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  Sweeping her hands over his muscular back, Jes decided it was time to tell him about his grandfather. Dex deserved to know Bodin wasn’t the monster Dex thought him to be. After all, Dex had been wrong about her and Ella’s skin grafts; because of that, maybe it would be easier for him to accept he’d been wrong about his grandfather, too. She couldn’t endanger Bodin by alerting Dex to his presence on the grounds, but she could at least try to pave the way for peace between them. “Dex,” she said. “Do you remember when I told you someone brought me to the Draci? After my parents were killed?”

  “Hmmm,” he said, even as he lifted his head to kiss her. He groaned as he rolled to his side, then propped himself on one elbow and drew lazy circles on her belly with his fingertips. Instinctively, her stomach muscles clenched, her desire renewed far faster than she would have thought possible.

  She inhaled, trying to memorize his scent. His touch. “Dex—”

  “Has it been hard for you? Adjusting to life here?”

  “Not really,” she murmured. “I was so young when I came to live with them. It wasn’t long before I barely remembered living with other vampires.”

  His fingers moved to her arm, first the unmarred one, then the other. His fingertips traced her scars the way they often did and she knew his frown wasn’t because the scars were ugly, but because they evidenced the pain she’d gone through getting them. “Your parents were killed?” he asked. “As in murdered?”

  “Yes,” she answered, even as she tried to block the rash of awful images his question brought to her mind. Images of her mother and father, staked down beside her, trying to comfort her as the sun rose.

  “Don’t look,” her father yelled.

  “Close your eyes, Jessie love, and it’ll soon be over. Please, close your eyes” her mother begged.

  And as she always did, Jessie listened to her parents. Because she was so young, because she hadn’t acquired vamp powers or weaknesses, she wouldn’t burn in the sun, but her parents would. She couldn’t bear to see it. She closed her eyes but they flew open when something landed with a thud beside her. A werewolf, like the others. He tore off her restraints. She immediately tried lunging toward her parents, but the werewolf picked her up and ran.

  “No!” she screamed. “Mama. Daddy!”

  Sunlight painted the ground and moved inexorably closer to where her parents lay. They stared at her, matching smiles of relief on their otherwise terrified faces just before the light hit them. Simultaneously, they flinched.

  The werewolf carried her under a sheltering tree and covered her body with his. By twisting her head to the side, she could still see her parents’ writhing bodies. She fought to get away from him, but within seconds her parents burst into flames.

  Jes closed her eyes and turned away, sobbing.

  The werewolf said he was sorry her parents had been killed. That he’d protect her until the sun went down. For hours, she’d been too traumatized to tell him the sun couldn’t hurt her because she hadn’t reached puberty.

  “Don’t look at them,” he urged when she would have done so. “Remember how they were. Remember how they loved you.”

  And that’s exactly what she’d been trying to do ever since. Trying to remember her parents and how much they loved her, and trying to make them proud.

  Bodin was the only reason she’d survived that day. If he hadn’t arrived, the werewolves who’d left them to burn would have seen she was still alive and killed her themselves. She owed him her life and her loyalty. But would the fact Bodin had saved her be enough for Dex to overcome a lifetime of hatred? Could he ever forgive his grandfather for what Bodin had done to him?

  “So we’re both orphans,” Dex said quietly. “Did Ella’s mother die in childbirth?”

  “Yes.” Ella’s mother, Helen, had been Jes’s friend. Almost like a sister.

  “What about her father?”

  Jes smiled sadly. “He died when she was three. That’s when she came to live with me.”

  “When did she move into her own quarters?”

  “When she was five. That still bothers you, doesn’t it? That she had to fend for herself so soon?”

  “It’s just hard to wrap my mind around. She looks too small and fragile to be emancipated.”

  “She’ll begin to age faster over the next few years. But I know the concept of Draci family is a weird one for most people to accept.”

  “I’ve never had any kind of family so I really shouldn’t talk about what’s normal or not.”

  “No family at all?” she asked, even though she knew better.

