Ellida (22 page)

“Stuart phoned Jack earlier today and asked
for permission to knock down some walls at Goblin’s to make more
room and maybe even add a dance floor,” Eamon said.

“Why did he phone Jack?” I asked.

“Stuart is the manager and Jack’s the owner,”
Eamon said. “Didn’t you know that?” He hugged me. “Considering your
voice, you probably dreamed of a big stage in an opera house with
an orchestra and big audience. Not country songs in a local
pub.”

I smiled at him. “I have the best stage, the
best orchestra and the most wonderful audience in the world. My
dreams came true, Eamon.

OUR SOURCES kept informing us about Seth’s
plans. It wasn’t an easy task since he was changing them almost
daily. The bottom line was that he still wanted to take Astrid to
Copper Ridge at any cost.

Seth’s little empire of fear was crumbling,
and he knew it. He was like a wounded animal now, even more
dangerous and unpredictable than before. He was running out of
money. He didn’t trust anyone. Most of the time he spent in his
room, planning an attack on Red Cliffs.

He still kept a formidable force of a few
dozen vampires and couple of hundred of his private guards—werewolf
outcasts from all around the world—paying them with the last money
he could rob out of his already impoverished people, and promising
them the riches of Red Cliffs.

There was also a great concern for Rowena and
the men and women of the resistance movement. So far, thanks to
heavy protection spells, Seth and his people were oblivious of it,
but they knew they were dancing on the edge of the knife. There
wasn’t a shadow of a doubt he’d kill them the moment he suspected
they were working against him.

ON THIS side of the Great Orme war
preparations were in full swing.

Livia and Tristan were about to move to a
small farm close to The Watchman’s, near the borders between Red
Cliffs and Copper Ridge. That was the closest place the Blakes
could make it to without raising too many questions. In spite of
the fact that contact between the two realms was almost
nonexistent, people from both sides of the Great Orme managed to
stay in touch, and news traveled fast.

Ella and Arnaldur would come next month as
Betty and James’ guests. They had visited Red Cliffs many times in
the past. They were our friends and Astrid’s grandparents, so their
arrival wouldn’t raise eyebrows.

By the end of the month, Ingmar and two of
his friends would secretly move to Silverbell Ranch, an old,
abandoned cattle farm behind Charles and Lucy’s land. Liv’s small
private Tel-Urugh army was on alert. Hayato, Morgaine’s husband and
Takeshi’s father, a powerful werewolf from the Nakamura Clan, was
also coming to our aid.

I’d personally handpicked a group of about
sixty people, the strongest and fastest, to be trained by James,
Ahmed and me in different types of combat, several hours every day,
seven days a week. All the Captains of the Red Cliffs Houses were
among them.

A soldier from a different time, Ahmed was
skilled in human combat. Although I didn’t expect to find many
humans among Seth’s army, I wanted us to be prepared, just in case,
and nobody could help us with that better than Ahmed.

The full moon was a week and a half ahead,
and I was, like Astrid, a little bit nervous. Although for
different reasons. Morgaine had warned me that the whole business
of connecting Astrid’s loose spirits wouldn’t happen instantly. It
was a day-long
process
, she said, during which Astrid would
shift between sexual tension and its release.

Astrid didn’t know that, and it was left to
me to break the news. I could imagine she wouldn’t be happy being
trapped in yet another uncontrollable process, no matter how
appealing the prospect of dealing with it looked. At least to
me.

And then, there was the matter of that
additional physiological component on a werewolf sexual organ,
commonly known as the
knot
, an extra gland that runs from
the base of the penis to the top. It made the head of the penis
swell and lock inside a female, preventing us parting until after
ejaculation. It was invisible to the naked eye. It activated during
intercourse with a partner from our own kind, whose anatomy was
naturally adjusted to accept the extra swelling and locking. The
swelling could happen with non-werewolf lovers, but locking was
rare. To them, we usually look and feel thicker and wider.

In any case, Astrid was apparently oblivious
of the knot and her subtle anatomical response to it, and it was
left to me to explain when the opportunity presented itself.

