, and posts that werewolves were real. Magic is real was also trending, but that wasn’t the first time for that, and when it did trend, it never had anything to do with actual magic. Usually it was a publicity stunt. Except this time, it was about magic. There was a video of two magic wielders fighting in the streets. Another person’s lithe graceful movements identifying him as a vampire had taken down one of the witches with a strike, knocking them to their butt then feeding from them.
My breathing came at short inefficient clips before my mother moved closer to see what we were looking at. Just as we were trying to show her, our phones went blank. For several minutes, they cycled through restarting. I didn’t share Forest’s frustration and was thankful for the manipulating work of techno witches. I hoped this was damage control and not a big reveal.
Forest’s phone restarted first and he was frantically scrolling again. Blinking several times. “What the—?” he blew out, flustered. “I know I saw it. You saw it, right?” he asked, turning to me for confirmation. My mother looked at our wine glasses, relieved us of them, and returned to the table with a cloying smile and water.
The rigid creases deepened each time Forest looked at his phone. It served as a reminder of the disconcerting reality of techno magic. It hurt that I couldn’t do anything to soothe his anxiety and doubt. His fingers moved quickly over the keyboard. I suspected he was contacting others for confirmation they’d seen it, too. Tomorrow would be filled with speculations, conspiracy theories, and gaslighting as supernaturals initiated their campaign to clean up the mishap.
To distract my brother, I asked about his new endeavor and updates about his life, and we scheduled a date for dinner the following month. That sent a pang through me. I was setting up a normal event when my life was so far from it. There was a very real chance that this may be my last meal with them.
The evening ended with me satisfied that my family had no connection to the supernatural world, and my parents satisfied with my brother’s dallying with becoming a web designer. My thoughts remained with Gloria, recounting her interest in me, which I’d attributed to her being my mother’s friend, not that she might be responsible for making me a vessel for Dark Caster magic. Was she a Dark Caster herself, or during the times I was in her care simply exposed me to one?
I had so many questions and wasn’t sure where to get the answers.
But I needed them.
As we said our goodbyes, I clung to my family tighter as they made gallant efforts not to look at me suspiciously.
Each step toward the SUV felt like I was states away.
I didn’t care what I needed to do; this would not be my last time seeing my family.