Chosen by Sin (30 page)

“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.”

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?”