by Elise Marion
Finally, he released her and took a step back, clearing his throat. “Are you okay?”
“It was rough going for a moment,” she admitted. “But I’ll be okay.”
He looked her over, nodding as if satisfied at having seen for himself that she was still in one piece. “I know you’re tough as nails and all, and I never doubted you would beat Lilith and get back here, but … damn it, cher, I was so worried.”
Her heart stuttered at his declaration, a painful squeezing sensation gripping her chest. “I know. I tried to get back here as fast as I could. But I’m okay. I survived.”
“You always do,” he replied with a little smirk.
Silence fell between them for a long while, and she could feel Drew’s scrutiny as he glanced over and seemed to wonder what was going on.
Finally, she forced herself to speak. “Micah—”
He held one hand up, cutting her off before she could go on. “You guys are back together.”
She nodded, biting her lower lip and chewing anxiously. “Yes. I’m sorry, Micah.”
Reaching out, he cupped her face, his big hand gentle at the slope of her jaw. “Don’t you ever apologize for bein’ happy, cher. You been through hell, in a literal sense, and a nonliteral one. If anyone deserves to finally have a piece of happiness in this world, it’s you. I love you, and I love my podna. If you want to be together, who am I to get in the way?”
Why was he making this so easy? The ache in her chest increased, the twinging causing her to feel physically ill. Micah didn’t deserve to have his heart broken, but she’d made her choice. Despite knowing it had been the right one, she couldn’t fight the sense of guilt niggling at the back of her mind. If she’d just held out a little longer—not allowed herself to give in to the lust and longing she’d felt toward Micah while Jack was away—then none of this would have ever happened.
“I don’t have a single regret,” he said, as if he’d read her mind. “I meant what I said before about you makin’ me want to try to be a better man. I might not know what that looks like right now, but I’m gonna figure it out.”
“You don’t have to do that alone, you know,” she offered. “I’m always here if you need me. And you know Jack is, too. Things might be a bit awkward at first, but I had started to think of you as my friend before all this went down. I’d hate to think we might lose that.”
“Never,” he declared. “You and Jack are all I got left. I’m not gonna lose that for anything. It might be hard right now, but I’m gonna be fine, cher. You’ll see.”
Addison gave him a tentative smile, relief allowing her to relax. “I know you will.”
Giving her a slight nod, he backed away toward the kitchen table and took up his six-pack, clutching the bottle he was already working on with one hand.
“I’m gonna sit on the porch and get some air,” he said. “Holler if you need me.”
She watched him go, feeling a little less worried about how things would be between them going forward. After a while, she turned her head to find Drew still watching her, naked curiosity in his gaze.
Crossing the kitchen toward him, she paused near the edge of the couch. “Well, now that things are quiet around here, maybe we can talk a bit … get to know each other.”
He slid over on the couch to make room for her and she sat, studying him with open interest. He was handsome, in a brooding, dark sort of way. His pale skin told her he didn’t spend a lot of time outdoors during the daytime, making the splash of freckles across his nose and cheekbones even more prominent, along with the bright hue of his hair. He chewed absently on the ring in his lip, a habit he seemed oblivious to. A gauge stretched the lobe of one ear, while an earring that looked like a metal spike had been punched through the other. A series of three rings adorned one eyebrow. Tattoos stained the back of one hand, stopping at the knuckles of his fingers.
Chipped, black nail polish stood out on his fingernails, and a gleaming black ring circled one thumb.
He glanced at her pointedly, seeming to wait for her to start the conversation. Clearing her throat, she wracked her brain for a starting point. Jack had told her that she and Drew were very much alike, coming from broken homes and the same demon father. Which meant he wouldn’t take too kindly to her poking around in his business too soon.
“How do you like New Orleans?” she asked, hoping to ease some of the tension between them.
“I’ve lived here before,” he replied.
Right. He’d been the one to introduce Jack and Micah to Harley, and had likely lived in her den for a while.
“It’s cool, though,” he continued. “Better than New York.”
“I didn’t get to spend as much time as I wanted in New York when I visited,” she said. “But what I did see was nice.”
Silence fell between them again—and not the companionable silence that she would have felt comfortable resting in. Before she could come up with anything to fill the gap in the conversation, he spoke up.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Yes,” she answered quickly, relieved that he was taking the lead here.
“I heard they let you become a Guardian.”
She frowned, glancing down at the edge of the Guardians’ mark peeking out from beneath the neckline of her shirt. “They?”
“Yeah,” he replied. “God, or whoever … is it true? They let a half-demon Naphil take the mark?”
“Well, it’s not that simple,” she answered. “I’m also half-Guardian … my mother was one.”
He frowned, resting his chin in his hand. “Oh. I just thought …”
She leaned toward him, wrinkling her brow. “Thought what?”
Shrugging, he leaned back against the couch cushions. “I don’t know, it was stupid. I guess I thought they were offering Guardianships to Eligos’ children. They want us to fight for them, but no one’s said a word about what’s in it for us.”
“A world where Eligos doesn’t rule Hell, for one,” she stated. “Things seem bad now, but we all know they’d be ten times worse with him in charge.”
