Autumn didn’t think that her feelings would be so easily swayed, but it still unsettled her, and it made her wonder—was there something about Eamon that she should be keeping her distance from?
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Nova
“I’m incredibly annoyed,” Nova said, lounging on her flowered settee in her house in Sete Cidades and projecting her image into the house of her closest friend in Boston, Gayla Filmore. “And you should be more annoyed,” she told the tall, somewhat awkward-looking woman. “Be more annoyed.”
“I’m annoyed,” Gayla assured her, sitting on her own couch with her legs crossed beneath her, staring back at Nova, the thousands of miles of distance between them no match for their mutual magical power that allowed them to converse as though in person. “I already told you I was annoyed. What else do you want?”
“I want to feel it,” Nova said, pouting outright as she adjusted herself on the settee. “I’m not sure you understand just what an affront this is. First, this man was utterly unaffected by me. Do you know how long it has been since a man had no reaction to me?”
Gayla inspected her nails. “I’m assuming not since you mastered the spells that allowed you to change your appearance and made yourself into that cross between a fairy tale princess and a Barbie.”
Nova smiled. “Thank you. And no—not since then! But Eamon Cleary apparently doesn’t appreciate it when a gorgeous woman offers him her bed.”
“Okay, it’s 2018,” Gayla said, looking up from filing down one fingernail with another. “Just say since you offered to nail him.”
“Some of us prefer to be refined.”
Gayla snorted, pushing her glasses higher onto her nose. “It’s very refined to throw yourself at a man just because his white-blond hair and pale skin make you think of vampire fantasies.”
Nova narrowed her eyes, sitting all the way up on her settee. “Whose side are you on, mine or his?”
“Yours, obviously,” Gayla assured her. “About everything except how terrible he is for not wanting to have sex with you. That part I don’t care about at all. What I’m concerned about is the fact that we have been working on this plan for centuries, Nova. Centuries. And in another few weeks, we’ll be ready to put it all into place. We have everything set. And now—we’re distracted. Why are we this distracted? Why has this situation not just been dealt with? We have a vengeance to wreak on a society that never paid for what it did to our ancestors and a society that will never—ever—accept us. Why are we not focused on that?”
“That’s the kind of annoyance I want to feel,” Nova said triumphantly. “That’s the Gayla I know. I share your frustration, but you understand why we have to follow through with this now.”
“I don’t, actually,” Gayla said, reaching one hand up to tug at the long braid down her back. “The way I see it, they’re all going to be destroyed in the first wave, so what difference does it make?”
Nova sighed, making a show of attempting to maintain her patience with her long-time friend. “The underlings threatened the girl, which means that she had too much information.”
“But she’s going to be destroyed.”
“Unless she went public with what she knows and everything gets exposed!”
Gayla sighed, sliding her glasses down and pinching the bridge of her nose. “There are just so many ways this could have been avoided, Nova. She’s nothing. She’s insignificant. Even if she had gone to someone with her story, who was going to believe her?”
“Clearly Eamon did.”
“But we know that he’s not strictly … human,” Gayla pointed out. “That was just a very unfortunate coincidence.”
“But one that happened,” Nova said. “Even if it’s partly our fault that it happened, it did happen, and now this little wisp of a girl and her big bad protector are onto us, and they’re working to stop what we’ve spent our lives on. What would be fantastic is if we could just kill them all, but unfortunately, we’re bound by the balance of nature and if we expend our magical energy to kill them, then the power we’ve been channeling into the revenge … it’s all upset. And clearly, scaring them to death isn’t working.”
Gayla began undoing her braid, unable to keep her hands still as they talked. “Clearly. What I’m hearing is that they’re back in town and now they’re actively trying to seek us out. They must have a death wish.”
“They know we can’t kill them,” Nova told her, bitterness in her voice. “I said as much to Eamon.”
“We can’t kill them through magic.”
“What else is there?”
Gayla arched an eyebrow at her, her hands pausing. “You realize that people murder each other all the time without magical powers, right? We can’t use a spell, but we can use a gun.”
Nova started to respond, then stopped, tapping her chin as she considered her friend’s suggestion. “There would still be a disruption in the balance of nature.”
“A far less significant one though,” Gayla argued. “Almost unnoticeable, really.”
Smirking, Nova leaned forward, her eyes gleaming. “You’ve always been the more vicious one, haven’t you?”
“I’m not vicious,” Gayla said, smiling. “I’m just coldhearted. If they’re in the way, as they now seem to be, then they have to be disposed of. That’s all I know. That’s all I see. Do I feel badly that we’re the ones who overreacted to what the girl saw and created this problem? Not really. I’m just annoyed that now we have to take the trouble to fix it.”
“Eamon and his friends may prove difficult to kill without magic.”
Gayla lifted a shoulder. “We can handle them.”
“Who’s going to do it?”
“I am,” Gayla told her. “You never assign an important task to someone else when you can do it yourself. And you’re not in a position to do it, given that you’re the main source for the magic that we need to channel into the final operation. It has to be me.”
“And you’re going to enjoy it.”