  “No. I—I was abandoned by my maternal grandfather.”

  It was such a small thing, but the way he’d opened up to her made her feel so much closer to him. She shifted, raising a hand to stroke his cheek.

  “What about your maman?”

  He flinched, but caught her hand when she would have withdrawn it. He pressed it against his skin. “She killed herself before I was twelve. Because of Bodin, my grandfather. One of the instructors at the were orphanage took great joy in telling me. After my grandfather sent me away seventy-five years ago, she stayed with her pack, but losing me was her death sentence. He hated me for being a half-breed, but she loved me. I only have snatches of memory but I remember her gentleness most of all. Her voice. She used to sing to me.”

  “And your father?”

  “I never knew him. Not even his name.”

  So much pain, Jes thought. In some ways, Dex blamed himself for his mother’s death, just like she blamed herself for not being able to save her parents. He didn’t even know his father had been vampire. What a sad pair they made. “Have you ever tried getting in touch with your grandfather?”

  “Not yet. But I will. Soon. That’s one of the reasons I was reluctant to stay until the baby was born.”

  He spoke in the past tense. As he’d indicated earlier, he now wanted to stay with her. But her happiness dimmed when she realized he still intended to kill Bodin. She dropped her hand.

  “You must hate him,” she whispered.

  “I’ve never hated anyone more.”

  “Because he sent you away?”

  “That. And because of my mother. Because he’s such a power-mongering bigot that he cared about nothing but keeping his werewolf line pure.”

  “But what if—what if your grandfather didn’t send you away because he hated that you were a half-breed? What if he did it to protect you?”

  Dex laughed bitterly. “Well, there’s no chance of that, so…”

  “There is a chance, Dex.” She took a bracing breath, pulled away, and sat up. “In fact, that’s what I believe happened.”

  He stiffened and slowly sat up, as well. “What the hell are you talking about? How do you know anything about it?”

  “Because—because I met your grandfather. Bodin. A long time ago. And he always struck me as being an honorable, kind individual.”

  “You met my—” He shook his head. “Bodin denounced me. Sent me off to a were orphanage to be—to be on my own. He never visited. Never wrote. He didn’t give a shit about me.”

  “But that doesn’t mean he didn’t care. Maybe he felt it was better for you if he stayed away.”

  “Better for me? To be beaten? Starved? Abused? Because that’s what happened to the boys at that orphanage. And no one did a damn thing to stop it, least of all him.”

  “Oh Dex, je suis si désolé.” She kissed his shoulder and then the other, smoothing her hands over them when they trembled. “But maybe your grandfather didn’t know.”

  “He knew.”

  “I—I don’t think he did.”

  “Like you would know.” He laughed. Shook his head. Once again moved away from her. “What the hell’s going on, Jes? Just how did you meet my grandfather?”

  “I met him before I came here, Dex.”

  “How?”

  “He’s the werewolf who brought me to the Draci.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

 
; VAMPIRE DOME

  PORTLAND, OREGON

  “I need you to contact Zeph.” Mahone kept his voice insistent despite his uncertainty and frustration. “All my attempts to do so have failed.” What Mahone didn’t say was that his frustration wasn’t solely the result of Zeph Prime dodging him.

  Oh no. With each passing hour, Mahone found himself more and more frustrated with the bitch who seemed to take pleasure in his misery. After Lucy’s little visit, he and the Goddess Essenia had had the mother of all showdowns. He was still surprised he’d managed to survive. He hadn’t meant to be so disrespectful, but how the hell did she expect him to respond to her constant, “I know all and see all but I’m compelled not to tell you” bullshit? How could something powerful enough to create life or end it have her hands tied when it came to telling him how to find Zeph Prime or being able to send some sorry-ass demons back to hell?

  “I don’t know where my brother is,” Knox responded.

