She exhaled a long slow breath before answering. At least her voice was steady when she did. “I’m ready. I think your mother is actually less terrifying than mine, and since she’s technically the one orchestrating murders, that’s probably saying something.”
“Maybe.” Orion opened his door and leaned over to give Eleni a quick kiss as he did. “But your mother is yours and that just adds a whole new layer of fear to it, don’t you think?”
“I’m sure you’re right.” She opened her door as well and the two of them got out.
The sky was clear as though even Dallas could not muster the gumption to rain on Christmas. There were no other cars in the driveway, but before Orion and Eleni had made it to the front door he spotted his brothers and their wives coming down the street. The only couple missing was Edward and Diana because they were enjoying the holiday season in Italy.
Orion took hold of the front door and sucked in a quick breath before he pushed it open. Or rather he tried to push it open. It was a bit surprising to find the door locked. It was almost never locked. The housekeeper would have been in early, early this morning to get the household started because Tisha Olivares-King paid Lupita handsomely to do that three hundred and sixty-five days a year.
“Merry Christmas!” Jason called out to Orion as he and Skye bounded up to the front steps.
“Hi!” Skye paused right beside Eleni and gave her an impulsive hug.
From the corner of Orion’s eye, he could see that both Skye and Eleni seemed hesitant. Then Eleni offered a smile. “I suppose this probably seems unusual.”
Skye raised an eyebrow and jerked her head toward Orion. “Maybe not. What’s unusual is Orion standing at the front door as if he can’t get into the house.”
“It’s locked.” Orion felt like an idiot. He fumbled for his house keys. “Do you think Mother fired Lupita or something?”
Zane offered a snort as he approached with Landry at his side. “I would easier believe that Lupita had quit. It’s totally possible if our mother is the only one living here now.”
“I don’t know that Lupita really has confirmation on that.” Orion put the key in the lock and turned it. The door swung open, squeaking on its hinges. “I haven’t spoken with her in a few days. But I did make sure that she got paid.”
The eight of them entered the house. It was quiet as the grave. Devon went directly to the stereo. He and Kami started going through radio stations until they found one playing Christmas music. At least with the music playing softly the house started to feel a little less like a tomb.
“Can you turn up the heat?” Landry was shivering. “It’s freezing in here!”
Zane headed for the thermostat. As his brother handled the cold temperatures, Orion realized that the presents he had left beneath the Christmas tree were gone. He clenched his teeth tightly. Each of his brothers and their significant others were carrying bags overflowing with packages. Leave it to Tisha Olvares-King to involve herself in something that was most definitely not about her.
“Stay down here,” Orion told his family. “Mother seems to have moved the packages I put under the tree. I’m going to go have a look upstairs.”
Eleni touched his arm. “Be careful, Orion. Please?”
“I will be. You stay down here with the others and just try to enjoy yourself. All right? I won’t be but a moment.” Orion pointed to Devon. “Coffee. Please?”
“Got it.” Devon was already shaking his head as he left the living room for the direction of the kitchen.
Orion moved up the stairs. He paused at the bottom. Behind him he could hear the light chatter of his family. It did not carry very far. They were all being intentionally quiet. No doubt they were afraid of waking the dragon. Orion could not blame them. He had visions of his mother discovering that the fake packages that had once been under that tree had been replaced with real ones. Then she had probably quickly discovered—because they were labeled—that none of those packages were for her. It did not take a great stretch of the imagination to figure that the woman had probably been pissed about it.
The stairs were silent beneath Orion’s feet as he moved onto the second floor of the big and conspicuously empty feeling house. There were no lights on up here. The tick of the hall clock was horribly loud. The whisper of Orion’s boots on the carpet runner was a silent counterpoint to the clock and the gradually rising sounds of the Christmas party just beginning to get into full swing downstairs.
The only light came from skylights set into the ceiling at five-foot intervals down the hallway. It was sunny outside, but that did almost nothing to alleviate the pervasive gloom of this house that had once been so full of life and laughter. The doors were open along the hallway. Each one had once been a suite belonging to one of the brothers. Finally at the end on the right side lay the rooms that their mother still occupied.
The door was closed.
Orion took a peek into each suite as he went along. There was probably no point in hoping that this was where Tisha had stashed the presents. She would not have taken a chance that someone would stumble upon them without having to go through her first. That was just the way that the woman was wired.
By the time Orion reached the end of the hallway and paused in front of his mother’s suite of rooms, he felt as though he had somehow stumbled into the starring role of a horror film. There had to be a demon or monster or some kind of axe-murdering fiend on the other side of that door. His cramping stomach and steadily increasing heartrate told him that much.
Placing his hand on the knob, Orion turned it until the door finally opened into the bedroom portion of the suite. Of course this was enormous. The master suite was probably the size of Eleni’s whole house in Addison. The coffered ceilings were set with recessed lighting that provided a warm glow that should have been welcoming.
It wasn’t. At the moment it was rather creepy because it underscored and highlighted the body lying in the bed. It was a lump surrounded by pillows and mounded by blankets. There was no sound. In fact, if Orion had not frozen in place and watched for an agonizing five to ten seconds, he would not have known that the body was breathing.