Gayla chuckled, redoing her braid, her manner utterly casual as she discussed the murder of several people. “Maybe.”
“All those years ago, those Puritan colonists thought that they could control their world by ridding it of our kind,” Nova said. “Those men were so desperate to keep power, and our grandmothers threatened that because they couldn’t be controlled. So they found a way to kill them—some of them anyway. They should have known that there were far more remaining than they thought. It’s taken us hundreds of years to figure out the perfect revenge, and in one month’s time, this entire state will be under our control. And the best part of it is, nobody will even realize what’s happened.” Nova laughed, clapping her hands together. “That’s my favorite part. They won’t know! They’ll go about their lives, not realizing that we now control every thought they have, every feeling—everything that made them who they were. They’ll be dead people walking, linked to us through the magical force that we’ve been storing up for centuries.”
Leaning forward, she looked at Gayla intently. “Nobody can interfere with that, Gayla. Nobody can stop us from taking power. Maybe this girl would have been harmless enough if we had just left her alone, but the more I learn about her, the more I doubt it. She’s stubborn. And now she has backup whose power we don’t understand yet. Don’t waste any time. Don’t underestimate them. You do, whenever you say that she was never a threat until we made her one. We don’t know that. Take them out quickly, and make sure you don’t miss.”
That viscous light that Gayla had denied flickered in her eyes as she smiled. “My pleasure. Rest up. We only have a few weeks left to wait. I’ll report in later.”
“Report in that we no longer have a problem,” Nova told her, then she let the connection between them lapse, alone in her own house.
She stood up from the settee and floated in her flimsy dressing gown over to the bar, mixing herself a drink. Soon, she would rule Massachusetts. Not from the governor’s office or any
other public position, but from the background. Her magical power, strengthened over centuries, would flow from her, through the air and the water, and into the hearts, minds, and souls of every single person in the state. Their individuality would be destroyed. Their independence eviscerated. They would be her pawns—toys for her to play with as she wished. And only those who had proved their utmost loyalty to her would be spared. Those who had done her work would earn lives filled with every pleasure they wanted. Servants to do their bidding, lovers who served them endlessly, workforces to make them money, crowds to applaud them if they wanted.
She would have all of that and more, and Nova didn’t doubt for one moment that she had earned it. They had taken her grandmother and destroyed her mother’s life.
The fact that she had funneled her anger, loneliness, and hurt into finding the answer to immortality, forming an army of loyal followers, and manipulating their collective power to accomplish her goals … well, it was more the Puritans’ fault than hers.
She was too beautiful to be evil.
Chapter Thirty
Eamon
Working with Isabelle was exhausting. The woman was nervous, unskilled, and prone to distraction. If Autumn wasn’t there to help keep the woman under control, Eamon wasn’t sure he could have managed to stick with it.
But they were finally getting somewhere, after hours and hours of laborious work. Isabelle and her friend, Leah, had managed to construct an invisible shield around Isabelle’s house that deflected every spell that either of them managed to throw at it. They were elated with their success, dancing around the living room like young girls again and toasting each other with glasses of cheap wine.
Eamon, though happy about their success as well, was standing in a corner of the room, arms crossed over his chest, contemplating.
“You know,” Autumn said quietly, walking over to him. “I don’t want to be a downer, but isn’t it possible that their shield is only powerful enough to deflect the level of spells that they can produce?”
“Yes,” Eamon replied. “Yes, it’s absolutely possible. But I’m trying to be tactful and not bring that up to them.”
She managed a tired smile. “Good man. Better to keep them upbeat.”
“We’re moving in here,” he told her. “This is where we’re going to be safest right now. I’d like for all of us to move in here—meaning my friends as well, given that they’re targets too, undoubtedly. But I don’t think they’d agree, and it’s not strictly necessary yet. You and I, though, we’ll live with Isabelle and Craig for right now.”
Autumn’s eyebrows lifted. “I’m sure she’ll be thrilled.”
“Well, you can explain it to her in a way that will make her amenable, I’m sure.” Eamon reached out and rubbed her neck gently. “You look tense.”
“It’s been a long few days.” Autumn winced slightly, touching the side of her neck. “Careful. That feels nice on the muscle, but I still have wolf scratches.”
Turning her slightly, he looked at the other side of her neck, anger burning within him at the sight of the raw red marks marring her slender neck. Without questioning the impulse, he drew her in closer to him and bent his head low, brushing his lips along the scratches.
Autumn rested in his arms, but not as fully as she had in the past, and when his lips touched her, she didn’t glow with warmth the way he had felt her do so before. “What’s wrong?” he asked, drawing back to look down at her. “Second thoughts?”
“I know you’re keeping something from me, Eamon. Something that you think would change my feelings for you.”
Sighing, Eamon dropped his arms from her and leaned back against the wall again. “Yes.”
“That’s not fair.”
“You have enough to deal with right now, Autumn. You don’t need my troubles too.”
She gave him a look he couldn’t discern, shaking her head slowly. “What you don’t realize is that allowing me to keep falling for you without knowing what I’m falling into is every bit as bad as whatever it is you could tell me. What if I fall in love with you and then find out something that I can’t handle?”