Drew snorted and rolled his eyes. “Maybe it’s different for you. It’s not like you know what it’s like to grow up knowing you’re half-demon like the rest of us.”
“Hey, finding out after you’ve reached adulthood isn’t exactly a walk in the park,” she snapped, forgetting that she was trying to form some sort of bond with her little brother. “You try walking around for twenty-five years thinking that you’re a bloodthirsty psychopath.”
“You had it hard, too,” he relented. “I won’t dispute that. But, half-demon Naphils are made very aware of who and what we are, and they never let us forget it. Guardians are always looking down on us, just waiting for one of us to step out of line so they can have a reason to call us demons.”
“Can you blame them?” she argued. “Or was it another redhead named Drew who broke into the Bennetts’ house and held their little girl at gunpoint?”
Redness crept into Drew’s neck and face, and she could see the vein in his temple beginning to throb. To his credit, he managed to keep his cool before replying.
“You got a good deal, is all I’m saying,” he said. “When this is over, you’ll be the one who saved the world with the ring and won a Guardianship out of it. You get to continue being one of the good guys for the rest of your life. The rest of us will go back to being at the bottom of the spiritual food chain, just a step above demons in the eyes of the high-and-mighties.”
“It doesn’t have to be that way,” she argued, even though her heart wasn’t really in the argument. Part of her knew that Drew was right. A lot was being asked of the Nephilim, and even though fighting Eligos was the right thing to do, Addison didn’t think it was right for them to risk their lives and then go back to the way things had always been.
“Unless someone dares to ask for more, that’s exactly how it’s going to be,” he declared.
“I don’t think it works that way,” she countered
. “Guardians are born, not made. It’s genetic.”
“Please,” Drew scoffed. “They didn’t have to let you take the mark. Everyone knows you’re the first of your kind—half-dark and half-light. Before you, no one thought it was possible. The implications of what that means aren’t even fully realized yet. So, don’t tell me about how things work. Things work the way the people in charge want them to, end of story.”
Addison thought of Reniel and the discussion they’d had that morning about her mother’s final resting place. He’d alluded to the fact that her knowing whether Elizabeth was in Heaven or Hell would rely on whether God gave the okay for that information to be relayed. Drew was right. All these rules rested on the whims of God and his angels as far as she could see. Did that mean the landscape of this world existing between Heaven, Earth, and Hell could be changed? And if so, what did that mean for the rest of the Nephilim?
She was jolted from her thoughts when Drew picked up the remote and turned up the TV with a smile.
“I love this show,” he said with a chuckle.
Turning to glance at the screen, she realized it was one she watched regularly. “Me, too.”
He gave her a little smile in response, and then they fell silent, laughing here and there and talking about their favorite episodes. It would seem that watching television with one’s brother proved a better bonding experience than attempting to think of non-invasive questions. She also knew that Drew wanted to be a Guardian. What to do with that information, Addison was not certain.
Chapter Fourteen: Inheritance
“Thank you for coming to meet with me, Miss Monroe,” said estate attorney Weston Blake as he ushered Addison, Jack, and Micah into his office.
The place was only a few blocks over from the guys’ apartment, located in the space over a fortune-telling and palm-reading establishment. His workspace was cramped, with a slightly larger room out front housing a waiting area and desk for his secretary. But Addison had done her homework on the guy earlier that morning, verifying that he was legit. After a few hours of working with Jack to sort through her mother’s belongings, they’d met up with Micah to visit the office.
Still, the idea that her mother had left some sort of inheritance for her seemed unreal—which was why, at first, she’d doubted the claim entirely. Curiosity had brought her here, but she kept her expectations low—the story of her life when it came to Elizabeth Monroe.
“Sorry for being so hard to get a hold of,” she replied, taking one of the two seats facing the desk.
Jack took the one beside her, while Micah opted to stand, leaning against the wall.
Weston adjusted his tie as he settled behind his desk, then began shuffling through various files and stacks of papers clipped together. He seemed a bit harried, with a mop of brown hair standing on end, bags under his eyes that indicated he got very little sleep, and a work environment that revealed him to be a bit scatterbrained.
“It’s quite all right,” he replied, flipping open a file and nodding as if content with what he’d found inside. “You’re here now, so we can get down to the business of having Monroe House deeded to you.”
Addison exchanged a confused glance with Jack, then glanced back at Weston with a frown. “I’m sorry … Monroe House?”
The lawyer paused in the midst of arranging the papers he’d retrieved from the file. “I apologize, I was under the impression that you’d been told about the house.”
Shaking her head, she stifled an annoyed sigh. Of course, there were more things she didn’t know about.
“Gayle assured me that Elizabeth was aware of the terms of the will, so I assumed you would be informed,” Weston added with a shake of his head.
“You knew my Nana?” Addison asked.
Gayle Monroe-Bell had been dead for years, and while Addison had recently learned that her mother had been a Guardian—thereby passing the gene on to her—she hadn’t given any thought to the fact that her Nana had to have been one, as well. Which meant there must be more secrets that had been kept from her. The notion of an inheritance now became slightly less unbelievable.
