Chapter 20
Chapter
Twenty
“You owe me,” Theo tells Zeke, holding out his hand. “Pay up.”
“Did you seriously bet on whether or not I’d end up in some kind of trouble?”
I kick off my shoes as I step into the house.
Xavier is right there with the others, and there’s no hiding the stress on his face. If vampires could age, he’d probably have gray hair by now just from being married to me.
“I should’ve started making these bets earlier,” Theo says, crossing his arms over his chest. “I’d be a very rich man.”
“Aren’t you already a rich man?”
Xavier ignores us both, looking me up and down like he needs physical confirmation that I’m actually okay.
I wave a hand. “Come on. I’ll tell you everything, but I want to sit down first.” We move into the family room, and I sit close to Xavier on the couch. Antonio and Leo follow us in, and before long, basically the entire family is gathered around for an impromptu meeting.
I tell them everything Larkin said, anxiety bubbling unpleasantly in my stomach as I repeat her warning. The coalition is destabilizing fast.
“And that’s not all,” I say once I finish recounting what happened with the Reapers. “There’s another witch I think the Order had in their grasp. Another witch whose blood could potentially be used to free a demon.”
“Instead of taking bets, I think I need to make a bingo card,” Theo mutters under his breath.
“Not a bad idea,” Antonio surprisingly agrees. “Though I don’t know how we’d predict half this crazy-ass shit.”
“You’re telling me,” Theo scoffs.
“Another witch?” Mabel asks. “Kidnapped like you?”
“Maybe.” I lean closer to Xavier and shift my gaze toward Leo. “You think you can hack into the Fairmont group home?”
“Think?” Leo asks, eyebrows shooting up as he gives me an exaggerated look of offense. “I know I can hack into their system. Give me an hour and I’ll get you everything on Eudora Claire Bellamy.”
“Why are you hacking into a group home’s system?” Zeke asks.
“Fairmont is a group home for kids getting close to aging out of foster care,” I explain quickly
“And the Bellamys are a prominent magical family, like the Blackwoods.”
“Right,” Devon says. “That’s what you were talking about last night.”
I nod, knowing I’m repeating some of this so Mabel, Theo, and Zeke can catch up. “As far as I can tell, Claire is alive. The last report I found was from a couple weeks ago. She ran away.”
“What’s significant about her?” Theo asks.
“From what Marie was able to find, Claire’s mother, Eudora Bellamy, had some kind of summer fling with a non-magical guy, got pregnant, and was forced to give up the baby.
” I swallow. “Eudora died in a car accident about a year later, but apparently a lot of people suspected it wasn’t actually an accident. They think she killed herself.”
The room goes quiet.
“And a half-blood witch might not show signs of magic until much later,” I continue. “Usually around seventeen or eighteen.” I look around at everyone. “Claire is seventeen.”
“Just now coming into her powers,” Mabel says quietly.
“Yeah.”
Leo stands. “Do you have a computer I can use?”
Devon gets up too, waving him over. “Come with me. I always thought I was decent with coding, but I’ve never hacked into a secure system. Mind if I join?”
“Not at all.” The two of them leave the room together.
Silence settles over the rest of us. And I can practically hear Theo’s thoughts screaming.
The Reapers can’t just shoot at me and walk away.
Not only because Xavier is furious they went after his wife, but because the family has to maintain control.
One of the 409 Reapers tried to murder me in broad daylight in the middle of downtown Charlotte.
There has to be some kind of response. What that response looks like, I have no idea. And right now, I don’t want to know.
I’m not exactly well-versed in supernatural politics, but something inside me keeps saying that more threats and fear aren’t the answer.
Everyone is already afraid of the vampires.
The coalition works partly because of that fear, sure.
But it also works because they respect Xavier.
Because they can count on him. Because being allied with him gives them something beyond simply not getting their blood drained by hungry vampires.
“I’m fine,” I say before Xavier can start fussing over me. My phone dings. I lean forward and grab it from the coffee table. Not Marie. Not yet.
It’s Delphi, asking if I’m okay because Larkin filled her in on what happened.
Physically I’m fine. Just a little shaken and really tired of getting shot at.
A response comes almost immediately.
I don’t know if I should send or to that. Though according to my middle school patients, emojis are cringe and show our age.
Send both. Be cringe.
I put my phone down and give everyone an awkward smile.
“I’m sorry for the mess that followed me here.”
“Don’t be,” Xavier says seriously. “None of this is your fault.”
“Not directly,” Theo adds with a shrug.
I look at him. “What?”
“It’s true. We didn’t have demon problems until you came into the family. Seven hundred years. Not one fucking demon problem in seven hundred years.”
“But what did you expect?” Mabel asks, narrowing her eyes at him. “You’ve been accepting bribes from the Order for years. The Order hunts demons. You never thought those worlds might cross?”
Antonio turns his head, clearly trying to hide a smile.
“If you wanted to avoid demon problems,” Mabel continues, “maybe you shouldn’t have gotten into bed with an organization that’s dealt with demons since its inception.”
Theo just stares at her. I can tell he desperately wants to argue, but Mabel is making far too much sense. And really, did he and Xavier genuinely believe taking a human incubator from the Order every twenty-five years would never come with consequences?
Mabel lets out a pointed sigh, picks up the remote, and turns on a Disney movie. We all sit there watching the opening credits for a few minutes before Theo finally gets up and disappears.