He looked deep into her eyes, searching there for answers. “Are you falling in love with me?”
“You know the answer to that.”
“Tell me anyway.”
“Yes,” she whispered. “I know that I could fall in love with you, Eamon. Maybe it’s only been days, but I think we’ve seen each other through some fairly terrible things during those days, and I just … I know that you’re the partner I want. It’s instinctive. It’s making me overcome my fear of ever caring about someone again. It’s making me realize how lonely I’ve been. It’s making me realize that you’re the first thing I think about in the morning and the last before I go to bed, and that’s saying a lot given all there is to think about. And if you keep letting that feeling grow and—”
He stopped her flow of words by drawing her to him and covering her mouth with his. “I’m falling in love with you too, and I hate myself for it.”
“Why?” she pleaded, holding onto his arms. “Why is that a bad thing, Eamon? Why?”
“Because of the world I’m a part of,” he said, cupping her face in his hands and looking down at her, letting her see all the raw emotion in his face. “Because it’s not fair to you.”
“My life has never been fair. I lost a husband to cancer before I turned thirty years old. Tell me that’s fair.”
He shook his head. “I can’t. But that only makes my point that now, after all you’ve endured, you should catch a break. I’m not your break.”
“Then stop,” she said, her voice cracking. “How can you tell me that you’re not what I need and still hold me and kiss me the way that you do? Don’t you understand what that does to me?”
Guilt cut him deeply and Eamon released her, holding his hands up. “You’re right. I’m being selfish. I shouldn’t pull you closer and push you away at the same time.”
“Just pull me closer.”
Every single part of him wanted to do just that, but he forced himself to shake his head. “I can’t. Autumn, I’m—”
His words cut off when she turned around abruptly and nearly ran out of the room, no doubt trying to hide the tears that had begun to well up in her eyes. It hurt him so much worse to see that than to experience anything at the hand of Nova Oliveira, but however much she didn’t understand, he still felt as though he was doing the right thing. He kept trying to convince himself that she could and would accept him and that this was the direction that the clan was moving and that somehow fate had handed him this perfect woman.
But he couldn’t trust it, and if he wasn’t sure, then he couldn’t string her along just because he desperately wanted to be near her.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly, finishing the sentence that her flight had interrupted. “I’m sorry.”
Chapter Thirty-One
Autumn
Getting through the rest of the evening was difficult for Autumn. She missed her children, things with Eamon were stilted and strange, and the spells that Isabelle and Leah attempted, as they tried to put specific protections onto Eamon and Autumn, didn’t go right. One attempt made Autumn feel as though her skin was on fire, and it took ages for them to undo the failed protection. By the time they decided to disband for the evening, it was well after midnight and they were all exhausted. Craig came home and stayed well out of the way, and Autumn didn’t blame him.
She was starting to wish that she could get out of the way too.
Isabelle assigned her to one of the spare bedrooms, and Autumn spent a long time in the attached bathroom, taking a hot, cleansing shower and then staring at herself in the mirror. She was supposed to go back to work again tomorrow. They had come back from vacation early, and she’d had time today to get things in order for the girls and spend the afternoon and evening working on shielding themselves against powers she didn’t understand. But the next day, she was supposed to be at work at
four in the afternoon, and she didn’t know how she was going to do it. For one thing, she was too tired to even contemplate it at the moment. For another … her life had changed so much and there were issues so much more pressing than work that she couldn’t imagine going into work for twelve hours and abandoning the investigation they were working on.
“God,” she whispered, looking into her own eyes. “You’re looking worse for wear, Autumn.” There were shadows under her eyes, and her hair, which was short enough to dry quickly after a shower, hung around her face, doing none of its usual work to frame and set off her features. She looked tired, and she looked lonely, and she looked like she used to look when she was taking care of Robert.
But she didn’t want to be that person anymore. She didn’t want to be victimized by life and just stand there helplessly while it passed her by. She hadn’t been able to cure Robert of his cancer, but she could have done more to keep his spirit alive longer and to keep her own spirit intact through the process. Now she felt like her world was upside down again, and she didn’t want to make the same mistake twice.
Earlier that night, she had just walked away from Eamon when he had pushed her away yet again. But that wasn’t her. Autumn fought for what she wanted, and she didn’t doubt that Eamon was what she wanted. He wanted her too, and whatever was holding him back … it just couldn’t be stronger than them. It wouldn’t be stronger than her. Because she wasn’t a victim, especially not of whatever personal fear Eamon was carrying that was hurting them both.
Autumn was an impulsive woman. At least, she had been once, when there was more room in her life for such things, and she wanted to be that person again. Biting her lip, she looked at herself in the mirror for one more long moment, then she splashed some water on her face, pinching her cheeks to restore their rosy glow. Tousling her hair, she shaped it so that it framed her cheekbones nicely and swept across her forehead. Then she tugged on the silk pajamas that Isabelle had found for her, took a deep breath, and slipped out the door of her room.
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