Avenge (Malice Book 2)

by Amity Hope

  He sat up and I settled onto the bed next to him. The serving tray holding two servings of salad, lasagna and breadsticks was momentarily forgotten.

  I traced a finger over his lower lip. It was twisted into a frown. Worry lines bracketed his eyes.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked. I could think of a dozen things but I wanted him to narrow it down.

  “I was just thinking about what Caleb said. It’s so hard to comprehend that everything I thought I knew might be a lie. Not just about Striga…but my entire family. If I believe what Caleb says, then maybe my family isn’t comprised of a bunch of monsters. It’s almost as if…”

  He seemed afraid to say it, to feel just a spark of hope.

  “It’s almost as if the Lamia are as much to blame for the unrest as the Striga. In fact, maybe even more so. Caleb did not portray the House of Albescu in a very flattering light,” I pointed out.

  “Do you think he’s wrong? Do you think maybe he’s some radical who has twisted the facts into something that he wants to believe?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know. I don’t know him very well. He came into the picture pretty late. I do know that I trust Riley. And she trusts Caleb. I think when everything settles down it would be good to talk to them both. Riley seems a bit more levelheaded.”

  He smirked. “Caleb does come across as kind of a hothead.”

  “I think that’s because he feels so strongly against the House of Albescu and everything they stand for. He’s pretty passionate about it.”

  We both mulled over the implications for awhile.

  Tristan finally shook his head. “I can’t think about this anymore. I feel like my brain is about to implode.” He gave me a shy smile. “I don’t suppose that you’d be willing to help me take my mind off things.”

  I smiled back. “Oh, I think for the sake of your mental health, I could give it a try.”

  I gave his shoulder a gentle shove. He dropped back onto his pillow, just as I’d wanted him to do. I moved across the bed, sliding my leg over him, readjusting myself until I was hovering above him. My knees dug into the bed on either side of him. I took his hands in mine and pinned them against his pillow, one on each side of his head.

  He gazed up at me. His lips were slightly parted, his eyes slightly glazed.

  I leaned down and pressed my lips to his. It wasn’t long until Tristan was the only thing on my mind. I dotted kisses across his neck, working my way back to his mouth.

  He moaned in contentment. “I had no idea distractions could be so amazing.”

  Chapter 20

  “I do think this is an issue that you should not dismiss,” Elyse pressed. She rushed to add, “Not now, of course. Once you are fully mended.”

  “I’m sure that Tristan will take your thoughts into consideration,” Mom said. “But the decision is ultimately his. I, for one, have every confidence that he will make the right choice. In all my life I’ve never known a more responsible young man.”

  Thank you, Mom.

  Elyse had been in town for several days. Mom and Cecily had done a good job of keeping her in line. She and Tristan had only visited a few times. This was Tristan’s choice. He didn’t seem to want much to do with the woman who had abandoned him.

  Now, after having spent several days recovering, he was ready to return to school tomorrow. Elyse was preparing to leave town. This was supposed to be a farewell dinner. I felt as if it were more of a good riddance feast.

  Life should be returning to normal soon. I was looking forward to my next calculus test being my biggest concern again.

  Tonight had turned into a family dinner of sorts. Alex had readily agreed to pick up Magnolia for a few hours so that she could have a play date with Leo. We all knew that there was a good chance that the conversation would become heated. At the very least, it was likely that things would be said that my little sister should not overhear.

  Mom had offered to prepare a meal to see Elyse off. Tonight was also the last night Tristan would be staying with us. I had enjoyed having him right down the hall from me. With Elyse gone he was free to return to the cottage without the fear of being bombarded.

  “I think you’ve made your feelings on the matter quite clear, Elyse,” Cecily said. “As have we.”

  “And yet no one pays any mind to what I have to say,” she pressed.

  Mom gave her a tight smile. “I believe that works both ways.”

  “I will admit it is a bit difficult to put a lot of stock into your words,” Cecily said, “given the fact that you were clearly not very upfront with me all those years ago.”