  “Don’t bullshit me, Knox.” Mahone barely refrained from pulling his hair out. He paced Knox’s study, not missing the way Lucy’s and Felicia’s gazes flitted between him and Knox. “I believe you when you say you don’t know, otherwise you couldn’t have said it, but I know you—you would have arranged for a way to get in touch with Zeph, no matter how pissed off you were that he was working with me. I’m telling you, you need to send out the bat signal. We need him to act as our representative with the Quorum.”

  “Our representative?” Knox sneered. “You mean our negotiator. But I’m not negotiating with the organization that placed a hit on my wife. And I thought the U.S. government didn’t negotiate with terrorists either.”

  “As a general rule, we don’t. And that’s certainly the President’s stance. Me? I’m feeling a little more open-minded considering we’re talking world invasion by evil spirits who are looking for a way to permanently escape hell.”

  When Knox remained silent, Mahone snapped, “Damn it, do you think I want to go groveling to the Quorum? I don’t. But the intel Lucy got from the shape-shifter makes sense. I didn’t tell him anything about the link between shape-shifter deaths and black magic. Rebel shape-shifters, both domestic and abroad, have unified. They plan on harnessing their collective power to create a bridge—a fucking huge one—between the living and the death. We’re not talking about raising a few evil spirits here and there, although that would be bad enough; we’re talking about letting loose the entire population of hell. The only way I can think of stopping it is to contact the First Lady, a known Quorum member, and hope she’ll convince the President to give the shape-shifters what they want—some damn respect.”

  “Your plan has one major flaw,” Knox said stubbornly. “There’s no reason to believe she’d help us. She’s more likely to use what we tell her to further her anti-Otherborn agenda.”

  “Not in this case,” Lucy interrupted, and Mahone was thankful for her assistance.

  While he was still pissed at her for tossing him around like a rag doll, the mage was exactly what she’d said she was—loyal, to the team and to society at large.

  “The shape-shifters aren’t discriminating against Otherborn,” Lucy continued. “They’re out to avenge themselves against everyone who has persecuted them, humans most of all. That’s why the shape-shifter told me what he did. He thinks there’s still a chance to stop them, which tells me the shape-shifters actually want to be stopped. They’re acting out of desperation, because they feel they have no other choice. But it’s the U.S. shape-shifters who sought the help of those in Europe. And they only did so after the President vetoed their application for funds to increase public awareness and tolerance for shape-shifters.”

  “So they wanted to run a ‘hug a shape-shifter campaign’ or the equivalent? How do you even know your source was telling the truth about that being the shape-shifters’ motive?”

  “Because I’ve confirmed it!” Mahone bit out.

  Knox glared at him. “With whom?”

  With a Goddess who has apocalyptic plans of her own, Mahone thought, regardless of the fact that Essenia had no dominion over hell or the dark demons there. At least, that’s what she’d told him. He couldn’t exactly contradict her, could he? “I can’t tell you my source, Knox, so don’t even ask, but believe me when I say I would not be asking this of you, of any of us, unless I felt there was absolutely no other choice. Let me talk to Zeph. Let him communicate our plea to the First Lady. All we’re asking for is a temporary cease-fire. If she can persuade the President to authorize a federal grant, it will be a show of good faith and might stop the shape-shifters from going forward with their plan. We can’t stop them all, Knox. Some of them, maybe, but not all.”

  Knox turned to look at Felicia, who stood across the room, her gaze troubled. She nodded.

  “Fine,” Knox said. “I’ll contact Zeph. But if he thinks approaching the First Lady is too risky, I won’t put him in danger. He’s already left the safety of the Vampire Dome because of you and the Quorum. I won’t let him risk his life any further. If I have to, I’ll go to the President himself.”

  “The President’s a good man, Knox, but he won’t move, not without more evidence than this. Not unless he’s influenced by someone more important to him than me. He loves his wife. He trusts her and he listens to her. If we’re going to stop hell from invading the world, like it or not, we need her.”

  ***

  Dex pulled away from Jes so fast it scared her.

  “You told me someone gave you to the Draci to seal a peace treaty between his race and theirs.”

