I said nothing. T paused, and seemed to gather his courage. “I need Theo here, and it’s true, this is more his home now than it is yours,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry to say it like that, or to tell you that you shouldn’t visit, but everyone would be uncomfortable, including you, if you came here to see Elle or me—”
“I assume this is the part where you tell me you’ll come and see me instead?”
“I’ll be coming to Hayden regularly every week, at least twice or three times to see Serena. I’ll bring Elle with me, so she can visit you. Terian can teleport us both. And if you want to spend time with me, if I have any after sleeping and working this month, just ask me, and I’ll schedule it—”
He sounded so much like Danial had. Exactly like Danial had. It was eerie.
“Okay,” I said tonelessly. “That’s good. But what about the filing?”
“Jenny will do it,” Theo said “But I really do need you to do that e-mail work for me—”
Shit! I knew there was something I had been forgetting. The thought of familiar work calmed my next words. “I’ll spend the rest of the afternoon on it. I’m sorry I haven’t—”
“I’m sorry to ask you to,” T said quietly. “I know this has been a week from hell, Mom.”
I bit my lip hard to keep from crying. “It’s okay. Sitting around doing nothing is not going to help me feel any better any sooner. Working will at least help me take my mind off everything.”
“I’ll be coming for the first time on Wednesday,” T said. “It’s the seventeenth—”
How could November be passing so slowly? It seemed like months ago that we’d gone to the Hallow’s party, and Lash had been free, and Robin and Devon alive, Danial okay...
I shook it off, getting myself under control. You can handle this. Now do it.
“I’ll see you then,” I said. “Please be careful. I love you, T.”
“I love you too, Mom.”
I hung up the phone and went back to Venus, who was regarding me very carefully, her golden eyes watchful. “Mom, Elle is coming here?” She sounded eager, and also a little scared.
“Yes, this week,” I said, kissing her forehead. “Now finish your sandwich. I have to get to work. I’m afraid I’ll have to leave you with Serena for a few hours, V.”
“Can I help?” she said hopefully.
“Not with this,” I said kindly, stroking her hair. “I have to help T with a few things. But later we’ll watch a movie, and have popcorn.”
“Dad said he had to make some arrangements tonight, that he wouldn’t be around. Do you need to help him with that, too?”
“Your dad doesn’t need me to help him with that, usually,” I said awkwardly, feeling very, very strange to be discussing this with her. “Lash usually helps him instead of me.”
“But Lash isn’t here. Who will help him, if Lash doesn’t?”
My nerves were raw and ragged. But I took a deep breath, and tried to be reassuring. “Your dad is good at what he does. He can handle it himself until Lash is back, which will be very soon. Now eat.”
Venus’s worried expression lingered, but she finished eating. After leaving her in Serena’s care, I went down to the study, and logged onto the computer. There were over five hundred emails in the Solutions, Inc. inbox. I sighed, and got to work, responding to emails without enough information, answering the ones I could, forwarding the more “clean” jobs to Theoron c/o Danial’s e-mail, and printing out the ones for Devlin that sounded more like his line of work.
Eight p.m. saw me only into the second hundred, and I’d gotten another fifty during the day. But I had promised myself the time to exercise, and so I shut down the computer, leaving the ten possible jobs for Dev to find on his desk in a printed pile. I met him as I was coming upstairs.
“I need to go now,” he said quietly, hugging me. “But don’t worry. Titus and Rip are both going with me, and we’ll only be gone for an hour.”
“Please be careful,” I said as I hugged him.
“I will be,” he said seriously. “Wait for me to eat?”
I nodded. “I left a stack of jobs on your desk.”
“Thank you, I’ll read through them later,” he replied, as he walked off.
By the time I’d exercised, showered, and dressed, Devlin had returned. “Everything went well,” he said quietly, hugging me. “No problems. But I had to meet with Tony and Thane, and they wouldn’t come here, not that I really wanted them to anyway. It’s done, though, and by the time I have to meet with them again, this should all be over.”