  Elyse looked offended. “Pardon me? I feel as though I were brutally honest. I was quite candid about my relations with Hans Jaeger.” She scowled at the mere mention of him.

  “You were not upfront about letting The Council know that Tristan was in town. You asked me to be his guardian. I feel that’s something I should’ve been made aware of,” Cecily pointed out.

  “The Council is quite diligent when it comes to tracking the Striga. However, you may be aware that they don’t advertise that fact to the Lamia.” She shrugged. “I did my duty. I did not feel there was a need to bother you with the issue.”

  Cecily shook her head in frustration. It was clear to all of us that Elyse was set in her way of thinking.

  I wanted to ask if she thought it was odd that the Lamia were kept in the dark this way. I decided it was not the time, nor the place. Besides, given her way of thinking I was sure that she would simply defend their reasoning.

  “Tristan,” Elyse said calmly, “since you’ve refused to consider having your magic stripped I will have you know that I have asked Eleanor to keep a close eye on you.”

  “Why would you do that?” I blurted out.

  “Why wouldn’t I?” she countered. She gave Cecily a cool once-over. “Someone must keep an eye on him in my absence.”

  Alex’s dad had asked Lebeau to back off.

  Tristan’s mom had asked Lebeau to keep a closer eye on him.

  I couldn’t help but wonder how that was going to work.

  Tristan laughed. It was a grating sound. “What do you think I’m going to do? Walk down Main Street and blow up buildings?”

  “It’s hard to say what you are capable of, should the urge strike you.”

  “You are unbelievable. Do you know that?” Tristan grated out. It was one of the very few times in my life that I’d seen him lose his temper.

  Elyse leaned back in her seat, as if his outburst only confirmed her fears.

  I reached over and placed my hand on his knee. He glanced at me. His expression was turbulent.

  “How is it that you’re on a first name basis with The Councilwoman?” Mom asked. It was a question I had voiced to her a few days ago. She asked it with curiosity rather than accusation.

  “Eleanor has been kind enough to keep me updated on Tristan over the years,” she said. “We’ve spoken frequently.”

  Tristan looked at Cecily. She was frowning. So was he. “If you wanted updates,” he began, “then why didn’t you get them from Cecily?”

  “It would’ve been too dangerous,” she said.

  “Too dangerous or too personal?” Tristan wondered. “It seems to me that you didn’t want to be that involved in my life.”

  “Don’t be silly,” she chastised.

  “You know,” Tristan said quietly, “I used to lie awake at night worrying about you. I was afraid for you because I didn’t think you had anyone to protect you. Were you ever actually worried about me? Or did you just dump me off with Cecily because you couldn’t stand to be around me?”

  “Oh, Tristan.” It was Cecily who spoke softly as she glared daggers at Elyse. “She’s your mother. Of course she was worried about you.”

  “Right. Worried I’d become a monster. But not worried about me.” He was silent for only a moment, giving her a brief chance to contradict him. When she remained silent he plowed ahead. “Do you know where my father is?”


  Elyse placed her fork onto the table with a thunk. “Why would you ask such a thing?”

  “Curiosity?” Tristan suggested.

  “Hardly,” she scoffed.

  He pulled in a breath. “Did you tell Lebeau who I am? Who I really am?”

  “Of course,” Elyse confirmed. “She’s known all along.”

  “Good,” Tristan said.

  His words surprised me.

  He glanced around the table and shrugged. “If she’s known all of these years…” He faded off and let us finish the thought for ourselves. If she’s known all these years and hasn’t done anything about it yet…maybe she won’t do anything about it now.

  He leaned forward. His gaze bore into Elyse. “Are you sure you don’t know where Hans is? I’ve heard that you were so afraid of him. I thought perhaps you’d tracked his movements. In an effort to avoid him.”

  “You thought wrong,” she said sharply. “I’m surprised you have any interest whatsoever in that vile man. If anyone was ever unfit to be a father it was him.”

  Tristan snorted out a sarcastic laugh.

