by KD Jones
“Miss Knight, my name is Bingley and it will be my pleasure to drive you this evening.”
“Nice to meet you, Bingley. You can call me Cass.”
He gave her a friendly smile and helped her into the back of the limousine. She had never been in one before and couldn’t help but press every button and pull out all the different compartments. She had to give it to her grandfather, he knew how to ride in style.
“So, Bingley, how long have you worked for Mr. Knight?”
“I have worked for him forty years now.”
“Is he...what’s he like?”
“I don’t understand your question.”
“Is he a good boss? How does he treat his employees?”
She’d always believed that how a person treated those who worked for them or waited on them showed who they really were. If customers were demanding perfection or got short-tempered because she had taken too long to refill their coffee cup, then that just showed her they were assholes.
“He is a fair employer, otherwise I would not have remained with him for forty years.”
Okay then, that was probably all she was going to get from the man. She sat back and let her senses reach out around her. The driver was definitely human, she sensed no underlying powers or evil. Glancing out the window, she could tell that they were heading towards the more affluent area of Grosse Pointe. She had never been this way before, so she soaked up the view.
They pulled onto the main road, Lake Shore Drive, and then into a long driveway. Her first impression of the house was that it wasn’t a house but freaking mansion. It had to be three stories, all made out of stone.
The car stopped and the driver opened the door for her. When she got out, she couldn’t help it, she walked over to a short wall that circled around the back of the property. “Is that the lake?”
“Yes.”
Sadly, it was too dark for her to get a really good look at it. She hadn’t been to the lake since she was a child. The driver cleared his throat.
“Is everything okay?”
“Yes.” She turned to follow him up the stairs and the front door opened before they even got there. It was a butler. Damn, this was like walking into Bruce Wayne’s mansion. If the butler’s name was Alfred, she was going to freak out.
“Good evening, Miss Knight. My name is Leonard. Did you have a good drive over?”
“Uh...it was a lovely ride, thank you. You can call me Cass.”
“Mr. and Mrs. Knight are waiting for you in the parlor. Dinner will be served shortly. I will come to escort you to the dining room.”
“Oh, okay.”
Following the butler down the hallway, she looked at the portraits on the walls. Many portraits had people from different time periods, dating as far back as what looked like the Middle Ages.
“This way.” Leonard motioned for her to enter a room to the right.
She nodded her thanks to him and spotted her grandfather talking to a woman who had her back to her.
“Here she is now.”
“I hope I’m not late.” She didn’t know what else to say.
The woman turned to greet her. “Welcome to our home, Cassandra.”
“Thank you.” Cass’s breath caught at the beauty of the older woman. She had golden brown hair with silver highlights around her face, all pulled up into a very intricate updo.
She wondered if she should do something like hug them or at least shake their hands. It was a very awkward moment, but the woman came to her and took her hand and held it for just a moment.
“I’m thrilled to meet you finally, Cassandra. I’m Avenia Knight.”
“Nice to meet you, too, and call me Cass.”
“Come and sit down. Dinner should be ready in just a few minutes. I want to get to know my granddaughter.”
Avenia took her hand and led her over to the loveseat, motioning for her to sit next to her. Abraham sat in a chair across from them and picked up a paper he had laid on the table next to him.
“Tea?” Avenia asked.
“What?”
Avenia picked up a teapot that had been sitting on the coffee table in front of them. “Would you like a cup of hot tea?”
“Yeah...yes, thank you.”
Avenia smiled as she poured the cup. Cass couldn’t help but admire her grace and sophistication. Obviously Cass hadn’t inherited those qualities from her. It made her curious as to whether she was more like her mother.
“Tell us about yourself. I feel horrible for not knowing anything. I’m anxious to correct that situation.”
The way she said it made it sound like they had stopped writing to one another for a year or two instead of having never actually met.
“Where do I start?”
“From the beginning.”
“I was found wandering the streets when I was about eight years old. I didn’t know who I was or where I came from. All my memories were just...gone.”
Avenia looked over at Abraham in concern. “A mind walker demon could have taken her memories.”
Abraham looked up from the paper. “It could have been a blood demon or a spell placed on her. I will find the truth, though. I have someone working on that.”
“Good, I want answers,” she said firmly, then remembered Cass was next to her and turned to smile gently at her. “We all do.”
A throat cleared by the doorway. The butler was there. “Dinner is ready to be served.”
“Excellent.” Abraham waited for Avenia to stand then looked at her. Wow, talk about manners. She would need to brush up on hers if she spent more time with these people.
Abraham held out an arm for his wife and Cass followed them out of the parlor and down the hallway to the dining room. Holy crap, that was a long-ass table. It could probably seat thirty or forty people easily. It was set for just the three of them.
Abraham pulled out the chair for Avenia while Leonard pulled out the chair for her. No sooner had they sat down than three people came out of the kitchen carrying platters. They set them down, one in front of each person, and waited until everyone was ready to lift the covers at the same time. It was highly impressive, which she was sure was the intent.
