The Demigod's Legacy

by Holley Trent

  Ugh.

  “That’s the one,” Sean said. “He gave up truck driving to pursue a passion sweating over a hot griddle in the back of a converted ice cream truck.”

  “All of you couples have hooked up pretty much in the past year, right?” December asked. She’d heard of friends introducing their besties to their significant others’ friends, but all of the Foye siblings having gotten their lives together in such short succession reeked of supernatural intervention. As much as December adored Sean, he was a self-proclaimed bag of dicks. She hadn’t met his brothers, but according to Sean—and everyone else in town—they were grade-A tools, just like him. Too bad Tito hadn’t encountered any of that magic. Maybe he would have called her if he had.

  Sean shrugged. “Little over a year ago.”

  “Sounds like that movie Seven Brides for Seven Brothers,” she said with a titter.

  The slight smile Hannah had been wearing dissolved as she cleared her throat and took Cruz’s hand. “So, are you gonna trust our taco-scouting skills?”

  Cruz shrugged. “I guess. At least this time. If they’re bad, I won’t listen to you again. Mrs. Estobal says I should only give people one chance to disappoint me.”

  “She said that, huh?” Sean asked in an undertone.

  December grabbed her purse and the room key from the dresser, and then turned off the television set. “Do you know her?”

  “In a manner of speaking.”

  She propped her hands onto her hips and sighed. “Why do you always have to be so coy?”

  “I have no idea what you mean.”

  “Sure you don’t.”

  Hannah and Sean led December and Cruz across the motel parking lot and headed southwest in the direction of the park. They were on what Alicia always called the “backside” of a town—on the fringes, far from the action. The cheap seats, in a manner of speaking. Maria was small enough, though, that five minutes later, they were walking past a mix of beautiful two-story colonials and stately old haciendas with manicured lawns and hand-painted mailboxes.

  December whistled low. “Must have cost a pretty penny.”

  Sean glanced over his shoulder, ostensibly to see what she was looking at. “Oh. Yeah. Most of the folks who live in this part of town have been here forever. Their ancestors were among the first settlers. And then, of course, there are a few who got in during The Great Depression when land was cheap, but nobody wanted land because it came with tax bills.”

  Cruz stopped in front of a two-story home with a huge wraparound porch, and clenched her little fists around bars of the cast iron gate.

  Her expression was wistful, and December could certainly understand the home’s appeal. It was a huge step up from the basement apartment she and Cruz lived in. The apartment had been all December could afford on her pay and still be able to take college courses at night. She hadn’t yet decided, though, if living in her sister and brother-in-law’s basement was practical or just pathetic.

  “That’s the house, Mommy,” Cruz said.

  “Yeah, it’s a nice one. Maybe someday, you can buy me one just like it.” December tweaked Cruz’s nose and then put a hand to her back to get her moving again. Although she appreciated their hospitality, she didn’t want to jam up Sean and Hannah’s schedule all evening. They had to have other things to do, and there was no way they’d be able to converse for much longer without bringing up the reason why she’d come to Maria in the first place. She didn’t want to talk about Tito. Thinking about him was hard enough, and she still had to go home and listen to her sister say, “I told you so.”

  Cruz dug in her heels and tightened her grip on the bars. “No, Mommy. That’s the house.”

  “I know you like it, but it’s a little bit out of my budget.”

  “No.” Cruz emphatically stomped a foot. “In the pictures from school. Don’t you look at my pictures?”

  December cringed. She’d, of course, given every item Cruz brought home in her backpack at least a cursory glance, but there was always so much crammed into the bag. Scraps of paper that showed off Cruz’s advancing scissor skills, vignettes that were more glue than glitter—the glitter had a sparkly party at the bottom of her backpack every week—preschool pottery efforts that didn’t stand up quite straight, but still managed to hold December’s makeup brushes upright enough.

  December cherished all of it. She just couldn’t remember all of it.

  She closed her eyes. Let out a breath. Squeezed Cruz’s shoulders. “I’m sorry. Tell me about the house.”

  “I painted a picture, Mommy. And made a collage. I see this house all the time.”

  December opened her eyes in time to see Sean giving Hannah a pointed look and Hannah giving her head the smallest of shakes.

  She was about to confront them on their continuing strange behavior when Cruz poked a hand through the gate slats and pointed to the door. “There’s a cat in the door.”

  There was. Not a living, breathing one, but one fashioned into the metal of the storm door. The beast was some sort of wildcat with its fangs bared and mouth opened wide in a roar.

  The somehow-familiar image made a chill shoot down her spine. The image was hardly a welcoming one.

  “Heck of a thing to put on a door,” she whispered.

  “You said you see the house all the time,” Hannah said to Cruz. “What did you mean by that?”

  Cruz shrugged and stepped away from the gate. “I just see it in my head.”

  She started moving toward the tacos again and December chuckled nervously at the Foyes. “She’s always had a really big imagination.”

  Without another word, she took off after Cruz. She didn’t want them to think her baby was crazy. Cruz wasn’t crazy. She was silly and stealthy and creative. Sometimes she said off-the-wall things that were oddly precocious for a preschooler, but December had always blamed television for that.