“Have you heard anything about Ulysses?”
“Nothing,” Devlin said with disquiet, his agitation growing. “Michael and the other Rulers know what happened to Danial, and they are keeping it quiet. It simply cannot get out that a human was able to fell a Ruler, even a newer one. They are livid that Ulysses did what he did to Danial, that he dared to do it! It is good I didn’t release Diana, as they would have tortured her even as vampire, even though she told us all she knew, just to make an example of her. Ulysses has no other relatives, Sar, no one else for them to use against him. He has no trail, according to Michael; it is if he never existed! There is no way to get him to move from his lair, to show himself! But the most worrisome is that Lash and I have talked it over, and we can find no angle here! Danial’s blood was worth a great deal, and I’m assuming he sold it to the same buyer he had for the werepelts. It would have brought him several million dollars, if not more. Enough to change his name, and disappear! Which he seems to have done. But this doesn’t fit with his revenge schemes! He would not have done all this for money—”
“He wants you to suffer. What else do you have to lose?”
Devlin paused and thought. “You, Venus, my niece and nephew, and Lash,” he said finally. “But there is no angle—”
“There must be,” I said, sitting down. “Maybe you need to ask yourself what he thinks you have to lose besides all of us. Maybe your fortune?”
“I am much too diversified to ever lose it, even a good portion of it, and certainly not enough to feel any pinch,” Devlin said casually. “When I say my wealth is vast, Sar, I mean virtually uncountable.”
Well, that was good to know. “What about your territory as Ruler of Canada? You can’t defend both territories, yours and Danial’s—”
“I have spoken to the other Rulers about that,” Devlin said seriously. “They have agreed to put Danial’s territory and mine together, as it once was five centuries ago. I will rule all of North America, as Perseus rules South America. So that cannot be the reason, Sar! I have gained territory and not lost anything!”
I shrugged my shoulders, and held him close to me, trying to comfort him. I didn’t understand Ulysses’ plans either. But I had a dark feeling that when both of us finally did, it would be a black day indeed.
* * * *
The next weeks passed quickly.
Most days were the same. I exercised in the mornings, played with Venus, and after lunch, I worked on e-mail. Every other day, I continued with my target practice. I spent only an hour at a time with a gun in my hand, but I knew too well that my recently improved aim had saved my life. I would not be letting that skill slide again anytime soon.
Later, on most nights, Dev, Venus and I watched a movie, or listened to music, or Devlin read us poetry, though Venus preferred by far for him to read her some of the books we had gotten her for her own, such as Tuesday, or Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. I sometimes made us popcorn, though not often, because it made me think of Lash by himself, and I got too melancholy to really enjoy it. But we spent time together as a family, and that was what mattered most.
After putting Venus to bed, Dev and I would usually get in the Jacuzzi for a while to get relaxed, and then go to bed, though sleep was not Devlin’s only desire, as it had been for so long. Though he was recovering his stamina very slowly, his body had completely healed. That first week, he made love to me every night for as long as he coul
d, eagerly touching my body as he murmured love poetry softly in his beautiful voice. It was soothing to me, to lose myself in his soft caresses. I enjoyed feeling his strong body against mine, his arms holding me, and his hard flesh encased in mine as he pleasured me. But I could tell even now he was a little afraid that I would leave for some reason, and so I told him finally that I would stay, at least until spring. My home was ashes, and Danial’s home was no longer mine. Most everything I cared about was here, save Elle and T. It made the most sense to me, to stay.
Devlin was pleased at my decision, though still wary in those first few days. But after the first week had passed, he contented himself some nights with just holding me, or caressing me gently. I began to fall asleep most nights in his arms, instead of him in mine as it had always been before. And every night I made sure to tell him I loved him, as he lay beside me, looking into my green eyes with his golden ones. We were getting along better than we ever had before, and to say we found happiness in each other would not be a lie.