  “That’s true. It was a treaty between the Draci and the European wolf packs.”

  “Bodin rules U.S. werewolves. He has no dominion over those overseas.”

  “That’s not true. He merged his pack with those in Europe. They follow him, for the most part. There are always exceptions, of course, but the European packs are hopeful that as werewolf rights expand in the U.S., Bodin will make sure the same happens here.”

  “You’re actually telling me that Bodin of Hammersham is the werewolf who brought you here?”

  “Don’t you see? It’s why I don’t believe he intentionally hurt you, Dex. I believe he made mistakes, but his actions were intended to protect you. He’s not evil.”

  “And yet as soon as I show up here, so does Rurik Pitts, a werebeast with damn good reason to want to see me dead. Do you really think that’s coincidence?”

  What he was implying couldn’t be true, Jes thought. Bodin hadn’t even known Dex was here until earlier today. But what if she was wrong? Bodin had said Jes thought too well of him, something he’d seemed to confirm when he’d talked so disdainfully of shape-shifters. What if Bodin had known about Dex and summoned Pitts to deal with him? Yet Pitts was dead and nothing made sense. “I—I don’t know why Pitts was here,” she exclaimed. “Since I know Bodin, maybe Pitts was here because of me, not you. I should have thought of that earlier.”

  Dex slowly shook his head. “How long have you known Bodin was my grandfather? Did you know this in L.A?”

  She swallowed hard. Even though he looked surprised and angry, he wasn’t reacting the way she’d feared. He wasn’t railing at her or threatening to leave. For that she was grateful. “Yes.”

  “Did you seek me out in hopes of reconciling us?”

  She hesitated, aware that this could be the bomb that set him off. “I hoped that would happen.”

  “Was fucking me part of that plan?”

  “No! I swear it, Dex. That had nothing to do with accomplishing what I wanted. I was drawn to you. I slept with you because I couldn’t resist my attraction to you.”

  “Damn it, I want to believe you.”

  “Then do. Please.” She took his hands in hers. “I know about your gold charm but I could have gotten it away from you. Then I could’ve simply used persuasion on you. Hell, I could’ve made you forgive your grandfather. But I didn’t. I wouldn’t. Please believe me.”

  It took a few seconds before
his fingers curled around hers. When they did, she wanted to weep with relief.

  “If my grandfather helped you,” he said slowly, “he didn’t do it out of compassion or kindness. He had his own agenda, which was to use you as a bartering tool with the Draci.”

  “That’s not true. He thought of it later, because he knew he couldn’t bring me to live with his pack.”

  “And why couldn’t he do that, Jes? He’s the pack ruler. He couldn’t do it because it went against his rules. His beliefs. He hates all races but his own. Thinks of himself as a superior power. It’s why he sent me away and it’s the same reason he rejected you. That’s why he brought you here.”

  “But Dex, that can’t be. Over the years, he’s done much to promote peace with Otherborn. Not just with the Draci but—

  He released her hands and turned his back on her. “Damn it, don’t keep defending him to me. He’s a bigot and a murderer and I’ll never forget what he did to me or my mother. He’s got you fooled and everyone else, too. If the only reason you’re with me is to convince me to forgive him then—”

  She wrapped her arms around him from behind, not letting go even when he tried to pull away. “No! Dex, that’s not it at all. I promise. I love you. I want you. I want to raise this baby with you. I’m sorry. I won’t talk about him anymore. It was only because he helped me and I wanted to tell you and—”

  Slowly, he relaxed, turned, and put his arms around her. “Shhh,” he soothed. “Calm down. It’s okay.”

  When she stopped shaking, he raised her face to look at him. “Did you mean that? That you love me and want to raise the baby with me?”

  “Yes. I want that more than anything.”

  “That’s what I want, too. But you won’t sway me on this. I understand why you’d be grateful to him. But I don’t want you to ever mention that bastard’s name again. Certainly not to defend him. I mean it, Jes.”

  “Okay, Dex,” she said, but she knew her expression remained worried. Sad.