by India Kells
On the edge of the circle, Asher fell to his hands and knees, his head bowed. Valeria didn’t need to see his face to know the extent of his heartbreak. With the new link between them, she felt his rage, despair, and sorrow as acutely as if they were her own. When his shoulders started shaking, Ian kneeled beside his Alpha, tears running down his face also. Valeria came to his other side and started stroking his back. She poured all the comfort, compassion and support she could into his heart, but knew that little could be done to ease his pain. At one moment, she sensed he was about to howl his grief, but stopped him.
“Asher, no. We’re on enemy land, you’ll give off our position, making us vulnerable. I’m sorry, my love.”
The werewolf nodded and lifted his head, sniffing the air. “After all this is done, I will need to find their bodies.”
Valeria nodded. “We’ll help you with that. They will have a proper burial at Sanctuary.”
Sitting on his haunches, he wiped his face angrily and accepted Ian’s hand to stand up. Both men hugged before turning to her.
“Let’s go.” Valeria offered him her hand. When he took it, he brought it to his mouth to kiss it.
Valeria glanced at Violet and Sera who nodded in agreement, grief also on their faces. Finn stayed a few steps back, glaring at the spilled blood in disgust. As they walked toward the edge of the woods, Valeria halted and crouched down. Something was bugging her, and she signed for all of them to gather around her, trying to keep her voice as low as possible.
“Something’s wrong.”
Sera frowned. “Magic wise? I don’t sense anything…”
Valeria shook her head. “Not that, so far, the safeguards are exactly as I expected. Too much.”
“What do you mean?”
“After two years being gone, and the High Council investigating him, I’m surprised that he didn’t add another layer on top of the old one.”
Violet nodded. “Okay. But what if he thought it was enough?”
Finn acquiesced. “I think I know where Valeria is going with this. What if he made sure that we could enter?”
Valeria sighed. It seemed that the vampire and she were in sync on this one. “Worse. On the first attack on Sanctuary, what if I wasn’t the target? What if I was the diversion?”
Everybody frowned, and she continued as the thoughts coalesced in her mind, her idea taking shape. “What if the first attack was to abduct Robert? He was a former Alpha, still strong. And as Ellen was with him, both were kidnapped for the ritual.”
Sera started to follow her train of thought. “And when you found Finn in the woods?”
“I don’t know. It didn’t feel like a setup.” And as to confirm her thoughts, she peeked at the vampire.
“I agree. It wasn’t a setup. They didn’t expect for me to be freed, and certainly not by Valeria. However, I think that they used that excuse for the second attack.”
“What?” Asher narrowed his gaze and look back at her. “The second attack was to recapture the vampire. They followed our combined scent. It was an easy guess that we would take Finn back there.”
“It was risky. A vampire at full force, surrounded by shifters. And surprise, two weredragons? And didn’t you find it strange that they retreated?”
“What else do you think they would gain by attacking us again?”
Valeria hesitated. “I think that they’ve been steering us in one direction from the start. Here. They observed us, knew we wouldn’t leave each other defenseless as we built our group. They knew I was sniffing toward my father’s implication and would confront him at some point. And here we are. All of us, together. Two-quarters of the rituals have been completed. Two still need to be done. We’re bringing him a vampire.”
Violet winced. “With all his followers, finding a witch would have been easy. And all there is left for Lancaster to find is a fae. And we’ve left two of them, within Sanctuary, not defenseless, but almost.”
Ian fished out his cell phone in his pocket and tried to connect with Sanctuary. After a few curt words confirming that all was in order back home, he asked to speak with Genevieve.
Time passed, and Valeria could feel dread clutching at her heart. When Ian’s face darkened, she had her answer.
“I spoke to Patricia. Everything is calm, nothing and nobody in sight, but Genevieve and Maya are gone.”
The silence between them was heavy with the repercussions. Sera swallowed hard. “The waning moon starts tonight. Do you think they’re inside?”
Valeria turned to admire the Lancaster manor, bathed with morning light. “If that’s the case, we’ve brought him a vampire on a platter.”
Finn growled. “I’m not sure I like the image. And I’m far from helpless.”
Violet looked at him. “It’s daylight, you’re not at full strength.”
Cold as ice, Finn frowned at the witch. “I’m not going anywhere until the one ordering my capture is dead.”
When his green eyes turned to Valeria, they softened but stayed determined. She understood his motivations. In other circumstances, she may have tried to save Lionel Lancaster, but as she was well-aware that each passing minute brought her closer to her own death, the only final goal she would focus on was to make sure all the people around her were safe.
“I suggest that we split up once inside. I’ll go for my mother with Asher. Ian and Finn, stay with Sera and Violet, they’ll be able to take care of any magic you encounter. Check the house, try to find Genevieve and Maya and get them out of there. Finn knows the layout best. Just be careful.”
Everyone agreed. Violet and Sera gestured for all of them to come closer, and as they had planned, they created an invisibility cloak for them, allowing the group to remain invisible from any possible eyes watching through the numerous windows.