“I did,” Weston confirmed. “She hired me to handle her estate a few years before her death.”
“I don’t understand,” she replied. “You keep saying the word ‘estate’, like my Nana had a bunch of money or something. We’ve always been dirt poor, so that doesn’t make any sense. And if she did have some sort of estate, why didn’t it go to my mother first?”
Clearing his throat, the lawyer extended an envelope to her. “This should explain everything to your satisfaction. Gayle specified that it was to be opened by you in the event of your mother’s death.”
Accepting the envelope, she opened it and found her grandmother’s familiar, neat and precise handwriting scrawled on yellow stationary. She recognized the paper from a stack Gayle used to keep in a box in her kitchen.
Addie,
First, I want to apologize for keeping so many secrets from you over the years. I’d always intended to tell you when I felt the time was right, but Reniel swore me to secrecy. By now, you likely know why—your destiny required you to walk a different path than the rest of our kind. It is my belief that taking ownership of the Monroe ancestral home is a part of that destiny. As much as it pains me to say this, we both know allowing it to fall into your mother’s hands would have been a colossal mistake.
Contrary to popular belief, the Monroe family didn’t always consist of white trash junkies and drunks. Unfortunately, over the years, we crumbled, the war between Heaven and Hell, as well as the harsh realities of life destroying everything. Except Monroe House. When it fell to me and your Paw-Paw, we agreed that it could never go out of the family. By now, you’re likely the only living Monroe left, with the exception of some very distant cousins neither of us likes very much. It isn’t too late for you to revive our legacy. Take ownership of Monroe House and make me proud. When the time comes, you’ll know exactly what to do with it.
Love,
Nana
Beside Gayle’s signature was a little drawn sketch of the Guardians symbol. Addison ran her thumb over the mark, unable to decide how she felt about being confronted with the evidence of all that she’d been kept ignorant of. She wanted to be angry, but after everything she’d been through this year, it was all in keeping with this new course of her life. It should hardly have been surprising.
Glancing up from the paper, she found Jack and Weston watching her expectantly, and she could feel Micah’s gaze on the back of her head. Handing the page over to Jack, she gave him a nod, encouraging him to read it. While Jack read silently, and Micah edged closer to peer at the letter over his shoulder, she turned back to Weston.
“I hope the letter had the answers you were looking for,” the attorney said, giving her a sympathetic look.
“Not entirely,” she replied. “But it’s a start. I’m assuming the house is at least in the state of Louisiana?”
“About an hour outside the city,” he replied, retrieving a stack of large, 8x10 photos and pushing them across the desk toward her. “These pictures are a bit out of date, but you can at least see what the house looks like. Your grandparents had some remodeling done, adding solar shingles to the roof—they power the entire house. The man who oversees taking care of the place says it got a fresh coat of paint a few years back, and some repairs here and there.”
Weston’s voice faded into a dull buzz as she numbly reached for the photo sitting on top of the pile. The picture had been taken from the end of a long dirt road ringed with massive oak trees—the tops of which had grown together to form a green archway of sorts over the path. At the end of the lane sat a massive white manor house in the style of the old South. Long white pillars lined the exterior, framing a wraparound porch on the ground floor, and wrought-iron gated balconies on the second and third floors. A large set of dark, wooden double doors ushered the way inside, and floor-to-ceiling windows would flood the interior with light.
The photo fluttered to the floor, and Jack bent to retrieve it, his eyes widening when he glanced at it. Behind him, Micah dropped his jaw, staring at the photo, then at her.
“Hells bells, cher,” he exclaimed. “That there’s a castle, not a house.”
Shaking her head in disbelief, she took up the other photos and flipped through them. As Weston had said, her grandmother had own an actual estate—complete with landscaped lawns, a greenhouse, garden, and acres upon acres of green land covered in trees. It certainly blew her dreams of a two-story family home with a red door out of the water.
She handed the photos over to the guys, and worked to pry her tongue from the roof of her mouth.
“You have the wrong house,” she said, even though deep down, she knew it made sense. The letter signed in her grandmother’s hand had confirmed it, and Weston had no reason to lie to her.
“I can assure you, it’s the right house,” Weston said, his tone a bit clipped as if she’d insulted his intelligence.
“Addie, look,” Jack said, holding up one of the photos.
She’d missed the detail on her first pass through the photos, but she couldn’t miss it with Jack’s finger pointed right at it—a painted wooden sign at the top of the lane, marking the property as ‘Monroe House’.
“The house was built in 1805, and various generations of Monroes lived there up until around 1945,” Weston told her. “One of Louisiana’s oldest plantations, it’s been remarkably preserved, with all the original woodwork, wallpaper, and moldings. I believe the kitchen was updated some time ago. The house is in good shape thanks to its caretaker, a man named Mr. Thorton.”
“My Paw-Paw’s best friend,” she whispered, the name bringing back fond memories. Butch Thorton had always kept a handful of butterscotch candies in his pocket, many of which always found their way into Addison’s palms whenever he visited. He and her grandfather had been thick as thieves.
