by E. M. Moore
I backed off Randy and turned, letting Travis take his fill of me. “You’re right.” I found my clothes on the floor and got dressed, pulling my shirt back into place so Travis could see what the fuss was about. “What do you think?”
“I think you look hot as fuck. I don’t mind you wearing a shirt like that as long as one of us gets to take it off you at the end of the night.”
A smile peeled my lips apart. “Have I mentioned lately how much I love you guys?”
Travis started to walk toward me, but his phone rang in his back pocket. His jaw set even though he took one last look at me. “We better get going. We don’t want to miss the opportunity to talk with Dean in private.” When I pouted, he silenced the phone and kissed me on the forehead. “I know. Hopefully soon, we’ll be able to get things back to normal.”
“You guys never had girlfriends when it was just Order business, did you?” I asked.
Travis rubbed his jaw. “Jax did. He was the only one of us with a serious girlfriend.”
I swallowed, unsure of what to say next. Obviously, it had worked out for them because Jennie knew about the Order. If she hadn’t, she might’ve wondered why her boyfriend was always running off to do things.
A completely dressed Randy came up behind me and put his arms around my waist. “It will all be good when things calm down. You’ll see.”
Randy knew exactly what he was doing. I never felt safer when I was wrapped in his huge python arms that swallowed me up.
8
We parked just down the road from the Reid’s grand estate. The Spanish looking mansion was set apart from the houses surrounding it, not only in construction, but in grandness too. It was by far the biggest on the street and there was also something else about it. Maybe it was the magic that surrounded it, something only noticeable by those who were like us. We got out of the Jeep and then the guys hung back as I approached the gate by myself. We thought it would be easier to get their attention if I went first, especially if it was Owen on duty again. It was about the same time of night, so it wouldn’t be a shock.
Instead of walking nonchalantly by like last time, I went right up to the iron gate and wrapped my hand around the cylindrical bars. A shaped moved out of the corner of my eye and I turned, “Owen?” I whispered.
He moved forward, coming into the dusky light of the streetlamp that reached only so far. “Hi,” he said, a smile reaching his ears. “I wasn’t sure if I would see you again.”
“Yeah, sorry we had to leave it like that.” I truly was, too. Yes, I wanted to use Owen to get in to see Dean, but he was actually a pretty nice guy. I hated he’d gotten caught in what we were trying to do last time. “You didn’t get in much trouble, did you?”
Owen shrugged. “Nothing I couldn’t handle.”
“Good,” I said, a little relieved. “Listen, is Dean home? I need to talk to him.”
Owen’s face fell. He was probably used to getting overlooked by someone who had more money and more power than him.
“It’s about something important,” I said. “He actually came to my friends and I for help and we didn’t know of another way to contact him without his family around.”
Owen moved closer. “You’re right about that. Mr. and Mrs. Reid are out at another party and yes, Dean’s home. He’s asked to not be disturbed though.”
Randy moved in behind me, his patience wearing thin. I sighed when I felt him next to me. If he’d just let me do my thing, but no, he had to come butt in. “We need to see Dean Reid.”
I looked at Owen with a pleading look even though he lost all his friendly attitude and now looked much more like the guard who was guarding an important house with important people inside.
“Like I said,” trying again. “He asked us for help. Could you just tell him that we’re here and let him make the decision?”
Randy made a growling noise in the back of this throat, but I reached behind me and pushed him away, telling him to let me deal with it.
“Who’s he?”
“A friend,” I said, being intentionally vague.
The rest of them came out of the shadows now. I could imagine what this looked like to Owen. Me in the front with four men flanking me. His eyes rounded, then he turned to me, his expression changed from one of openness to incredulity. “Who are they?”
Liam stepped forward, his hands coming up by mine on the iron bars. “We’re members of the Order. Please tell Dean we’re here to see him.”
“The Order? Of the Akasha?”
“Yes, that Order,” Travis said dryly.
“He really did ask us for help,” I said, trying to get Owen’s attention back to me. “We’re not here to do anything bad. Really. He’s not in trouble. Just call him and tell him we’re here to see him. Please.”
Owen’s shoulders sagged. “Just, hold on.”
He turned away, taking his cell phone out of his pocket. Randy sized up the iron gate in front of us, but I touched his arm and shook my head. That wouldn’t be necessary. Dean would see us. There was no reason for him not to.
Owen had a brief conversation with someone on the other end of the line. When he turned around again, he unlocked the gate and pulled it open. “Dean said he’ll be waiting for you by the front door.”
“Thank you,” I told him. The only other one to say it was Gabe and he said it almost haughtily that it wasn’t anything anyone would’ve considered sincere.
We strode forward and as one, descended upon the front door. Dean pulled it open for us. He was still dressed in complete snobby fashion. Today he wore a black polo shirt over gray dress pants. A black belt with a silver buckle completed the ensemble and his dirty blond hair was still styled to perfection without a single hair out of place even though it had to be close to midnight. Was this guy constantly in this state? I was lucky if I ran a brush through my hair in the morning and the only reason I did was because it would be a crazy nest only a few hours later and I’d have to suffer through a detangling the likes normal people had never seen. It was awful.