The aroma from the food was absolutely divine. They each had a rack of lamb with some kind of cherry sauce. She felt a moment of panic because this was the fanciest meal she had ever had, aside from the lunch Abraham had taken her to. She didn’t even know which fork she was supposed to use.
Glancing over at Avenia, she mimicked whatever she did. At her first bite, she closed her eyes and almost moaned in pleasure.
“How is it, dear?” Avenia asked.
It tastes like an orgasm in her mouth. Thankfully she didn’t say that out loud. “It’s delicious.”
“Our cook came from France, top of her class. We’ve had many of our friends wish they could steal her away.”
“Well, whatever you’re paying her, she deserves it.”
Abraham chuckled. “That’s what she keeps telling me.”
They all laughed and some of the tension left the room. Was this what it was like to have family meals? Would they have Sunday dinners where she was expected to come over dressed in her best?
“You never finished your story about what happened to you,” Avenia encouraged.
“Not a lot more to tell. I went from foster home to foster home until I finally had enough and ran away to live on the streets. I’ve been on my own ever since.”
“She has the Knight’s desire for control and success,” Abraham commented with pride.
Shaking her head, she stared him down. “It was more about survival.”
“If you knew nothing of who you were and what you were, then how did you find out about your powers? You do have powers, don’t you?” Avenia asked, suddenly looking anxious.
“Yes, I have powers, but I’m only now learning how to use them. I didn’t know anything about demons and angels except what was in books until a few months ago. I was attacked by a demon and wou
ld have been killed if not for...friends of mine.” She wasn’t sure telling them about Father Raphael or Michael would be a good idea. She didn’t know if she could trust her own grandparents—if they really were her grandparents. This whole thing could be a set up. Exactly the kind of thing Father Raphael would have warned her about, which was why she hadn’t told him about meeting her grandparents.
“The demon told me who I was and Ari confirmed it.”
“Ari?” Avenia looked over at Abraham
“Ariellus Daniels,” Abraham confirmed.
“The mind walker demi-demon?” Avenia asked.
“Yes. Do you know him?” Cass would have to tease Ari about finding out his full name.
“Not personally. His family does not belong to the same circle or the same society as we do here on the Earthly plane. I believe he has run errands for my husband from time to time.”
“Ari rarely turns down a job, especially one that involves money or power,” Abraham said, matter-of-fact, but she could tell that he was telling Cass that Ari wasn’t as trustworthy as she had thought.
She worked to not show how this stung her and instead pretended that Ari didn’t mean anything to her. “Well, he has been very helpful in assisting me with my powers. He definitely earned whatever it was that you paid him for.”
“What powers do you have?” Abraham asked casually. At least, he tried to ask casually, but the glint in his eyes made her realize that it was the one question he was truly interested in having answered. How much should she tell them?
“I can sense power and evil and am learning to track demons.”
Abraham snorted. “Any low-level demi-demon can do that. I want to know about all of the powers you have.”
There was something in the tone of his voice that made her shiver in dread. Cass was ready to bolt. Avenia must have sensed it and stepped in to ease the tension in the room.
“Abraham, there will be plenty of time for us to find out all there is to know about our granddaughter. Don’t push her too soon. Let’s ease into it. How about after dinner, I take you to your mother’s room? I have albums there of you and her when you were little.”
Cass would have refused, but how could she? This was the reason she had come, after all, to find out about her mother. “I would like that.”
The rest of the meal went fine, if not rather quietly. She could sense the anger in Abraham slowly ease, and he eventually went back to his normal calm self...for now.
Chapter 13
Cass glanced around the elaborate room with a canopy bed draped in silk, gold-trimmed mirrors, and a chandelier. It was a room fit for a princess. She could almost picture a little dark-haired girl running and jumping on that bed.
“It’s a beautiful room.”
“We kept it just the way it was when you mother was young. Come and sit on the settee while I pull the albums from the wardrobe.”
She felt like she was in a fairy tale. Sitting down, she tried to get any kind of feelings of her mother’s presence there. It wasn’t like she could sense ghosts, but her powers were not fully tapped, so maybe she would be able to do that one day.
“Here we go. This first one is of Laura as a child and growing up.”
Cass opened the beautiful ivory album and saw pictures of Abraham and Avenia as a young couple holding a baby. Then images of that baby, her mother Laura, growing up through the years. She smiled and laughed in the younger years but as she got older, Laura smiled less and less in the pictures. She was still beautiful, but there was no joy in her eyes.
“In this second album, I’m sorry to say we only have a few years of pictures.”
She opened the album and the first image was a copy of the one the she carried with her. There was happiness and joy in her mother’s eyes. She hadn’t noticed that before, but now that she had other pictures to compare it to, she could see her mother’s love for her.
Cass had to admit, she was a pretty adorable kid. At first happy like her mother had started out, but then her smile faded and the joy in her eyes was replaced with...fear. What had happened to her and her mother to cause such a change? She didn’t think Avenia or Abraham would appreciate her accusing them of doing something nefarious.