  Cruz had nearly reached the corner and the end of the large property, but December had to stop upon catching sight of the vehicle parked in the open garage: a near-antique sedan in the same brown-and-gold color scheme she’d seen earlier in front of Tito’s house.

  “What in the world?”

  Hannah caught up to Cruz and took her hand.

  December looked back to the garage, and pointed. “I know that car,” she said to Sean, who’d stopped beside her.

  “Yeah. Everyone in town knows that car.”

  “That’s where she lives? Mrs. Perez, I mean.”

  “For as long as I could remember.”

  “Why would Cruz have seen that before? She’s never been past here before today.”

  He out a hand to the small of her back and tried to get her moving. “Come on, Dee.”

  “No.” She ducked out of his hold and went back to the fence. “This doesn’t make sense. Something’s not adding up. This whole thing has just been too weird. You guys acting funny. Cruz is seeing things that shouldn’t be familiar. Then Mrs. Estobal showing up here out of the blue?”

  “I think you’ll feel better after a taco.”

  “I don’t want a taco. I want this tight feeling in my belly to go away. I want this feeling that something’s wrong to go away.”

  “Let’s keep moving anyway, all right?”

  “Why?” December didn’t wait for an answer. Cruz was already out of visual range, and December didn’t like that. She quickened her pace, and the thrashing of her heart subsided a bit when she caught a glimpse of Hannah around the corner and down the block, still holding Cruz’s hand, and Cruz chattering away.

  December put her hand to her chest and let out a dry scoff. “I swear, one of these days that child is going to give me a heart—”

  She couldn’t get out the word “attack.”

  Sean had pushed her back against a building and out of nowhere, seemingly, he’d pulled a gun. He pointed it at the slow-moving SUV that stopped in front of them—the same one that had given December a hell of a fright earlier.

  “Can’t b
e around all the time, Foye,” the man called out. “Tito couldn’t be, either.”

  “Get the hell out of here.”

  “Where’s your wife? Maybe I’ll go bother her instead.”

  “She can take care of herself. Get anywhere near her, though, and I promise you won’t have hands left to bother her again, or even a throat to pull breath through.”

  “You kiss your wife with that dirty mouth, cat?”

  “Sean, what’s happening?” December whispered.

  He didn’t respond, but seeing as he was busy having a staring contest with the sneering man in the backseat of the SUV, she really shouldn’t have expected one. She was afraid to take her eyes off him even for a moment, but did, to note the driver. He’d rolled his window down, too, and was looking with one of those expressions that hinted that he was far too pleased with himself.

  The guy in the back had his gaze locked and loaded on December again. Dark eyes. Hair shaved on the sides and the rest slicked back into a ponytail. His earlobes were stretched with wide ornate discs, his lower lip pierced, and his septum sported a thick hoop. She couldn’t make out the pictures from where she stood, but he was inked from his sharp cheekbones all the way down his neck. The combination should have been off-putting, but somehow managed not to be. If it weren’t for the malice in his eyes, he would have been stunningly attractive.

  “I guess Tito didn’t get him a virgin this time,” he said.

  Sean gave her forearm a silencing squeeze.

  She hadn’t been about to say anything, but her body had reflexively moved toward the SUV.

  “Pretty, though. Good enough.” He banged the hilt of his funny-looking knife against the outside of the door.

  The driver hit the gas, laughing as he rolled up his window.

  Sean wouldn’t let her move until the SUV was completely out of sight, and then he got her moving in the direction Hannah and Cruz had walked in.

  “Sean, what the hell was that about?” December tried to keep up with Sean’s aggressive pace, but he was far more sure-footed on the uneven old sidewalks than she was. “Sean, answer me!”

  He had his phone to his ear and was talking a mile a minute by the time they reached the small gift shop Hannah had tucked into with Cruz.

  December grabbed Cruz, who seemed oblivious to the distress of the grownups with her, and held her tight. Then she tried to concentrate on the words coming out of Sean’s mouth. She didn’t understand it all, but she caught “your cousin,” “hellmouth,” “Lola,” and “the ranch.” Lastly, he said, “Get there now.”

  He shoved his phone back into his pocket.

  December opened her mouth to ask him a number of very, in her opinion, obvious questions, but before she could get them out, Hannah said, “Meeting Tito at the Double B?”

  “Yeah. Ten minutes, he said. He’ll be there before we will.”

  “Let’s go.” Hannah held the gift shop door open and waved them out. “I’m sure Lola will catch up soon enough.”

  “Mrs. Perez? Why?” December demanded.

  Hannah sighed, then took off at a sprint in the direction the SUV went in.

  Sean got December and Cruz moving in the opposite direction. “Come on. Too far to walk. We’ll drive. You’ll be safe at the ranch.”

  “Safe from who?”

  “Dee, please. Just give me a few minutes, all right?”

  In all the years she’d known him, he’d never used that serious tone on her, so she closed her mouth, terrified, and clutched Cruz tighter.

