by Rain Oxford
Henry was adamant to stop that habit, saying, “Kitten isn’t a dog and he can eat anything he wants from the buffet.” Henry himself was pretty much cured of the full-moon’s control; he could now get angry at anyone for any reason just like everyone else, and he seemed to really enjoy kissing Addison… everywhere. There was still something annoyingly proper about him, but he always mellowed out whenever he was around Addie or Scott.
Vincent, too, was more open and friendly, but I kept remembering my test, and the doubt my subconscious had. Although I could have asked Vincent about it, I didn’t want to risk losing progress we were making. Thus, I went to Hunt one day after my classes.
“Come in,” the headmaster said.
I did and closed the door behind me. We were alone. Good. “Vincent slept with my mother nine months before I was born. I found out last semester, when I had a flashback using his book.”
Hunt nodded thoughtfully and folded his hands over the book on the desk. “He did tell me what John allowed him to do.”
“Nine months. Yet he’s absolutely certain he’s not my father. There must be something I don’t know.”
He sat back. “And I take it you have not spoken with him about this?” he asked. I shook my head. After a moment, he sighed. “Vincent has always been a very repressed man. I was always… not. In fact, I have been known to be rather devious on occasion. It was one reason we were such good mates. I know there is much that went on in that family that you do not know, such as that his mother had quite a few miscarriages. After everything that he had to put up with, he developed quite the phobia of failure. Unfortunately, or fortunately, really… it depends on how you look at it… his phobia became a fear of failure as a parent. It actually took quite a lot of therapy to get him to that point.”
“So he just never wanted me?” I hated that my subconscious was right.
“Oh, no, that is quite incorrect. When I told Vincent that he would have to give up the one thing he treasured the most, he was paranoid that it would be a child. He was so terrified, in fact, of being a failure as a father because of the key that he asked me to do something very horrible. I was his friend, though, and I thought that meant allowing him to make his own decisions. I was wrong, of course. I soon learned that being his friend meant stopping him from making horrible mistakes.”
“You made it so that he couldn’t have children?”
“I gave him a potion, told him what it would do, and begged him to rethink the decision. He took it and has deeply regretted it every second of every day since the moment he knew you were on the way.”
I was quiet for a moment as I let that settle. “I did a paternity test using a cup of tea he left at my apartment. It was positive. He is my father, so your potion must have failed.”
“Did it now? That is interesting.”
I nodded and turned to leave when his exact words struck me and I froze with my hand on the door. “He asked you to make him infertile and you gave him a potion.” I looked at him. “You didn’t say you gave him what he asked for. You were arrogant even then and I highly doubt you ever did anything to him you didn’t think was in his best interest. The potion you gave him didn’t do what you told him it would, did it?”
He grinned knowingly. I turned and left.
* * *
I still couldn’t quench the doubt, however, so I made a stop at my room, where Darwin was making out with Amelia. From her flushed face and the way she fingered his shirt when he pulled away from her, I figured she had recently absorbed the energy of some frisky student. Normally, I wouldn’t interrupt, but I needed to get it over with.
“Darwin, have you ever lied to me?”
He nodded. “Yep. Probably once a week. I switched out the regular coffee with decaffeinated yesterday and when you spit it out and asked if I knew why it tasted bad, I lied. Oh, and it was me who put catnip in your laundry basket, but I was trying to get Li Na interested in your scent, not Micah.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about. I mean, I’ll kick your ass for that later; Micah is still sniffing me every time I try to get coffee and if you fuck with my fuel again, I’ll bury you alive. Did you lie to me about the paternity test?”
“I have no idea.”
“What? What do you mean you don’t know if you lied?”
He shrugged. “I knew if it was negative, you would be upset and if I lied then, you would read it in my mind. So I didn’t look at the test. I just read the name and said it was positive. Thus, I don’t know if I lied or not.”
“I hate you.”
He stuck out his tongue.