  He didn’t have to say anything. We all knew what he was thinking. His father was not the only one who was unfit to be a parent.

  “Don’t tell me you plan to search him out,” Elyse warned.

  Tristan shook his head. “No ma’am. One long-lost parent surfacing is more than I can handle right now.”

  She frowned and her eyebrows twitched. She didn’t seem to know how to respond to that.

  “But even so, you can’t be surprised that I’m curious about my father,” Tristan pressed.

  “I wish you wouldn’t call him that.”

  He gave Elyse a quizzical look. “What should I call him? You know what, never mind. What I really want to know is if he’s truly as bad as you say he is.” Without giving anything away, he continued. “I can’t help but wonder if maybe the Strigan bloodline isn’t as horrible as everyone has been led to believe. If you think about it from a mathematical perspective, chances are slim that the entire population is evil.”

  Not to mention that we had two close friends who were Strigan and far, far from evil. He kept that bit of information between us.

  “Chances are not slim,” she argued. “It’s in their blood. There’s no escaping that.”

  “But you obviously loved him at one point. Or I assume you did. Because Cecily gave me the birds and the bees talk a few years ago and…here I am.” He looked at her with raised eyebrows, daring her to deny it.

  “He manipulated me.” Her tone was cold. “He used me as a means to an end. He’s a vile man. They are all vile.”

  “They?” Tristan questioned.

  “The Jaegers, every last one of them,” she clarified.

  A muscle ticked in Tristan’s jaw as he stared his mother down. “Technically speaking, I’m a Jaeger.”

  Heavy silence pressed into the room as we waited for Elyse to qualify her answer, to change it somehow. To make what she said right, instead of something cruel.

  “Like I said,” he coldly went on, “I very much get the impression that you handed me off to Cecily because you simply didn’t want me. It had nothing to do with being worried about my safety. You dumped me off because you didn’t want anything to do with me. You know, since I’m a vile Jaeger and all.”

  “I received word from Councilwoman Lebeau today,” Cecily said. It was an obvious effort to change the subject. I think we were all relieved.

  “What did she have to say?” Mom politely asked.

  “Mr. Devane has been sentenced,” Cecily said.

  “That was a swift process,” Mom said with approval.

  Cecily nodded. “It was decided that as punishment, his magic would be stripped. After that, he will be spending the rest of his life in prison.”

  “He’s the worst kind of criminal. Having his magic stripped seems like an apt punishment to me,” Tristan said.

  A punishment that an innocent person, like himself, did not deserve, I surmised.

  “Life in prison is fitting,” I added on. Unlike human prisons, ours were more comparable to those of third world countries. I was satisfied that he’d be living out the rest of his wretched life in misery.

  I would’ve liked to have had a hand in his punishment. However, I was pleased to know that justice would be served.

  “Well then,” Mom said. “Now that we have those pleasantries out of the way, shall I serve dessert?”

  ~*~*~

  “I can’t believe she’s finally gone. I feel like I should’ve asked her to stay. I feel like I should’ve actually felt something for her. But I didn’t. I don’t,” Tristan admitted. “All my life I’ve had this preconceived idea of what she would be like. I used to worry about her incessantly. There was a time when I promised myself when I was older, stronger, I would hunt her down so that I could protect her.” He paused as he thought that over. “Quite frankly, she seems more than capable of taking care of herself.”

  “She does, indeed,” I mused.

  We had taken a walk. Not surprisingly we found ourselves by the creak that ran through Mom and Cecily’s properties. I had been out here more the past few weeks than I had in the past few years combined. The path wasn’t as worn as it had once been but with its recent use it was more worn than it had been for awhile.

  I dropped down on the edge of the creek’s bank. Tristan settled in beside me.

  “It’s crazy but now that she’s gone, I feel like I lost her all over again. But it’s different this time. It’s almost worse. Now I feel like I’ve lost the image of what I thought she would be. Of what I’ve needed her to be,” he said quietly.

  I didn’t know what to say to make him feel better. The rejection of a parent, even if it was one he barely knew, still bore a crushing weight.