A while later, Devon and Leo return. Leo sets the laptop on the coffee table while Devon flips through a stack of papers he printed.
“You were right,” Leo tells me. “This wasn’t random.”
I resist the urge to say no shit, Sherlock and let him continue. He turns the laptop toward me. I freeze. There’s no mistake. Blown up on the screen is a section of adoption paperwork. Marcus Henry adopted Eudora Claire Bellamy when she was only a year and a half old.
“I did a little digging into the mother too,” Leo says. “There’s no father listed on Claire’s birth certificate, and Eudora was only sixteen when she had her.”
He gestures toward the papers in Devon’s hands.
“It was a closed adoption. No option for Claire to ever search for her birth parents.”
Devon lays two documents side by side on the coffee table. “Look at the signatures.” He taps the first. “This one seems legitimate.” Then the second. “This one doesn’t.” I lean closer.
One is the birth certificate. The other is part of the closed-adoption paperwork, including the documents surrendering parental rights. The handwriting doesn’t match.
“I’m guessing her parents signed it for her,” I say.
“That’s so sad,” Mabel murmurs, shaking her head.
“I’m still not following something,” Antonio says. “Marcus adopted Claire, but she still ended up in a group home?”
“He surrendered his parental rights when she was thirteen,” Devon says. He places another stack of papers on the table. “I went through court documents, school records, therapist notes, doctors’ notes—everything I could find.” He looks at me.
“Marcus claimed she had serious behavioral problems and that she was becoming unsafe around his other children.” I immediately frown.
“But?”
“But none of the records support that.”
Devon starts sorting through the pages.
“She got decent grades. No juvenile record. Her school attendance was actually pretty good. She was evaluated by multiple therapists and psychiatrists, and there’s no documented mental illness or significant behavioral disturbance.”
He finds one page and hands it to me. “This is from a school social worker.” I scan the photocopied notes. The social worker specifically comments on how well-adjusted Claire seemed considering everything she’d been through.
“Been through?” Xavier asks.
“I’m going to use the word supposedly again,” Devon says. “Health issues.”
He pulls out another page. “She was constantly being taken to appointments. Bloodwork. Specialist visits. Testing.”
“Oh.”
The realization hits me immediately. “The Order hid her in plain sight.” Everyone looks at me. “They put her in regular schools, let her live what looked like a normal life, and kept testing her. Waiting for her powers to emerge.”
“Yeah,” Leo says. “There’s a ton of misinformation scattered through her medical history, but as far as Claire knows, she has some kind of autoimmune condition.”
“But there’s nothing medically wrong with her,” Devon adds. “It was an excuse to keep bringing her in for testing.”
“Okay.” I sit back, trying to put everything together. “The Order finds out sixteen-year-old Eudora Bellamy, descendant of a prominent magical bloodline, is being forced to give up her baby.” I glance around the room as I think aloud.
“They arrange for Marcus Henry to adopt Claire because they assume Eudora’s daughter will be powerful too.” My stomach twists.
“But they don’t realize Claire is only half witch.” And apparently, they don’t know half-blood witches develop differently.
Later. Slower.
“I know from personal experience they had no reliable way to teach someone to access powers that hadn’t manifested yet,” I say. “They needed me to show something first.”
A flash of memory hits me. Vivian’s classroom. White walls. Testing. Needles. My memories from that time are still muddy. Probably because I was drugged. Maybe partly because my brain decided forgetting was the easiest way to survive it.
“I mean, it makes sense,” Zeke reluctantly admits. “They take this kid expecting something powerful. Nothing happens. Eventually, they decide she’s a dud and give her back.”
The word makes my stomach turn.
“But why bother giving her back at all?” Mabel asks.
“Paper trail,” Antonio says.
I nod slowly. “Exactly. Killing her or making her disappear could’ve attracted attention. This way, Marcus surrenders custody, Claire enters the system, and nobody questions where she went.”
“And Marcus Henry’s hands stay clean,” Xavier adds.
Mabel looks between us. “So the Order thought she was a failed experiment.”
“Looks that way.”
“Then who’s after her now?” Zeke asks.
Silence falls over the room. Xavier is the one who finally answers.
“Someone familiar enough with witchcraft to understand that a half-blood’s powers might emerge later.”
My skin prickles. “Another witch?” I ask.
“Or a demon.”
The words send a chill down my spine.
“Speaking of demons,” Mabel says slowly, “is anybody else surprised nothing else has happened?”
Everyone turns toward her. She looks around.
“What? You killed that chaos demon pretty quickly, and it’s been quiet ever since.”
We all stare at her in disbelief. Does she have any idea how badly she could have just jinxed us? Though, annoyingly, she has a point. Vaelric has been free for several days. And all he’s done is unleash one chaos demon? One we managed to kill almost immediately?
That doesn’t feel like him. It feels too easy. Almost like the chaos demon was never the real attack.
Just something loud enough to keep us busy while Vaelric did something else.
“He’s poking holes in everything,” Xavier says. The coalition. The humans. The wolves. Us. And yet one chaos demon really wasn’t much of a challenge. I think part of me has known that all along. I just didn’t want to admit it. There was something about the way Vaelric looked at me though.
Vivian’s eyes. Something calm. Knowing. Like none of this had surprised him. Like this was only the beginning.
And I would definitely be seeing him again.