Epilogue
I stepped into Hunt’s office and froze. Aside from Remington arguing with her father, I rarely encountered anyone else in the headmaster’s office. This time, however, there was a young woman sitting on the leather couch. She was blond with light green eyes and a softness to her, like she never had a dark thought in her life.
She was also crying.
“I will come back later,” I said, taking a step back.
“No, Devon, come on in,” Hunt said, standing from the chair he had set across from her. “I asked you here to meet Elizabeth Vegas.”
I shut the door behind me and approached her without sitting down. Normally, I tried not to tower over crying women, but I felt like sitting next to her would be a bad idea. She sniffled and looked me in the eye. There was something oddly familiar about her.
“You’re the one who…” She cleared her throat and tried again. “You know what happened to Reagan?”
I gaped before realizing how rude I was being. “You’re her mother?” My half-sister’s mother came to ask me for the details? I looked at Hunt for help, advice, or anything.
He nodded. “Tell her what happened. She can handle the truth.”
I highly doubted that. Nobody should be told that their child was killed because she wasn’t powerful enough to be useful.
“Please!” Elizabeth shouted, trying desperately not to cry again.
I nodded. “In late August of 2015, I was approached by John Cross. I’m a private investigator— a good one— and I said I would find her. I did. I found her in a rotting house in the woods. She was dead with signs of a vampire attack. I left and tried to call the police, but my phone was gone, so I returned. By then, her body was removed. I didn’t call the police. Expecting trouble, I accepted a job here, where I soon learned that John had hired me with that very intention. He killed Reagan to get my attention and also… according to him… she wasn’t powerful enough for him to use to his advantage.”
Anger changed her face drastically. “He killed her because she didn’t have magic?!” she snarled.
I nodded. “I killed him shortly after he confessed that.”
“Did you make it painful?”
“Not as painful as he deserved. I stabbed him in the heart.”
“That bastard didn’t have a heart!”
“I take it Reagan wasn’t born of love.”
She wrapped her arms around her stomach and stared at the floor. “She was. In my tiny town, prom is the highlight of our lives. I never wanted to leave or explore or anything. It was the freakin perfect place to grow up and start a family. But…” She swallowed. “My boyfriend and I had a fight a week before prom. I was pissed because I thought he ruined my life. I thought I was going to be made fun of. So I got online and tried to find a sophisticated, older man to show Chase up.”
“And you found John?”
She nodded and then shook her head. “He found me. Without a word online, he showed up at my doorstep. My mom tried to stop him, but he told her to leave. She did. She just walked away. He took me to dinner and shopping. It was really okay at first. I thought he was just very charismatic. I didn’t even know what that meant, but everyone always did what he said. I did, too. He told me to love him and I did. I wanted to do what he told me. When prom came, I forgot all about it. He said what we had was better than prom. I was seventeen, though. I was sure some
one was going to call the cops.”
“Did you realize then what he could do?”
She started crying again and shook her head. “When I turned eighteen, I told my mom I was pregnant. She yelled at me for an hour before John sighed, stood up… and told her to go and kill herself. And she did. She slit her own throat right in front of me. I screamed until John told me to shut up. My dad came in then. John didn’t have to say anything. He just looked at my dad and my dad walked out of the house. He never came back.”
“Were you afraid Reagan was going to have the same power?”
She shook her head. “John wasn’t interested in raising a child, so he just said he was bored with me and left. He left me crying on the floor, covered in my mother’s blood. The police thought I’d done it because the neighbors called the cops when she started yelling at me. My fingerprints were on the knife because I’d made dinner with it and the coroner couldn’t determine anything about the angle. I was arrested. Reagan was born in prison. After that, I was released and all charges were dropped because John made them let me go. Everyone in town wanted me back in prison except for Chase.”
“He was okay with Reagan?”
“Not at first. That’s what started all this to begin with; Reagan wasn’t John’s daughter.”
I grimaced and sat next to her. She immediately rested her head against my chest. “And John never found out?”