With the full moon approaching, Astrid was
more and more tense. I cut all unnecessary travel. My presence
relieved her anxiety so she was able to concentrate on her training
with her various teachers.

I’D NEED to make one quick trip, though.
Astrid was planning to go skiing with Peyton one of these days and
that’d give me a chance to go to Seattle without her to pick up the
engagement ring from the Offenbachs’ jewelry store. A month ago I’d
asked Magda to design a ring for Astrid, explaining what I wanted.
Yesterday she’d phoned that the ring was ready.

If it had been up to me, we would’ve already
been married, but Astrid, incredibly open to all the changes that
she had to go through, refused to even talk about it before we
dealt with Seth once and for all.

That didn’t mean I couldn’t propose, and this
coming Friday seemed like the perfect day.

THE FORECASTED snowstorm had missed Red
Cliffs completely and on Sunday morning Peyton and I went skiing.
To warm up we did several intermediate runs first, before we hit
some of the most challenging ones.

After several hours we went to a cozy
crapery. Lucy and Charles Langdon, who’d come to the mountains here
over the long weekend, invited us to their table. When Lucy told me
she used to sing back in Montreal, where she’d studied, I invited
her and Charles to Goblin’s Hollow the next weekend.

“Where did you sing?” Peyton asked,
explaining that her job took her often to Montreal where Millennium
Property had its office.

“At Ganymede,” Lucy said. “It’s a popular gay
bar. The parents of my good friend from University own the place.”
She laughed. “I was probably the first and last straight singer
that ever sang there. Oh, God, I miss that crazy bunch so
much.”

An idea crossed my mind. “Lucy, would you
like to sing with me one evening at Goblin’s Hollow?”

Lucy’s shiny, emerald-green eyes turned to
me. “Oh, I would love to!”

“That’s going to be awesome!” Peyton clasped
her hands in excitement. “Every single girl will come! You should
see, Lucy, what Astrid turned Goblin’s into in just two nights! No
more of that terrible Rawhide noise.”

“Rawhide is Jack’s brother’s band,” Charlie
explained to Lucy.

I laughed. “Don’t let the guys hear you,
Peyton.”

“Well, I’m sorry, but I prefer songs I can
sing along to.”

“So how about this Friday?” I said.

Lucy agreed and we briefly talked about the
songs we’d sing.

Half an hour later Peyton and I said goodbye
to the Langdons. We decided to take several more runs before we
went home.

BACK IN town later that afternoon, we
stopped at the supermarket to buy the ingredients for the dinner
that I had promised to cook.

“When will Jack be back?” Peyton said.

This morning Jack had gone to Seattle. Urgent
business, he said with a tiny smile in the corner of his mouth. I
suspected it was a sort of surprise so I hadn’t asked for the
details. “He’s catching the first flight tomorrow. He should arrive
around noon. Why?”

“Would you like to stay for a sleepover at
your best friend’s place?” she said.

I grabbed a toothbrush from the dental aisle
we were passing by and put it in the shopping basket.

“I’d love to,” I said happily.

WE WERE on our second glass of a fruity
Chardonnay when Peyton said, “Before I ask you about Ingmar, I want
to talk to you about something else.”

The tone of her voice suggested a serious
topic.

“About Heather,” she said.

“Your mother?”

She nodded. “Maybe I’m not the right person
to tell you this, but I’m going to tell you anyway. Maybe then
you’ll understand better why the Mohegans are so important for me,
why my mother showed such animosity toward you when she saw you,
and why you should be aware of her.”

Peyton inhaled deeply and continued, “I’m not
sure if you know, but my mother is the daughter of wizard-werewolf
parents, who hoped she’d become an Ellida. But, save for the right
parentage, she didn’t have anything else that makes an Ellida. She
lost most of her wizard powers when she turned the first time. That
was a great disappointment for her. She slowly started turning into
a bitter woman, unable to love, always chasing impossible dreams,
always wanting what belonged to others.

“She married my father on an impulse. He was
a human, from Copper Ridge, but came to live here with her. After
less than two years they divorced and he left. He never returned to
Copper Ridge.”