But there was sadness in spades. The worst was that Danial did not awaken as the days passed, though Devlin gave him human blood by transfusion every week at least twice, as well as a little of his own blood. He no longer looked pale, or wan. He looked as he always had when he was asleep.
“Even if he awakens, Sar, he probably won’t be the same,” Dev mentioned one morning, as we lay in bed spooning. “He was without a heartbeat for too long. His brain can regenerate, but I’m not sure how long it will take. He also needs older blood, and it will be a while before I can give him any more. But I am doing my best to come up with a plan to restore him to us. Trust me, Love.”
I said nothing. There was nothing I could say to make myself feel any better, that the Danial we knew and loved was lost somewhere inside himself, and we couldn’t bring him back.
But some things happening were noteworthy, even if they were not happy. On Wednesday, Elle and T came to visit for the first time as he had said he would. Elle was standoffish from the first, but once she saw Venus, and how beautiful my younger daughter was, she became even more withdrawn. I could see she was jealous, but I didn’t see how to address it without calling her jealous. It didn’t help that Venus was borne of my body, while Elle was not.
So, I got Serena to take Venus for a while, and blew off that afternoon of working, and instead spent it with Elle, walking the dogs on a very long hike with her and Titus. Once she was alone with me, and some time passed, she opened up a little. I could see she missed Danial, and that she was upset, because she’d thought I would be staying with her and Theo. I told her it wasn’t her fault that I’d decided to stay with Dev, and told her again she was welcome to stay here, if she chose to. But she refused, saying that even if no one else needed her, Briar did.
“She’s missing Dad,” she said sadly. “She walks around his door, and cries for him, and also up in the office. And every time T comes out, I can see how upset she is, that he isn’t there—”
“Bring her with you and come here to stay,” I urged. “Briar can spend time with Danial, and it may do her good to see he is alive.”
“No,” Elle said. “I can’t come and live here. You know Theo would never go for it. He didn’t want me to come today. I’m all he has left, Mom.”
It was in her voice that the real reason was she couldn’t live here with Venus, couldn’t see us together every day and think of how I now had a daughter of my own blood.
I felt awful, feeling her hurt. “I’m sorry you’re caught in the middle,” I stopped walking and hugged her tightly. “You always seem to be caught in the middle, Elle.”
“It’s okay,” Elle said quietly. “And I will bring Briar on Friday, when I come again.”
“You know I love you,” I said, not letting her go. “You know it was love of you that led to me having Theoron with your dad, and my other children—”
“I know,” Elle said, her voice wavering a bit. “T told me, one night we were talking.”
We had a good rest of the walk, and when she hugged me good-bye, she almost squeezed the life out of me. But on Friday, T appeared with Briar in her cat carrier, but no Elle.
“Where is Elle?” I demanded.
Theoron shrugged, and handed me Briar. “Theo said it was too dangerous. He said he’d lost one child, he wasn’t going to lose another. Elle is under house arrest, practically. She’s furious.”
Having a new stepmother figure probably wasn’t helping. Elle remembered Tasha too well. But there was nothing I could do. Maybe Theo was right, that I was putting her in danger.
Briar was overjoyed to see Danial, and curled up next to him immediately, purring. When T went to leave, Briar refused to be captured, running from room to room to evade us, until finally T agreed to let her stay.
“Work on Theo, please?” I said, as I hugged T good-bye. “I want to see Elle.”
“Mom, you know how Theo gets. He said when I tried that Elle wasn’t really your daughter anyway—”
Asshole.
“—and that you could talk to her on the phone.”
I made it a point then to call Elle every day at eight, before I had a late dinner with Venus. For a while that worked, until I began to get no answer when I called. I spoke to T about it on the eighteenth of November, and he said Theo had instructed Elle not to talk to me. I said a few nasty things in retort, and T insisted he would talk to Theo, and try to get him to change his mind. He also said Elle had written me a letter, and he would bring it with him the next time he came. I told him I would leave everything for now, but if he hadn’t solved it by December first, I would be showing up in the great room on December second, whether anyone wanted me there or not. T said that was fair, and that he was sorry.