We walked through the elaborate foyer and then Dean led us into a sitting room with leather couches. “Have a seat,” he said, gesturing toward the high fashion brown leather. “I’m assuming you’ve come here because you made a decision?”
Gabe held his hand out, stopping us all. He had that look on his face again from earlier. “We’re here because the djinn showed itself to Norah. So, there’s only one question we have for you. Did you tell it to do that to scare us into helping you? Because if that’s the case, you can just go fuck yourself and your riches and your power and—”
“—your sweet Corvette,” Travis finished.
Seriously?
Dean’s face fell. “You saw our djinn?”
“I don’t technically know if it was your djinn. He didn’t come to me as you explained. He wasn’t a dark-skinned man with a bald head. In fact, he wasn’t human at all. He looked like the picture from the book Liam had.”
Dean blinked. He backed up until the backs of his knees hit a leather chair and then he sat, looking relieved to be doing so. “We haven’t seen the djinn. In fact, I kind of thought maybe you guys had done something like I asked.”
“So, you didn’t send it to Norah?” Randy asked.
Dean shook his head.
“What about your father?” Liam asked right after as if we were in a police interrogation room.
He shook his head again. “He doesn’t even know about Norah, so there’d be no way he would send it to her. Besides, he uses the djinn for power and money and prestige. What would sending the djinn to Norah do? Trust me, he’s all about that right now and there’s absolutely no other reason why he would use the djinn.”
The guys and I all looked at one another. Dean certainly seemed sincere. “Has this ever happened before?” Liam asked. “Your djinn acting on its own.”
“No way,” Dean said. “He’s tethered to us. He does what we say, and I’m telling you we didn’t sick him on Norah.
I want your help. Why would I send it to frighten her?”
“He didn’t frighten me,” I snapped. Okay, maybe I was a little sensitive to the fact that he kind of did frighten me. Whatever.
“Pardon me,” Dean said, and he actually bowed his head.
Who freaking did that?
“Let’s get one thing straight,” Randy said while the rest of us tried to work the problem out in our heads. “I don’t like you, Dean Reid. I don’t like what your family does, and I certainly don’t like the idea that you’ve had a djinn doing your family’s bidding your whole life. But,” he said, emphasizing the word. “There’s no other djinn we know of and if it is acting on its own accord, we’re going to need your help to figure out why it showed itself to Norah.”
A tingle started in the back of my neck. If it was just coming for me, that sounded awfully familiar. “Dupre.”
“Dupre’s dead,” Gabe said. “It’s not him.”
We all knew that, but that wasn’t technically my point. “If it’s not Dupre, it’s got to be who he was working for. That’s the only other reason why I would be targeted.”
“You’ve been targeted in the past?” Dean asked.
“Yep,” I said, plopping down into one of his big leather couches. “Someone has it out for me…bad.”
“That still doesn’t explain why my family djinn would be involved in this. It’s only supposed to do what we tell it to do.”
“And there’s no way around that?” Liam asked.
Dean shrugged. “Not that I’m aware. I don’t even have complete control of it until my father passes, so…”
“And you’re sure this couldn’t be about your father?” Gabe asked. “You don’t think he knows about Norah, but what if he does?”
“I guess I don’t know,” Dean answered. “She’d have to have something he wanted. And he gets what he wants, trust me. It’s why we have the djinn.”
Me? Having something a man like Mr. Reid wanted? What did I have that anyone could want? I literally moved here with nothing but the essentials. I didn’t even have enough clothes. I didn’t even have enough dollars to rub together to have a nice place back in New Orleans. The only things I had now were because of my coven.
“I don’t have anything,” I said. “I literally have nothing. I’ve never been wealthy.” I almost laughed thinking about the little cabin I grew up in with Granny.
“Wealth can come in other forms, too,” Dean said. “Don’t pretend you’re not a powerful witch. I could feel the imprint of you just when I was walking up to the Pryor Estate yesterday. Your purple magic was like a glow over everything.”
“Why would you be telling us this, Dean? Are you saying your father does want Norah?”
“I don’t know if it’s him or it’s not, but he has to be stopped.” Dean stood now. “I told you that the other day, he’s going to drive himself insane. My ancestors have always been able to reign it in, but not my father lately. His greed, his wants, are becoming venomous and he’ll stop at nothing to get them. If he goes dark, there’s no bringing him back. That ruins our family for more than just him. For all of us.”
9
Liam
I couldn’t shake the feeling I kept having about this guy. First, he walks up to my parents’ house like he’d been there before. Got past the wards that we knew worked because they went off when the superiors came in. Then, just knocked on the door like nothing. I wasn’t sure if anyone else had noticed this, but I certainly had. It meant he’d been allowed in the house before and thought of as a friend.
He knew something about my parents. It would make sense because the Pryor’s, my birth parents, were rich and powerful just like the Reid’s.