“No. I knew he could read minds, so Chase and I came to Mr. Hunt to make us forget that she was Chase’s daughter. Chase and I got married and tried to live our lives like it never happened. We didn’t even leave town. Then John came back. Reagan was four and he wanted to see if she had magic. He determined she didn’t and he was obviously sickened by it. He turned his frustration on me. He… made me want to sleep with him. It wasn’t until Reagan was killed that Mr. Hunt’s spell broke and I remembered the truth.”
A knock on the door nearly made me jump. I stood just as a big, burly man with auburn hair, sun-tanned skin, and brown eyes entered, followed by two twin boys. The boys were about three and identical with dark brown hair and dark brown eyes. They were ominously familiar.
“Reagan wasn’t John’s child,” Elizabeth continued, “but Jason and Jameson are.”
The young twins climbed up on the couch on either side of their mother. One of them took Elizabeth’s hand, hugged her, and stared nervously at my feet. The other twin crossed his arms and glared at me. I could feel him trying to invade my mind, but since I had learned many skills from my uncle, it was easy to keep him out. Instead, I focused on the boy who wasn’t looking at me. He had “help me” written all over his face… and down his bruised throat.
“Don’t look at him,” the angry brother snarled.
Someone was following in his dad’s evil shoes. “Please tell me John hasn’t done this to others,” I said. Hunt frowned deeply. “How many?”
“There’s no way to be sure.”
About the Author
Rain Oxford is a teacher who has been writing for more than half of her life. She does most of her writing in a secluded cabin in the woods with a four-pound Maltese as a companion. When she’s not teaching or creating worlds, she usually enjoys cooking, playing the piano, or photographing exotic wildlife.
Facebook Page: www.facebook.com/rainoxfordauthor
Website: rainoxford.wordpress.com
Amazon Page: amazon.com/author/rainoxford
This book was made with 100% recycled electrons. The Paranormal Society for Ethical Treatment of Mythological Creatures (PSETMC) would like to remind you to bring your griffin inside during cold nights and freak magical tornadoes. Please have your griffin spayed or neutered. If you enjoyed this book, please leave a review. Thanks for reading!
Sneak Peek at Soul Guard (Elemental Book 5)
I ignored the oppressive sense of death. The warm tingle in my palm reminded me that I had all the power I needed to free myself. At this point, I actually wanted to be purified by the fire elementals again so that the creatures of the black abyss couldn’t touch me. Or… at least until I entered the shadow pass again.
Yeah, I didn’t think that one through.
I sensed them moving all around me, remembered the horror of their eye-less faces, and was glad there was no light. Hunt insisted I learned to use the shadow pass on my own and, unfortunately, he was a “sink or swim” person. With the wisdom of “feel where you want to go,” he dropped me into the darkness and vanished.
Although I knew I didn’t actually have to travel in the shadow pass to reach my destination, it made me feel more accomplished to walk. Well, stumble. It wasn’t easy to walk on soft, uneven ground in absolute darkness with extra gravity.
I focused on my uncle’s mind. Although it was usually blocked, I had been in his mind before, so I could do it again.
Or not.
I sensed it an instant before I hit the ground hard and light returned to the world. I dusted dirt off my jeans as I stood, then groaned. “What the hell am I doing here?” I asked aloud. I was standing before the tower. Light came from four torches surrounding the tower, which were always lit if I was correct.
And I was alone.
Why would I arrive here when I’m trying to find my uncle? A harsh yowl made me look down, where Ghost was glaring at me. “What the hell are you doing here?”
Instead of answering, he turned and vanished.
Books by Rain Oxford
Elemental Book 1: Dark Waters
Elemental Book 2: Hungry Earth
Elemental Book 3: Furious Flames
Elemental Book 4: Insidious Winds
The Guardian Book 1: The Guardian’s Grimoire
The Guardian Book 2: The Dragon’s Eyes
The Guardian Book 3: God of the Abyss
The Guardian Book 4: The Demon’s Game
The Guardian Book 5: The Wizard’s War
The Awakening
