by Tami Lund
A door opened and slammed shut, and Sofia heard voices, a male and female. A few moments later, Delilah and Trennon came staggering around the corner into the kitchen.
It was so weird that her father was standing a few feet away and yet the man had no idea they were even related. He didn’t know that his affair with her mother had produced a child.
He had two heirs, not one.
The strangest part was, despite what Griffin had said, she could see her own features in his face. They had the same nose, the same lips, the same high cheekbones. She’d gotten her thick hair and dark complexion from her mother, but she’d obviously gotten her height from her father.
Part of her couldn’t believe he didn’t see it, except that he wasn’t even aware that he should be looking for similarities.
This morning, he and Delilah both looked…terrible. They were still in last night’s clothes, although Delilah was carrying her heels and he’d untucked his shirt. His hair was flat, sticking to his forehead; hers had a halo of frizz around the otherwise limp strands. Her makeup was smudged, the mascara and dark eyeliner creating huge, black marks under her eyes, like she was getting ready to play in a football game.
“Oh gods,” Delilah said when she spotted Sofia. “Please tell me you are making a grease- and protein-rich breakfast.”
“Erm, yes?” Omelets and bacon certainly qualified as “grease and protein rich,” but that hadn’t been the purpose of her choice.
“Excellent. How about a Bloody Mary? Can you make one of those too?”
“Make it two,” Trennon said. He leaned against the counter and rubbed his temples.
“There’s mix in the fridge,” Delilah said helpfully. “And the vodka is right here.” She slid the bottle down the length of the counter; Sofia caught it before it went off the edge and shattered on the tile floor.
“Rough night?” she asked conversationally as she set about mixing their drinks. She found pickle spears and green olives and added those before offering up the pint glasses full of dark red liquid.
“You’re all right,” Delilah said, taking both and sipping at one before handing the other to Trennon. “This is good. You should consider a career in bartending.”
“I’m a waitress at a bar, actually.”
“Probably one we got kicked out of, which is why I don’t recognize you.” Delilah took another drink. “And now we can’t go back to the one we were at last night, either.”
Sofia was honestly afraid to ask, but Delilah apparently didn’t need her to.
“It wasn’t our fault though. I mean, pretty much all the other bans we’ve gotten were of our own volition, but not this one. Right, T?”
Trennon nodded while nursing his drink. “Somebody spiked our drinks.”
Sofia felt her eyes widen. “You mean somebody drugged you? Without your knowledge?”
Delilah nodded grimly. “And I’m pretty sure it was dragon’s blood.”
That was the drug Darius used to manufacture. Did that mean he was back in business? Was that what he wanted with Antoinette’s laptop? She did not want to help him get up and running again, but neither was she in a hurry for her mother to die.
What the hell was she supposed to do?
Make breakfast, apparently.
Sofia whisked eggs, milk, salt, and pepper in a bowl. “That’s terrible,” she murmured.
“Tell me,” Delilah said and then rounded on Trennon. “I know he’s your son, but that little asshole is bad news. It’s gotta be him behind this.”
“You think my son deliberately drugged us last night? I would have sensed it if he’d been in the bar. And I haven’t sensed his presence in months. Damn near a year.” Trennon frowned. “Although it’s strange. I do have this weird feeling. I’ve had it since yesterday. Haven’t been able to shake it.”
“You mean he could be back in town?” Delilah asked.
Sofia wanted to shout “Yes!”
But Trennon shook his head. “It’s not the same feeling I get when he’s around. I don’t know; it’s hard to describe. And even harder when I’m coming down from being high. I don’t know why anyone would willingly ingest that stuff.” He shuddered.
The butter began to sizzle in the pan, so Sofia poured in the egg mixture. A sound resembling a herd of elephants pounded on the stairs before Henri and Penelope appeared and hopped off the bottom step. “Morning,” they sang in unison.
“Well, aren’t you just two peas in a pod?” Delilah said, grimacing and sipping her drink.