The body of course was that of his mother who was apparently sleeping the good sleep of the truly selfish. Except that wasn’t actually what was happening. As Orion got closer he spotted a very familiar bottle peeking out from underneath the bed along with some scraps of wrapping paper.
On the far side of the bed, near the bank of windows that provided a spectacular view of the enormous backyard, garden, and pool area, Orion spotted all of the presents that had once been wrapped underneath the Christmas tree downstairs. He also spotted a bottle of Absinthe.
“Shit.” Orion whispered the word and almost immediately realized that he should have been shouting it. He reached for his mother’s leg from the edge of the bed. “Mother! Wake up!”
She didn’t move or make a noise. She was piled underneath the blankets, but her breathing was very shallow. Orion reached for the covers and yanked them back. The smell that assaulted him would have felled a regular human much less a shifter with a preternatural sense of smell.
Vomit, alcohol, and what else was that? Depression? The smell was worse than a decomposing body left outside in the water and there was no doubt in Orion’s mind that his mother had somehow drank herself into a stupor and then passed out. She was breathing and it didn’t appear that she had choked on her own vomit, but what if she was suffering from alcohol poisoning?
The urge to grab her up and throw her over his shoulder was strong. Then he glanced at the packages under the bed once again. There was also a very strange odor down on the floor near those packages. Wormwood. The distinctive scent of Absinthe lingered on the carpet. If Tisha had truly drank the bottle until she was near the point of poisoning herself, there should have been no chance that she would spill it on the rug.
Kneeling beside the bed, Orion took a few precious seconds to pick up the bottle. He recognized it as his own
. It was his brand. Even more telling was the presence of his knife marks around the bottle neck where he had used one of his favorite serrated blades to score the foil packaging. This was his bottle and the last time he’d seen it there had been only a finger full left in the bottom. That had been the point where he had decided to stop drinking the Absinthe and return to participating in his life before it completely spun out of control.
Orion stood up. He held the bottle in his hand. There had been just a little inside the bottle. That he was sure of. Most of what had been left was currently soaking the carpet because nothing else smelled quite like wormwood. And that meant his mother had staged this pass out. She’d probably drank a swig, which had then caused her to throw up. Then she had put herself to bed and pulled up the covers after destroying the Christmas presents in an effort to make everyone feel guilty.
“Pathetic,” Orion muttered. “This is absolutely pathetic.”
He began carefully gathering the discarded presents into his arms. One did not pass out from alcohol poisoning and then tuck oneself into bed. It just didn’t work that way. But if someone were attempting a manipulation it might work just like that. So he would leave his mother in a puddle of her own vomit to wake up and know that her attempts to manipulate her family had once again failed.
By the time Orion had made it to the top of the steps, he could hear the warm sounds of a party going on. He paused a moment to listen. The low laughter of his brothers, their wives, and of course Eleni, were music to his ears. This was Christmas. This was supposed to be a time of family and gathering and warmth. The scent of fresh coffee filled the air drifting up the steps. Soon enough there would be cookies and smiles and all of the good things that Orion wanted so badly for his family to experience.
For now he descended the steps with the presents and did not care that the wrapping had been torn off. For the most part they hadn’t been of any interest to Tisha. That meant the boxes remained unopened and the contents were still intact.
“Oh! You found them!” Eleni exclaimed when Orion walked into the room. “What happened to the wrapping?”
“Mother.”
The single word was enough. But instead of giving into the morose feeling of betrayal, Eleni jumped up from the sofa and ran toward him. “Nobody look! You have no idea how hard Orion worked to get all of these just right! We’re going to go rewrap everything and then we’ll be right back!”
There were laughs and good-natured ribbing as the siblings and their wives all teased and taunted each other to close their eyes. Eleni rushed to Orion’s side and grabbed hold of a few of the items he was carrying.
“The wrapping paper and stuff is in here,” Orion told her as he led the way into the utility and storage room off the kitchen. “Thank you for your help.”
Eleni deftly removed packages from his arms and helped him set them on the countertop so that the two of them could wrap things back up in the festive red and white paper. Then she turned and took his hands in hers. The way she gazed up at him made Orion forget everything. He forgot that his mother was upstairs passed out in her bed. He forgot that the vengeful, selfish woman had tried very actively to sabotage their holiday. And he completely forgot that they were about to engage in a battle for their family fortune.
The only thing that mattered right now was the way that Eleni put her arms around his neck and drew him down for a kiss. Her lips caressed his. She moved her mouth against his until he groaned and parted his lips. Then her tongue slipped into his mouth and began to slide in a sexy rhythm against his. The contact was delicious and familiar and oh so arousing. It made him want to forget Christmas and his family and everything just so he could enjoy the woman that had strangely agreed to share her life with him.
But in the end wasn’t that everything that the Christmas holiday was about? Life and love and family and togetherness and perhaps the chance to start all over in the new year and make things right.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Eleni did not remember a lot of Christmases. At least not since her father’s death. They had always been sort of all about Mom. But once Daddy had passed away any pretense of that day being about family and fun and the perfect gift found in some unique way to pass onto a family member was totally gone. It had been a day where everyone had to pay homage to Alaina Ariosa or pay the price.