Valeria prayed for them to be safe and squeezed Asher’s hand as they walked toward the greatest danger of all.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
The only entrance Valeria deemed safe enough to use, that may have been less guarded was through the garage. Once they were all inside, the group split up, Ian, Sera, Finn and Violet stepping through the side door leading downstairs, the one place where prisoners could be kept. The area was protected by runes and spells, and she hoped Sera’s phenomenal brain would keep them safe.
Asher touched her hand and nodded. It was time to roll. Being in the house after so long, after so many things that had happened felt strange.
She didn’t sense that many people inside the house and she trusted Asher to keep an eye, or more correctly his ears and nose, on anyone that might cross their path.
Valeria didn’t go through the main areas, and preferred passing through the smaller rooms, where she knew they could go undetected. Her parents’ room was on the other side of the house, and it took a while to reach it. Two times they had to wait until a guard passed by. On another occasion, a squeaky floor almost caused their demise.
One thing she remembered was a secret passage going through her parents’ walk-in closet. An escape room her mother had shown her when she was a little girl.
With Asher silent on her heels, Valeria gently pushed the door open to finally enter her parents’ bedroom. It was bright as day, the curtains wide open to let the sun in, and the room in perfect order. Even the bed was made. Her mother was obviously not there.
She turned to Asher. “She’s supposed to be here.”
“What if he placed her in another room? Use your dragon, do you smell her nearby?”
Knowing what he meant, she shook her head. The room was filled with her mother’s perfume, and she wouldn’t be able to know if she had been moved to another place, or even if the scent was old or not.
“I don’t know. I wish I had time to practice, but my skills are not as sharp as yours.”
Stroking her back in a comforting gesture, Asher closed his eyes and waited for a beat. “I hear two people walking away on the floor below us. One sleeping at the other end of the corridor. Male. A
nd someone moving in a room about two doors down.”
Valeria’s heart pounded. “That would be my father’s study.”
“What do you want to do?”
She looked at him a long time and breathed deeply. “If my mother’s not in here, he’s keeping her somewhere else, and he’s the only one who’ll know. I guess it’s time I reunite with my father.”
Asher nodded slowly, clearly not happy with the turn of events, but she guessed he didn’t have another option available for now. And Valeria was about to say something else that wouldn’t make him any happier.
“I’ll go alone. Wait! Before you say anything else. I know the danger, and that’s why I don’t want to antagonize him from the start. I’ll go alone while you wait in the next room. It’s a small guest room, but you’ll be able to hear through the wall and intervene if it goes south.”
Asher hesitated, and she knew why. Cupping his stubbled cheeks, she smiled sadly. “I need to do this alone. Not because I don’t trust you, but because I need to close that chapter of my life. Go to the end of it by myself. Do you understand?”
He put his hand over hers and nodded. “I do, but don’t ask me to like it.” And he let go of her hands to circle her waist and bring her to him for a quick but deep kiss. Her dragon shifted deep inside her, uncomfortable to leave him, and in a faraway echo, Asher’s wolf felt the same.
To her surprise, it was he who let her go first and went for the door. Listening, he nodded, and they exited. Valeria padded to the door of her father’s study, and looked at Asher who was about to hide. He didn’t say a word, his face almost implacable, but he flooded her with so much love and strength through their mated bond, she almost choked on it.
Now alone, and as stable as she could ever be, Valeria turned the knob.
The room was dark, all the heavy curtains were drawn, shutting out the day. The desk lamp diffused a soft light, but it was the blaze in the fireplace that truly illuminated the space she remembered well, and his father sitting on a chair, his gaze on the flames.
“Daughter.” The voice. His voice opened all the wounds she had inside, all the hurt and the suffering she had stowed for two years.
Closing the door behind her, she made her way beside him, standing as he sat, still averting his gaze. Silently, she sat on the chair beside him and uttered the only word that could cross her lips now.
“Why?”
The fire crackled for a moment as she waited, hoping that everything was a dream, that the man beside her wasn’t the monster that every proof and everyone pointed him to be.
When she thought he would never answer, he turned his face to her. And there he was still, the force of nature she had known, the unyielding leader of man, the Chief Enforcer.
“What a strange question. Is that really the question you want to ask me?”
“Is my question strange? I’m hanging to what I thought of you, of what I believe you are, by a thread. How anyone but you could have turned that many loyal Enforcers against the High Council? Who could have studied enough to have thought of such a terrible spell? But the man I knew was straight as an arrow, and would never have killed innocents, sending people on a murdering rampage, going against everything he stood for, including the High Council, for power. Power. Is that really your goal? Being the master of this realm, the supreme power to rule us all? To crush us under your boot?”
Lionel Lancaster continued to look at her with a mix of incomprehension and contempt, something she recognized as a child when she was asking questions he judged idiotic or below him. But it wasn’t a mere child cowering in front of her disapproving father. Not anymore.
“Have you forgotten about the Lancaster lineage? Have you ever cared about it? The honor of our family?” He shook his head. “Of course not, your mother filled your head with nonsense. In our world, power means protection. And it’s a way of enduring.”
“Mother told me to care about others, not kill them. It was the primary objective of an Enforcer, one I became because of you.”
“Because of me?” Lionel seemed genuinely surprised. “I never asked you to become one. You had talent as a witch, a certain intelligence, but I never asked anything of you.”