“What happened? Why were my mother and I separated?”
Avenia looked out the window. “Your mother had been such a headstrong child. Didn’t want to listen to her parents. She got involved with an arkangel and thought she was in love. We insisted she end the relationship, we had a reputation to keep. She ran away with him. Eight months later, she came knocking on our door, wearing nothing but rags, holding a screaming infant in her arms and begging our forgiveness. Of course we took her and the child in. We couldn’t leave our only child out there in the streets for others to discover and bring shame upon our house. We couldn’t have that.”
“No...you couldn’t,” Cass repeated, feeling anger on her mother’s behalf. No wonder she ran away hoping to have a better life with the man she thought she loved. Did she really love him, though?
“Did my mother say why she went off with my father? Did she...love him?”
Avenia snorted. “She said that she did, but what did she know of love? She was barely eighteen when the arkangel seduced her. He took a child who just reached adulthood, innocent of the world, and then used her and dumped her.”
“Wait, I thought Laura ran away from my father’s people when she found out what they wanted me for.”
“Is that what the priest told you?” Abraham asked from the doorway. At her shocked expression, he moved into the room. “We know all about the Priest Raphael, and the Arkangel Michael who now resides in the church with him. I made it a point to find those who thought to take my daughter and planned to exact my vengeance when I felt the time was right.”
Oh shit! She stood up and faced Abraham. “You will not do anything to Father Raphael or Michael.”
Abraham seemed to grow in size with fury. “You dare try to tell me what I can and cannot do?”
Avenia stood quickly and walked over to her husband. “Abraham, calm down.”
“No one dictates to Abraham Knight! You will listen to me, not order me around. Is that clear?”
Cass’s own anger was starting to rise. This man used his money and power to get what he wanted, but certainly didn’t hesitate to switch to fear and intimidation towards any who refused him. Well, she wasn’t going to let him get away with that shit with her. Her palms started to glow, but she didn’t even notice it.
“I can see why my mother left, if this is how you treated her. Let me tell you how it’s going to be. If you want to have any kind of relationship with me, you won’t go near my friends. If you harm anyone I care about, I will hunt you down and take my vengeance out on you! Is that clear enough for you?”
Whoa, where did that backbone come from? She was full of surprises today.
Abraham’s anger quickly died as a broad smile came across his face. “Did you feel the power from her, Avenia? She is so strong.”
Avenia smiled proudly, “Stronger than any of us would have imagined.”
Abraham approached her slowly. “I apologize for losing my temper. I confess I usually get my way with no objections, so your defense of your friends took me by surprise. I will not harm those you care about, unless they hurt you. I will defend my family. I failed once, I won’t fail again.”
She couldn’t argue with that, a man wanting to protect his family. She had longed for a protector all her life, and now here was one in front of her. The saying be careful what you wish for rang in her head as a warning.
“As long as you agree to my terms, we can try to get to know each other.”
Avenia spoke for her husband. “We agree. Would you like a tour of the rest of the house and the grounds?”
Cass wanted to say yes, but thought better of it. She was learning that taking her grandparents in smaller doses was probably better. She still didn’t know which side of the circle her grandparents stood by.
“I need to head home. I have a class in the morning and I work tomorrow night at the diner.”
Abraham looked disappointed. “We were hoping you would move in here, into your mother’s room, and take a part-time job at my business while you were in school.”
Whoa, that was moving way too fast for her. “I’m not agreeing to anything other than spending a little time with you.”
Abraham looked like he was about to argue, but Avenia cut him off. “We understand.”
“No we don’t,” Abraham objected.
Avenia looked at him, frustrated. It was clear that Abraham might come across as the head of the household, but in the short time she had been around them, she knew that Avenia was the true force to be reckoned with.
“Look, when someone has a heart attack, they’re told to not make any big decisions like quit their job or buy a new house.”
“You’re comparing having a heart attack with getting to know your own grandparents?” Abraham looked completely confused.
“Yes, in a way.”
“What way?”
Avenia answered for her. “She’s just trying to say she wants to take this slowly. It’s smart and understandable. Abraham, she has lived on her own for a long time and has to learn that she can trust us. It won’t happen overnight or during one dinner.” She faced Cass with a sympathetic expression. “Take all the time you need, my dear, we’re not going anywhere.”
Releasing the breath she was holding, she nodded at her grandmother. At least one of them was being reasonable. “Thank you for understanding.”
“Compromise goes both ways in a relationship. We’re willing to give you time and space, but we ask that you give us something in return.”
“What is it that you want?”
“Come every Sunday for dinner, so that we can get to know you and you can get to know us.”
That didn’t sound too bad and the food was delicious. “Okay, no problem.”
Avenia wasn’t done. “Also, we ask that you work one day a week at Abraham’s office to see whether you would like to work there on a regular basis.”
“I don’t know about that.”