  “When she said she came back to town because she heard about what had happened to me, I thought she meant that she was concerned about me. She wasn’t worried about me. She was worried about what I might do. I wish she’d never come to town,” he said softly. “She completely destroyed every dream I’ve ever had about having her back in my life.”

  I laid my head on his shoulder. “I know it’s not the same but I used to dream about my dad coming back too. He’s been gone so long that I barely remember him. Then I found out that Levi came here because of him. He sold Magnolia out. She’s not even seven yet. I don’t understand how he could’ve jeopardized her like that. Everything that happened to you…that can be traced back to him.”

  “Some great role models we have,” Tristan said glibly.

  I smiled. “At least we have Mom and Cecily.”

  “Elyse dropping me off with Cecily, that’s the best thing she could’ve done for me,” Tristan said.

  “It seems like a lifetime ago since we sat here, looking over Levi’s list, trying to figure it out,” I said. That was the night we’d been attacked on the houseboat. The night I found out Tristan was Striga. The night he saved my life.

  The night he admitted that he had feelings for me.

  “Are you nervous about going back to school?” I asked.

  “I hate to say it, but yeah. I’m not the same person I was the last time I was there.”

  I leaned into him, bumping his shoulder with mine. “No more hiding out under the hawthorn tree. You don’t have to guard your secret anymore. You don’t need to be afraid of slipping up and being found out.”

  He shook his head as he gazed out at the river. He wore a wistful expression. “I am still having a hard time wrapping my head around all of this. Not just what happened to me. But everything Caleb told me. It goes against everything I’ve ever learned, everything I’ve believed. I lived in terror of The Council finding out. Then Elyse waltzes in admits that they’ve known all along. My whole life…my whole life has been a lie.”

  “No,” I argued. “It hasn’t. What we have? It’s always been real.”

  He smiled and some of the tension faded away. “Yeah. I gues
s it has.”

  We listened to the water burbling along for a while. The wind rustled the trees and falling leaves floated like confetti around us.

  “Oh, I almost forgot.” I shifted around as I stuffed my hand into the front pocket of my jeans. I pulled out the worn band that Tristan had worn for as long as I’d known him. It was the talisman his mother had created to prohibit him from accessing his magic. I held it out to him.

  He frowned at it.

  “I thought you’d want this back.”

  He finally took it from me. He didn’t make a move to put it on. He held it in one hand as he ran a finger over it, tracing the pentagram. His expression was melancholy.

  “You know,” he said, “I have almost no memory of my mother. What I do remember of her is tied to this.” He held up the band. “I remember her telling me to never, ever take it off. I remember her telling me how dangerous I was. She pounded into my head that I was evil by nature and that I needed to fight it. I tried so hard to be good.”

  “She never should’ve laid that all out on you.” My irritation with Elyse felt as though it would never end.

  “I remember the first time Cecily wanted to practice magic with me. I had to take the band off. I hadn’t seen my mother in years and yet I was so afraid of disappointing her. It took Cecily a few months to talk me into it. She convinced me it would be safer if I practiced.”

  “At lease Cecily is sensible,” I said.

  He handed me the band. “Do you want it? Because I don’t. I don’t want to have my magic shutdown like that ever again. When those people started coming toward us on the boat, in those few seconds that I couldn’t do anything, I’d never felt so helpless. I was terrified.”

  “You were amazing.” I took the band from him and placed it back in my pocket. I understood why he didn’t want to keep it. At the same time it reminded me so much of him that I couldn’t let it go. I decided I’d put it somewhere safe and if he ever wanted it back he could have it then.

  “Doesn’t it seem odd to you,” I finally asked, “that while she entrusted Cecily with your life, she didn’t entrust her with her secrets? Why wouldn’t she have told Cecily that you were registered with The Council? Why wouldn’t she have told her that you were not the only Striga in the area? If she knew about registering with Lebeau, she must’ve known about the rest of the Striga as well. It doesn’t make sense to me.”