The words sliced through her, reopening a wound she had carried all her life.
Half laughing, she leaned back in her chair. “If I was so worthless, why didn’t you just kill me in my crib?”
Lionel blinked, at lost for a moment. “You could still be useful. I only wanted you to be a good girl. Honorable. And as I wasn’t blessed with having a son, you could marry well, at least help our family in that way. I had found such a man, one willing to forgo his own name and take ours. Marry James Cooper was all you needed to do, and once more, you were a deception.”
Deception. The word whirled in her mind to the point of almost making her mad. It was only a slight push from Asher, gently warming her heart that prevented her from being entirely destroyed.
“Where is mother?”
Lionel returned his gaze to the fire. “Your mother had been the greatest love of my life. From the moment I saw her, I wanted her. But she could never understand what being a Lancaster entailed, until I discovered her treachery. How could she betray me! Us!! And she hid it from me, making me think that you were my daughter when all you were was a bastard.”
Words were spewing out of his mouth now, and although her soul was bleeding, she let him.
“And she betrayed me with a shifter! A damn, lowly beast. I don’t know how that Racovan could become part of the High Council, but I knew then that the highest power had been corrupted and I had to act.”
“When did mother tell you? About me?” No way would she say the word bastard for now.
“When I decided you were to marry James. I told her that our family name couldn’t end that way, and willing or not, you were to marry that man. We had a fight. Ann wanted you to marry for love, by choice, and when I told her that you would obey my will, she admitted to her infidelity.”
“Why didn’t you say anything to me?”
Her father shrugged. “You still had some use. Nobody knew about your mixed blood, the witch side of you strong. And you fell in love with James. Everything seemed in order until you came back from your encounter in the forest. Meeting that shifter had probably triggered the other sleeping side of you, and I knew then and there that you would be lost too soon. Before you would get married to Cooper. That’s why I took advantage of your broken magic, forced you to leave, telling everyone you were dead. That way, I could still use Cooper, make him my heir and our lineage would be able to continue.”
“And mother? You mean that I’m not the one who wounded her?”
Lionel shook his head. “My love for Ann died when she admitted you were not my child. And I knew the High Council needed to be reformed. You’re right to assume that I found that old spell and when you fled, I knew it was time to put it in place. It took me some time, I’ve made some mistakes and miscalculations, but in the end, everything will finally make sense. Even for you.”
The horror he envisioned made her nauseous. “And mother, where is my mother?”
The look he gave her made Valeria understand. “You kept her alive, in a coma, because you needed a witch at hand for the sacrifice, for the first quarter of the ritual.” When she said the words, Valeria felt herself detach from her body. The impossibility of having such monster before her was incomprehensible. “And when I resurfaced, saved by a shifter, you saw an opportunity.”
Lionel smirked. “Damn Stonelake. His family always had a way of being at the wrong place at the wrong time. We almost killed them all, but when you didn’t follow us for the hunt, I came back for you, and found you in the forest with the eldest son of Stonelake, both unconscious, with his baby sister, I thought you dead. “
“So you killed the girl. What about him? What about Asher.”
“You were starting to wake up, I had to act fast. I thought I would come back for him, but he was gone.
Imagine my surprise when I learned that you had found refuge in the Sanctuary run by that dog.”
What a complete mess. One that needed to stop. The man before her was mad.
Lancaster must have sensed a shift in her, and smiled. “Don’t get all worked up, my dear Valeria. I allowed our little conversation, but now we have work to do.”
Blinking, Valerie didn’t have time to react, when magic swirled around her, and both she and Lancaster were transported from the study to the stone circle.
The sun high in the sky cast a blinding light over them, as Valeria realized that she was chained just outside the circle, her wrists bound with burning silver. Inside the circle, now clear of blood, stood at its middle, poor Genevieve and Maya. Both mother and daughter were tied to the ground and gagged. Valeria couldn’t see their eyes, but she saw how they struggled to get away as Lionel walked the circle, before stopping in front of her. On the far right-side, attached to a tree with silver chain, was Finn, seemingly unconscious.
“You see, dear Valeria, as your dear Asher is in a panic, trying to find you in the house, and your friends are wandering my basement, I thought it a good idea to continue the ritual.”
The searing pain of the silver made it difficult for her to focus. “You can’t. There’s still light in the sky.”
Lionel crouched in front of her, pointing his finger to the heavens. “You see, my dear. The moon is waning, being light or not. One of the little things I’ve read in a book that worked well. The High Council seemed to lessen the guards during daylight, and it helped me tremendously. Especially to go and get these little faes. I never thought that, with the bonus of finding you at the Sanctuary, I would find a new daughter.”
Valeria closed her eyes when she realized that it was the scent she had detected on Maya. “And you accused your wife of betraying you.”
His expression changed from a smirk to fury. “My wife wears my collar only. That’s what women are meant to do.” He slapped her, making her fall to her side. Her cheek stung, but she snarled.
“You’re scum, Lancaster, killing your wife, manipulating me, and using your real daughter for a ritual. You’re the one who should be put down like a sick dog.”