Norah tugged on my arm as Dean led us into his basement. I’d talked him into letting us look inside because there was nothing in the Order books except generalities about the djinn. We needed more information and where better to find it than a family who’d had one at their disposal for centuries.
“Hey,” she said, to get my attention again. “Is there something going on?”
I tried to ease the tension out of my shoulders. I didn’t know why I cared to know more about my family. They’d abandoned me. They’d let me go when they’d had more than enough of everything to take care of me, so why should I care? But there was always this tug there to try to figure out why. I knew deep down that it wouldn’t do anything to satisfy me, but I wanted to know. I rubbed my forehead and the cute crease between Norah’s eyes deepened. “I’ve just got this feeling that Dean knows a lot about my parents.”
Her eyes rounded a bit. “And you want to know more?”
“It’s stupid,” I told her, relaying what the nagging voice in my head kept saying.
She shrugged. “Not necessarily. You want to know why your parents gave you up because it’s obvious they weren’t starving or unfit or any of the other reasons you made up in your head as a kid.”
“It still feels like a slight toward my foster parents. They did everything for me.”
She bit her lip, thinking. “I know it’s not the same, but after my mom passed, I kind of resented Granny a bit. I should’ve been thrilled that she was up to the task to take me in, but I was too busy being angry at her because she was just so…weird.” She cracked a smile. “Anyway, I can understand it. No matter what happened afterward, you’re going to have this feeling that your true parents should’ve been the ones taking care of you. It didn’t matter how good you had it. I mean, I know why my mom couldn’t, but for you, that’s left in the open. You should ask him.”
“We have way more important things to worry about than that right now.”
“I could give two shits if we were facing down a reincarnated Dupre right now, I still think you deserve answers to your questions, Liam. Ask him.”
Dean opened the door, and I saw Norah make a face. This must’ve been the door she wasn’t able to open when she came here last time. It was the only thing separating her from getting answers about how to get the familiar off me, and in essence, to save me from myself.
I held back and watched as the parties split up. Travis and Gabe trailed their fingers over old volumes. In another time, I would’ve been impressed with the number of books in this room, but I was too preoccupied. Randy crossed his arms in front of his chest and after giving me a small smile, Norah walked over to him. She was always making sure we were okay, and sometimes we weren’t. She’d clamped onto that emotion from me just now. Noticing Dean was by himself in the corner of the room, I walked up to him. I was never one for being sociable, so I said the first thing that came to my head. “Did you know my parents?”
Dean started a little, but then turned coolly toward me. He was a little younger than me, but the way he held himself made him feel older, wiser. I hated feeling I was lesser than him. It was just a fault of mine in my own head, but I couldn’t help feeling that way, regardless. He had power and prestige. My self-doubt was in an uproar.
“I was wondering if you were ever going to ask me that.”
“Well…?”
“I did,” he said. His eyes got this far away look. Through the coven bond, I could feel the rest of their attention on me even though they were giving me space. Randy’s was heightened, but Norah’s was calm and cool as if she was talking him down on the outside as well as the inside. “Your parents were best friends with my parents. I’m surprised you don’t remember me at all. We used to play together when we were younger. Then again…”
“I had my mind wiped.”
He nodded.
“If we used to play together, how come when I came back to Salem, you didn’t try to make contact with me?”
“You came back as a member of the Order and in case you haven’t been keeping up, my family has a djinn, bordering on the line of good versus bad. So, no, I wasn’t going to reach out to you. I knew you wouldn’t remember me, anyway.”
“Okay…”
He looked at me as if he didn’t know what else I
wanted him to say and I didn’t know either. I wanted a reason, I guessed. I wanted their excuse for giving me up, for not bringing me up in the world they grew up in.
“I don’t know what it’s like for you,” Dean said, his face switching to sincere. “What do you want to know, Liam?”
Again, I asked without thinking first. “Is that my real name? Liam?”
Norah made a sharp intake of breath, but through the bond, I felt that Randy was there for her. I’d never expressed that before. I wasn’t even sure Liam was my given name. How could I not know that?
Dean nodded, and a wealth of relief wafted through me. “Your parents named you Liam Pryor. Is it changed now?”
“I’m Liam Castries. I took my foster parents’ last name.” Without skipping a beat, I asked the next question that came to mind. “Why’d they give me up?”
His face reddened, and he looked unsure.
It only spurred me to talk even more. “I don’t think you have any idea what it feels like not to know something so basic as that. It was evident they had the means to bring me up. There had to have been some reason for them to place me up for adoption. I just need to know.”
Dean held his hands up. He looked around me and I knew what he would see. My coven. Everyone had stopped and was looking at us, waiting for his answer.
He shook his head, his hand coming up to wipe across his forehead. “This is important to what we’ve got going on now, and before you start berating me with questions, I can tell you I don’t know. Okay?”
“You don’t know what?” I urged.
His face pinched, and he lost several shades of his normal color. “We all know there are several prominent families in the area. Mine is one of them. The Pryors were another. The Pryors gained their power and wealth the same way my family did.”