“Are you a Daughter of Light too?” Penelope asked the older woman.
Delilah snorted. “I wish. I have a lot of magic, but not that much, unfortunately. Plus, I’d probably not use it altruistically, which is what I understand you’re supposed to do.”
“What’s alto-altru-alt…?”
“Altruistic,” Sofia said. “It means do noble things. Good things for other people. Be a helper.”
Penelope tilted her head and studied Delilah. “You don’t like to do good things?”
She rolled her eyes. “So boring.”
“Don’t be like her,” Sofia said, using the spatula to point at Delilah.
Delilah shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m pretty happy with my life.”
Antoinette entered the kitchen, and her eyes widened as she took in Delilah and Trennon’s worse-for-wear states. “Good gods, what happened to you two?”
“Long story,” Delilah muttered and did not elaborate, which Sofia found interesting. She’d been willing to tell Sofia about being drugged, but not her reeve?
“Are you just getting home?” Antoinette pressed.
Trennon, at least, looked abashed, whereas Delilah shrugged. “Yes, Mom,” she drawled.
Sofia cleared her throat. “Um, breakfast is almost ready, if someone wants to set the table.”
“Come help me, kids,” Antoinette said. “Sorry about them,” she added after Delilah and Trennon slipped around the corner and out of sight.
“You don’t have to keep apologizing.”
Antoinette handed the kids each a handful of forks and told them to place one at each setting on the table. “I just don’t want you to worry. Penelope really is safe here.”
Too bad I’m not.
***
They had just loaded the last dish into the dishwasher after breakfast when the doorbell rang and Antoinette excused herself with a muttered, “Where the hell is Maria?”
When she returned, Griffin and another gargoyle were with her. Sofia deliberately ignored Griffin and gave his companion a tight smile. The man had shaggy, light brown hair and vibrant blue eyes that made her think of a surfer.
“Sofia. You are looking well.”
It took her a long moment to figure out how this man might possibly know her name: he was the gargoyle who had accompanied Griffin to the bar the night she’d spilled all the drinks on her tray.
“Um, thank you. I don’t believe we formally met.”
He inclined his head. “We did not. I am Oliver. I run the local gargoyle brethren.”
Interesting. She hadn’t expected Griffin to come back at all. In truth, she’d assumed that he would send his replacement over with a half-ass apology she would promptly refuse to accept.
Instead, he’d returned with his boss.
“Sofia…” Griffin started, but she deliberately turned away from him, although not before she caught his wince.
“May I see the child?” Oliver asked, the epitome of politeness.
Sofia assumed he was referring to Penelope, who had gone outside with Henri. “Yes, of course.” She hurried across the room to the French doors to call out to her daughter, but she was greeted with a frantic Henri, who rushed inside and bounced off her legs like he was a racquetball knocking against the wall.
She reached out and grabbed his shoulders to keep him from falling backward. “Henri, are you okay?”
He shook his head like he was trying to dislodge something and said, “Yes, but they took
Penelope!”
Chapter Fifteen
Griffin was across the room in an instant. “What did you say?” he demanded of the little boy, who ducked behind Sofia’s legs.
Sofia dropped to her knees and gave Henri a hug. “It’s okay, sweetie. He’s just worried. Griffin is one of the good guys.” Her gaze slid his way and then dropped again. “Sometimes.”
He wanted to protest, but he knew better. To her, he was most definitely not a good guy. Not only had he slept with her on three different occasions and left immediately afterward every single time, but now it sounded like he’d lost her child.
“Where is Penelope?” he asked.
Fat tears rolled down Henri’s cheeks, and he rubbed at his eyes with his fists. “They took her. Dragons. Bad dragons.”
“Dragons?” Why would dragons kidnap a Daughter of Light? Unless… “Darius,” Griffin blurted.
Sofia’s eyes went so large they took up half her face, and he didn’t need her to plead with him because he could see it there in her pupils. She was begging him not to say anymore.