The feeling was there. Eleni could tell from the others all around her that this whole thing was a bit of a surprise. The tree was enormous and lit with enough lights to illuminate a downtown building after dark. The room was filled with laughter and smiles. The family had pushed the furniture back away from the base of the tree. They all lounged or sat on a thick area rug that had been placed beneath the tree. It was like something out of a movie.
“Oh! That is perfect!” Landry’s eyes lit up as she opened the box containing all of her teachery gifts. “Orion, how did you know?”
“Yeah!” Zane was laughing so hard that he almost fell over. “How could you possibly know that my beautiful wife wanted sticky notes and a desk reference for Christmas?”
Landry shoved Zane and tackled him all the way to the rug. “You be quiet! This stuff is top of the line. It’s like Prada sticky notes!”
“I have to confess that I was pretty much thinking the same thing that Zane did until Eleni educated me on the subculture of teacher-approved, top-of-the-line accessories.” Orion held up his hands and cast a warm look at Eleni. “They have a whole store, Zane. I’m not even kidding!”
“A store?” Skye was immediately fascinated. “So going to a big box store doesn’t cut it? That is fascinating!”
“Oh, damn!” Jason moaned and snatched up a package that he had brought for his wife. “Hurry up and open something before you end up putting a halt to the entire morning just because you want to go and write yourself a quick note about the story idea I can actually see brewing in your head.”
Jason lifted a mug of hot coffee to his lips as he watched his wife open her gift. Then the whole room seemed to shrink as Skye’s elation swelled up so big that it threatened to suck all the oxygen from the world. Jason was smiling behind his mug.
“You better set that down or I’m going to knock it into your lap when I hug you!” Skye exclaimed. She was bouncing up and down excitedly as she waved a pair of tickets in her hand. “Tickets to the morning show in New York! The news show! The real deal! Oh my goodness!”
She was squealing and babbling and then she grabbed Jason in a huge hug and the two held onto each other for a long moment of whispered words and tenderness that made Eleni feel as though she was taking a peek into someone else’s life and shouldn’t be.
Orion slung his arm around her shoulder. For just a moment, Eleni leaned into him and pressed her face to his chest. The warmth of the room was absolute. There was coffee and a box of extremely sinful-looking donuts on the floor in the center of it all. Nobody cared who got powdered sugar on the floor. There were smiles and laughter, and Eleni was still marveling over being allowed to participate when Kami reached across the circle and handed Eleni a small, wrapped gift.
“I got this for you.” Kami sounded kind of gruff. It was readily apparent that she wasn’t used to all of this togetherness either. But her dark eyes were shining and her expression was guarded and yet so very warm and hopeful that it tugged at Eleni’s heart.
Eleni had to clear her throat before she answered. “For me?”
“Yep.” Kami held up the warm, fur-lined leather gloves that Eleni and Orion had picked out for her. “I’ve never had anything this nice and this perfect before in my life. I’m really thankful. I hope you know that.”
“That was actually Orion’s suggestion.” Eleni waited for everyone to stop acting as though that was an impossibility. “He was the one who thought that of anyone in this room, you would appreciate a warm pair of something snuggly for pretty much every part of your body just because you’re the one who walks everywhere in all weather.”
Kami smiled and ge
stured to Eleni. “Open it.”
The tiny box looked as though it contained jewelry. The sight of that familiar packaging made Eleni want to hide. She didn’t like jewelry. She wasn’t even wearing any. How odd that someone like Kami would think that jewelry was an appropriate gift.
Exhaling shaky breaths and hoping that it did not seem as though she were panting with fear or nervous apprehension, Eleni carefully opened the wrapping and then took the top off the tiny white pasteboard box.
“Oh!” Surprised wasn’t the right word. Eleni felt as though she had just been handed the moon in a tiny box. “It’s so perfect!”
“I know you don’t wear jewelry,” Kami explained. “I don’t either. But I kept thinking that this meant something and that would make me want to wear it since it’s so small and unassuming.”
Orion still had an arm around Eleni. Leaning over her shoulder, he gazed into the box. “Wow, Kami. That is amazing. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
It was nothing more than a tiny pewter disc. It wasn’t heavy and yet when Eleni reached in and picked it up she knew that it was the perfect weight to hang beneath her shirt and not get in the way or constantly be swinging about like a pendulum. The word Family was inscribed on the front of the disc in scrawling script letters. On the back Eleni could see that a crown had been carefully etched onto the surface.
“Okay, that is too perfect!” Skye whispered. She elbowed Jason. “I want one.”
Kami laughed. “I’ll tell you where I got it if you’d like. Devon and I were shopping for today and we kept speculating as to whether or not Orion would bring Eleni with him.” Kami winked at both Orion and Eleni. “Because you guys are probably the worst-kept family secret.”
Eleni didn’t think she wanted to know what was behind that explanation. Maybe it didn’t even matter. The idea that she had been welcome before she had even realized that she was going to be here was staggering. She pressed her hand to her heart and nodded her thanks to Kami because right now she could not speak.
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