Chapter 28 #2
Not answering that. “It’s inevitable for me to meet with him now that I remember.
Probably tonight. He’ll find me.” She squeezed her left fist tight around the earrings.
When Roman opened his mouth to comment, she held up her hand.
“We are short on time and have another important item.” She briefly glanced at Efrem, who looked relieved.
“Ian has decided he is going to take over our family. He has petitioned the Council to become head, or so he informed me last night. I am to be his on-demand consort who will suck him off at his whim while he steals all my money. He expects to sit on a throne and have all of us cater to him. He thinks you four are lazy loafers who mooch off my riches. Clear projection of what he’d do if he was in your shoes. ”
“What an asshat,” Roman muttered. “I thought he was dead.”
“This is the uncle who was always more interested in fucking across the world than spending time with us? That Ian?” Ky blurted.
“Language,” Shane whispered.
“Some bastard just told my mother to suck him off and wants me to kiss his toes. I’m saying whatever I think’s appropriate.”
Shane elbowed him.
“Do you think Ian is physically attracted to you, for real?” Roman asked.
“He wants to control me, maybe all of us.” She caught Efrem’s gaze. “There was something off about him. He seemed interested in me, when in the past there’s never been anything between us.”
“What angle does he think he has to force you into this?” Roman fisted his hands on the table.
“First, he says he’ll go to the Council to force it, but he knows that’s a dead end.
They’re too scared of us to force us into anything.
Ian then threatened us with a page two of the parchment that had your curse to the Crown.
It’s an addendum he plans to activate should we not agree to his demands.
He also said he’s been in contact with the king.
If I don’t allow him all that, he’ll activate it. ”
“What?” Roman pushed his chair back to stand. He paced back and forth, muttering.
Ky cradled his head in his hands. “I can’t go back. It’d put Vivi at too much risk.”
“We have to find out if it’s true, regardless of if Ian has it,” Efrem said.
“No one’s getting cursed again.” Evie placed her palms flat on the table.
“He doesn’t know us. He doesn’t know anything about our lives now, nor when you were blood cursed.
He has no clue who we’ve become or who your mates are.
He doesn’t know me. He doesn’t know about your angels. ” None of you know about my angel.
Shane hung his head and rocked it back and forth. “Madeline told me everything she knew when she was forced to cast the spell for the monarch. There wasn’t a page two.”
“If there was a page two and Maddie didn’t know…” Flynn unwrapped a new lollypop and put it in his mouth. “Maybe Ian gave the curse to the Crown in the first place? I say we sic Madeline on Ian. She can have her demon familiar, Baku, torture him.”
Efrem knelt next to Evie and took her free hand in his. “We have the upper hand in this. We’re strong.”
“I shouldn’t have visited him. I knew better.” She fisted her hand that held the earrings again until the sharp backings bit into her palm.
“We’ve got this, Mom.” Flynn said while swirling his lollypop between his fingers.
She glanced up to see all of them had moved around her. “You’re right. We’ll figure it out. I just…” She dropped her head. “I can’t see the path to get out of this.” With a forced smile she said, “We have a party to get to.”
“Are you sure we’re done?” Efrem asked.
“Yes.”
Efrem’s face fell.
The boys stood and left, and Efrem whispered, “You promised.”
“It’s enough for them for now. Maybe tomorrow.”
“You don’t have that many more tomorrows.”
Evie watched Madeline’s demon dancing with Lyra in the moonlight. Baku might be quirky and grumpy, but he adored her daughter. No kid could be happier or safer than this, surrounded by the magic of witches, vampires, lycans, and a dragon demon.
Roman sat with Nova on a bench watching, holding her tight. The way he rested a hand on her belly made Evie wonder if she might get a grandchild in the next year. She dabbed the corners of her eyes when she realized she might not live to see that.
Madeline teased Shane with a few f-bombs. He pretended to be angry, but laughed. He chased after her until he caught her and kissed her.
Ky and Vivi danced in the shadows.
“I’ve made sure the accounts are adjusted to reflect we are barely scraping by should Ian push you.” Efrem appeared as if out of thin air next to her. She jumped. “They’re worried.”
She chose not to respond to that. “How long would it take to clear everything from here? We’ve stayed too long.”
“We can be gone tomorrow.”
“Do it. Transport everything to Crete to go into storage. We’re moving to Germany tomorrow. It’s been a while.”
“I will make it happen. Do we leave breadcrumbs for Ian?”
“I like this place, but it’s not my favorite. No breadcrumbs. If he thinks he can find us, let him try.”
“If the Council has decided he is in the right, they might try to force it. I can intervene.”
“What would you do?” She waved for him to sit next to her.
“I’d be the one to mate you, of course. Or we can say I already did.”
“I’d never ask that of you.” She kissed his cheek and rested her head on his shoulder. “I’ll handle the Council if it comes to that.”
“Of course.”
“Do you sense it?”
“The darkness is coming closer. Yes, I sense it.”
“When it comes, you must grab the new bag that I already packed in the hall closet near the front door.”
“Of course.” He smiled toward the group where Roman danced with his mate, Nova, and Ky danced with his mate, Vivi. “I promised Lyra a dance.”
“Go. I’m fine.” She stood and walked down the windy path to the lake.
She wandered down the dock overlooking the water at the back of her property, away from the party. Gentle waves broke up the moon’s reflection.
There, she removed the earrings from her pocket and stared at the black stones. Time to face Dom. Just as she put them on, she realized…
Something dark lurked nearby. Something not human. How did it get beyond the wards that protected the perimeter?
She held herself still and listened. Waves softly broke on the shore.
Laughter from inside the house signaled the birthday winding down and moved inside.
The hum of the air conditioner kicking on thrummed in the distance.
Vibrations of movement, like aftershocks of someone arriving, echoed in the night. No, it was two arrivals.
Dom and who else?
From the end of the dock, a creature took solid form by drawing in shadows as if they were cloth until he was fully formed. Dressed in an amorphous black outfit, he stalked her way, slow and predatorial.
It looked somewhat like Ian Lanzo, but it didn’t smell lycan, nor did it emit the odor of anything else she recognized from years of seeing various nonhuman beings.
She raised her smartwatch to her mouth and whispered, “It’s time. Fight or die.”
The darkness of the approaching creature’s eyes seemed as if they reflected the moon’s light and glowed.
As he closed in, he grinned like a cat about to pounce on a toy it’d been watching for far too long. He raised a gun and fired. She easily dodged the tranquilizer dart.
“Take the easy way, Evie. Don’t make me come get you.”
“I knew you weren’t Ian. The cheese slipped off Ian’s cracker about a decade ago when he got hit in the head by a horse. You seemed too lucid. What do you want from me?”
“You.”
Shadows moved to surround her as if they were living entities. She batted at them. Then slashed at them with her knife, but it did nothing since they were mere shadows. That familiar sense of bleakness took over. Demons? They shouldn’t have been able to get past the wards.
The world wobbled as the shadows wrapped her like a thick, suffocating blanket.
The predator moved without making a sound to sling her over his shoulder. “I didn’t need these theatrics, but I did need him to see before we leave.” He chuckled. “You’re stupidly predictable, like all mortals.” He clamped tight against her struggles. “Now we prepare for his arrival.”