“What happened to him?”

“He disappeared. Maybe he changed his name,
maybe he died. Nobody knows. By the time my father left, my mother
was a pretty, young divorcee with a small daughter. She knew how to
conceal her true nature when she wanted to. Before your father met
your mother, he and Heather became involved.”

A few weeks ago Betty had told me a part of
this story. I nodded, but didn’t interrupt her.

“It didn’t last long,” Peyton continued.
“Your father broke up with her and moved on, and got married after
a while. Well, Heather didn’t take that part lightly. She became
obsessed with Hal and your mother: spreading lies about them,
chasing Hal, insulting your mother. She accused Rowena of causing
her break-up, which was nonsense because it’d happened before your
father met your mother. Anyway, without anybody else around, I
became a target of my mother’s misery and unhappiness. There were
times when I was sure she hated me from the bottom of her heart.
She’d tell me that Hal didn’t want her because of me. She said
nobody wanted a woman with baggage. I believed her, of course,
until I was old enough to realize that your father was a decent man
who’d never leave a woman because she had a child.

“She used to tell me how she hated my father,
that pitiful human, as she called him, and that I was the biggest
mistake of her life. She neglected me emotionally and mentally. She
was absent a lot, sometimes for weeks or months. It was a blessing,
because when she was here, she was angry all the time. I was a sad,
lonely and unloved child, and grew up believing it was indeed my
fault that my mother was so unhappy. Luckily, it didn’t last long.
Betty figured out what was going on, and James took me away from my
mother. I stayed with him and Betty until I moved into my own
place. My mother didn’t object.”

I listened silently to the story of Peyton’s
terrible first years. Her voice was steady, flat, almost
emotionless. Only from time to time I could notice a slight tremor
in it. Her wounds might have healed, but the scars were still
bright red.

“My mother kept a low profile,” she
continued. “She traveled a lot, trying to stay here as little as
possible. You know, I’ve always wondered if she had any part in
Hal’s and Brian’s deaths. I can imagine her plotting to get even
with whoever she blamed for her misery.”

“Did James know about it? He must have,
right?”

Peyton confirmed. “He always suspected
Heather wasn’t completely innocent, but there was no proof of her
involvement. She wasn’t even here when your father died… More wine?
You look like you need some.”

She refilled my glass and I took a big swig.
The wine seemed to go directly to my blood, turning my legs and
arms into jelly.

“I’m so sorry, Peyton,” I whispered.

Peyton smiled weakly. “It was long ago,
Astrid. I’ve had a loving home since then, many happy years, lots
of friends, a job that I love. Jack and I…” She stopped looking
straight into my eyes, and then continued, “Do you mind if I talk
about it now?”

“Not at all… And I… truly admire you for
that,” I stuttered, deeply moved by her bravery and honesty.

“It was impossible not to fall in love with
him. You of all people should understand that. I didn’t want to
admit he’d never loved me the way I loved him. No matter what he’d
say back then about bonding, he was waiting for his true mate, I
know that.”

“Bonding is rare,” I said. “You can’t know if
it’s going to happen to you or not. It would be a colossal waste of
time to sit and wait for a bond to happen. People can be happy
without bonding. Jack didn’t sit twiddling his thumbs and waiting
for me to show up in his life.”

Peyton’s lips curved upright. “Oh, of course
he had a decent number of relationships for a man of his age.” She
continued in a quiet, serious voice, “I loved Jack with all my
heart. But to him I was a friend, a confidant, somebody who was
always there when he needed me: when he was alone, when nobody else
caught his interest, to comfort him after his messy breakups. I
hoped he’d change one day.

“And then, I got tired of it. Even before you
came here. I didn’t want to become like my mother, obsessed with a
man who didn’t want me. I wanted somebody to love me back so I
decided—enough was enough. I had to forget about Jack. It took me a
while, and I had a couple of relapses, the last one the very day I
met you. I still believe Jack loves me as a friend, or like a part
of his family.”

“Oh, he does, Peyton,” I said eagerly. “You
are his family, and you’re my family now.”