I raged to Dev about it, and he comforted me, but he said there was nothing to be done. He knew as well as I that I had no legal right to Elle, just as Danial didn’t. We had never formally adopted her, when Theo was gone those years, and that was coming back to bite us in the ass now.
That wasn’t all Theo was up to, of course.
A week after Theo’s attempt to change me, on the twenty-first, he sent me a certified letter. Well, actually, his lawyer sent it. I opened it, expecting to have papers to sign, asking for a separation. But I got a surprise. Instead, I found a notice, telling me that on January twentieth, our divorce would be final. And Theo’s wedding ring was enclosed, as was my watch.
I read the papers with shock, Devlin reading them too, over my shoulder.
“He must have gone through Danial’s files,” I stammered. “Danial must have saved those papers we signed, the ones I’d been going to fax to my lawyer back in late January of last year. He must have forged my signature, and bribed someone at the courthouse for this.”
“It’s good that he did,” Devlin affirmed. “The sooner he’s divorced from you, the better for you. This way, you will only have to wait another month and a week, or so. According to this, you are already legally separated.”
I agreed that was probably best, though I felt a pang of regret. I’d fought so hard for Theo, so hard to stay his wife, to keep us together. I felt a twinge of guilt now that I was giving him up almost without a fight. But I’d never trust him again, and I couldn’t be werecougar for him. And that was the end of it.
“You can take my name, Sar, if you wish,” Devlin said in a low tone. “Or Danial’s, if you prefer it to mine, though ‘Dalcon’ sounds much more elegant than ‘Racklan’—”
I hadn’t even thought of that, but realized with a start that I was going to have to think about it. And sooner, rather than later. I didn’t want to be ‘O’Connor’ anymore, anyway. I wanted to be myself. And I already had a name, a good one.
“I’ll go back to McGarran, for now,” I said firmly. “I don’t know why I changed my name in the first place, honestly. I didn’t when I married Brennan. In fact, I swore I never would—”
“Some of it may have been the spell,” Devlin whispered. “Titus told me he had
broken it, and that there might be a backlash. He had to use the Hellfire, Sar. He said nothing else would break it. That he tried everything else first.”
I shivered. Hellfire; real Hell fire. Cringe.
“But he asked me to pass on to you that he did take Aran’s memories, and Cia’s, and Janice’s. Aran told only Cia what had happened, according to his memories. So we still don’t know who told Terian about what really happened between you and Lash.”
I couldn’t worry about that now. “Can we go and lie down for a while?” I said, hugging him. “I need to not think.”
“I’m sure I can find a way to distract you,” Devlin said with a slow enticing smile, taking me by the hand. “Come with me, my dear.”
“Wait.” I looked down at my finger, at Theo’s ring, and the wedding band I’d worn now for a little over a year. I quietly slipped them both off my finger, and put them on the table, near Theo’s wedding band. Then I took Devlin’s hand again, and led him to our bedroom.
* * * *
I finally got to talk to Titus a week after getting Theo’s letter. He gave me a welcoming hug, and then said without preamble, “What happened with Theo?”
“He doesn’t love me anymore,” I said bluntly, not wanting to discuss it. “He told me he was leaving me for Jenny, and I left. It was over quickly.”
I was lying, but what else could I tell him? If I told him what had really happened, he would be livid. I knew what my mother would have done to Theo. My demon father figure would probably do worse, and that was saying something.
“Good,” Titus replied, obviously relieved. “I asked Terian to be on call, in case you needed him. I thought there might be...well, never mind. I’m sorry to hear you are splitting up, but glad to hear that it was amicable, or as amicable as such things can be.”
I hugged him, then changed the topic to something else. There was no point going over that night ever again.
In the following weeks, I did finally notice a few positive changes.
Elle once again took my phone calls. She’d written me two letters every week, but it was good to hear her voice again, even if I still couldn’t see her.
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