But he had to. Penelope’s life was in danger, especially if, as he suspected, Darius had kidnapped her. And the only reason Griffin could imagine Darius wanted the child was because he needed something from Sofia.
“What does he want, Sofia?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Yes, you do. He took her because he wants something from you. What is it?”
Antoinette, Ketu, Delilah, and Trennon had all moved closer to their exchange. Henri pushed away from Sofia and ran to his mother, who scooped him into her arms.
“They took her, Manman. The bad guys took Penelope. We have to get her back. Please get her back!” He started wailing, and Antoinette placed her hand on the back of his head and pressed his face against her shoulder as she whispered soothing words into his ear.
“We will get her back, Henri,” Griffin said with so much conviction he honestly surprised himself. “But first, we need a better understanding of why she was taken at all.” He glanced at Oliver. “I don’t think it is because she is a Daughter of Light. At least, not directly.”
“I know,” Oliver said, as calmly as if they were discussing the weather. Which was a little off-putting, because when he had finally returned to the City of the Dead this morning and Griffin admitted that he needed help with Sofia and Penelope’s protection, the gargoyle hadn’t known Penelope was a Daughter of Light. He’d truly sent Griffin to protect Sofia.
From her own brother.
“Sofia, we are here to help you,” he said in an effort to placate her so that she would tell the group what was going on with this contract she had with her brother.
“Well, you are,” Oliver said while rocking on his heels. “I would actually like to speak to the Daughter of Light.”
“Darius took her, Sofia, I’m sure of it,” Griffin said, clutching her by the biceps.
“No,” she whispered, but there wasn’t much conviction in the word. She knew it, she was just afraid to face it.
“We can get her back. If we understand the why of it.”
“Can’t we just go search for her?” Sofia pleaded. “Without discussing the reasons behind it?”
Ketu said, “We’ve been trying to track down Darius for almost a year now, with no luck. I wouldn’t know the first place to look. We need something—advice, clues, something.”
“H-he might be in Hammond. North of Lake Pontchartrain,” Sofia blurted.
Ketu furrowed his brow. “How would you know that?”
Sofia swallowed thickly, and Griffin ached to reach out to her, to offer comfort, but he was afraid she would reject him. He sure did spend a fair amount of his life fearing other people’s rejections. And what had that ever gotten him? It seemed most of the time when he second-guessed himself and made a mistake, it was because he was afraid of someone rejecting him.
“This is true.” That’s what Nikki had said to him when he noted that everyone made mistakes. He’d been referring to Oliver’s decision to hire him, but now he suspected that had not been why she’d responded the way she did.
Because everybody did make mistakes. And the only way to learn from those situations was to accept it and try harder not to do the same thing next time.
“Everybody makes mistakes,” he said now to Sofia as he gave in to the need to comfort her and wrapped his arm around her shoulders. “I do all the time. And despite that, the leader of the most powerful gargoyle brethren in the world asked me to join his team.”
Oliver arched his brow and stuffed his hands into his pockets.
Sofia let herself be pulled into Griffin’s side. “Why are you telling me this now?”
“Well, a few reasons, actually, but let’s focus on the ones involving Penelope’s kidnapping first. We can go over the rest later, when everyone is safe and sound.”
She wrinkled her brow.
“We need to talk about Darius.”
Sofia darted a frightened glance at Trennon and shook her head. “You don’t understand.”
“I know. That’s why I need you to tell me.”
“I can’t.”
“Sofia, we can protect you. We will. I swear it.”
“It’s not me,” she whispered. “He…he’ll kill my mother.”
Antoinette handed Henri off to Ketu and moved to stand in front of Griffin and Sofia. “Are you saying Darius has threatened to kill your mother?”
Sofia’s gaze slid to Trennon again and then she nodded.
“Why does she keep looking at you?” Delilah wanted to know, looking to Trennon for an answer.
He shrugged.
Delilah cocked her head and studied him for a moment, then turned to Sofia. “Who is your mother?”
“She doesn’t belong to this colony,” Sofia said.
“Why does Darius care about what you do so much that he’s threatening to kill a dragon—I assume she’s a dragon?” Delilah paused until Sofia nodded. “So why would Darius threaten a dragon that isn’t part of this colony? What sort of dirt do you have on him?”
Sofia shook her head. “I don’t. I know as much as you all. He created dragon’s blood. He kept Trennon sedated and ran the colony in his name. He’s a terrible person. He’s a bully. He’s still bitter that his mother left him when he was a kid. That’s all I know.”
Trennon moved closer. “He’s bitter over his mother leaving? Really? How do you know this?”
Griffin could feel her shrinking into herself, and he willed her to be strong. For once, he was listening to his gut, and his gut said she needed to come clean about the secret she has been harboring for her entire life.
But Sofia straightened and said, “How could you not know this? You raised him. Didn’t you think a six-year-old would be devastated by his mother leaving him?”
Trennon coughed and wiped his hand over his mouth. “She didn’t leave him. She left me. And she wanted to take him, but I was the reeve and he was my only heir. I refused to let her have him.”
Griffin glanced down at Sofia, who was staring at Trennon as if seeing him for the first time.
“She actually wanted to stay after that, but truthfully, I still had feelings for her, and it was causing issues with her mate. So we came up with a visitation plan, and they finally moved out. Darius refused to visit her on the weekends after that. She tried for years to reach out to him, but he shut her out, refused to even speak to her.
“Eventually, she and her mate had their own offspring. That’s when Darius suddenly wanted to go see her, except he was so mean to his half-siblings that she finally forbade him from visiting.”
“He has other half-siblings?” Sofia asked.
Trennon nodded. “Three. As far as I know, he hasn’t seen any of them in decades.”
Griffin squeezed Sofia’s shoulder. He could only imagine how this must be affecting her. Trennon’s story was undoubtedly twisting whatever reality she’d believed up to this point.
/> “How do you know he was six when his mother left?” Delilah suddenly interrupted.
Sofia didn’t reply.
“And why did he kidnap your daughter? Let’s get back to that. What’s your connection to Trennon’s son?” Delilah demanded.
Sofia stiffened under Griffin’s arm.
“Please tell us, Sofia,” Antoinette implored. “If you know anything that will help get Penelope back…”
“I do,” she whispered. “It’s just so hard. I-I’ve been bullied into not speaking of this for literally my entire life. I don’t even know how…”
“Gods above, Trennon,” Delilah blurted, slapping the man’s chest.
He rubbed the offended spot. “What?”
“Who’s your mother?” Delilah demanded, looking at Sofia. “What’s her name?”
Sofia’s gaze bounced around the room, landing on each person in turn and jumping to the next until she caught Griffin’s gaze. And held it. He didn’t break the contact. He needed her to know that he supported her, that he believed in her. That he would do anything to help her open up about her past.
“Cerci,” she finally whispered, so low a human would not have been able to hear her.
“Did you say Cerci?” Delilah said in a booming voice.
“Cerci?” Trennon repeated, his eyes going wide. “I knew a Cerci once.”
Griffin watched as Sofia swallowed thickly, her gaze now on Trennon, who stared back as if he were trying to work out a puzzle in his head.
“I knew a Cerci,” Trennon repeated. “Dated her, oh, twenty-five, twenty-six years ago, I’d say. Good woman. Gorgeous hair.”
His eyes widened. Sofia lifted her arm and touched her dark locks. Griffin was pretty sure it was a subconscious action.
Trennon’s eyes widened further. “Cerci? You…Cerci?”
Sofia blinked rapidly and offered up a small smile. “No, I’m not Cerci. But I am her daughter.”
“You look so much like her,” Trennon said.
“You look like him too,” Delilah added.
Trennon gave her a blank look. “Who?”
“You, you idiot.” She smacked him upside the head. “She’s your daughter, T.”