  “Does this mean we don’t get tacos?” Cruz asked.

  chapter FOUR

  Tito accepted the slotted spoon the glowering manager of the Double B ranch thrust at him and got the hell out of her path.

  Belle may have been the youngest of the Foyes, but she was the daughter of a Cougar alpha and a human mother with low bullshit tolerance. Tito may have been a demigod, and she was barely legal to drink liquor, but that didn’t stop her from trying to put him in his place on occasion.

  “Stop being mad at me,” he said from the corner he cowered in.

  She ripped the paper flap off a bulk box of taco shells and cut him an evil glare.

  He sighed.

  “You should be in that room right now.” She pointed to the general direction of her mother’s dining room. Glenda’s house was an unofficial gathering place for the glaring, and had been since her late husband Floyd had led the group. His eldest son Mason had inherited the role, and Tito was happy with the arrangement. He didn’t want the responsibility of the glaring, and was reminded of why, when Sean had called him after confronting Necalli in town.

  Even if Tito had possessed the bold personality of a glaring leader, if he’d had the job, he’d make his problems the problems of the group. Necalli had already tried to attack the glaring once.

  A year ago, Ma had banished Nec and the rest of his shifter pack through the Foye hellmouth, and the last everyone knew, the men were still wandering in the realm of the damned. Somehow, he and his buddies had gotten out, and just that quickly, Nec had found someone that belonged to Tito.

  If Tito had been alpha material like Mason, Nec might not have gotten another chance at terrorizing anyone. He would have killed Nec himself long ago and borne whatever consequences that came of murdering the son of a god, but he was too soft.

  His mother always said he was too soft.

  “I’d kill for my father to still be alive,” Belle said. “You should be in there talking to that little girl. Let her have hers.”

  Tito rubbed his eyes and swallowed. His throat had gone tight and so dry. “Right to the gut, Belle, huh?”

  “I’ve never hashed my words with you.”

  “I know.”

  “You’re the grown-up. You can’t be afraid of her. She’s three-and-a-half feet tall and has freckles. Talk to her.”

  “And her mother, too, huh? I don’t know if you noticed, but she was spitting mad when she got here.”

  “Can you blame her? She’s probably scared as hell and nobody’s telling her anything. You need to tell her. There’s no escaping it now. No more secrets. And Tito?”

  He dropped his hand from his face. “Yeah?”

  “No one else is going to do your dirty work for you.” Belle stood the taco shells on their bases inside a deep, wide casserole dish and then slid them into a warm oven. “I’m sorry things unfolded this way. You know how skittish Steven is about all the paranormal stuff. Every time we come out of a hellmouth, I have to spend twenty minutes settling him, but he’s my mate and I know that’s part of my job.”

  “Yeah, but the difference between me and Steve is that the things that terrify him can’t really hurt him. He can compartmentalize for a little while at a time, so he can do the work he needs to around here. I can’t. The threats against me don’t vanish if I walk far enough away. They follow. I deal with them frequently enough that even the sheriff is starting to question if having me on staff is as smart as he thought. Got jumped a few weeks ago, actually.”

  “I didn’t hear about that. By who?”

  “Hell if I know. Nowadays, I shift into my cougar form, bite first, and ask questions later. Most of the time, the threats go away when they see I’ll fight back. I can take care of myself just fine. That’s not the issue. But to bring someone else into the equation?”

  “Someones.”

  He nodded.

  Belle emitted a ladylike grunt and shrugged. “Listen, I don’t know what you need, but I know what you have. You have a mate. Act like it.”

  Her voice had a snap to it that may as well have been the lash of a leather whip across his cheek.

  She pointed to the pan of ground beef on the stove. “Stir.”

  He stirred.

  “Okay. I can’t put myself in December’s shoes,” she said. “I was born a shifter and have always had a good idea of who my foes were, and she’s an outsider. Still, I think you have to give her the information and let her choose whether or not s
he should stay away. That’s the fairest thing for her, and for Cruz, too. You need to do right by her.”

  “If this were a matter of just writing a check, I would have already.”

  Belle let out a dry titter, grabbed him by the cheeks, and shook his head like a Magic 8 Ball. He couldn’t tell what the outlook was when she looked into his eyes, though, only that it couldn’t have been good.

  “You’ve been my friend since I was a little girl, so I’m not gonna let you mess this up. We’re not going through this shit again with another one of you lugheads. You’ve got a mate. Man up and do what needs to be done. If there’s bloodshed required and you don’t want to do the job? Just call me. Cougar PMS is a vastly underutilized weapon. I’ll be thrilled to hurt someone for you three or four days out of every month.”

  Donning a tight grin, Tito stirred the meat again, anything to put his back to the woman. She was right, of course. She’d seen her brothers’ struggle with accepting their mates and all the hardship the resistance brought to the family, and from her perspective, coming together should have been so much easier. But Belle didn’t know the whole story.

  “Belle … ”

  “I don’t want to hear your sob story. Tell it to December.”

  “So, you’re just gonna stay mad at me, huh?”

  “Yeah, because I expect more from you.” She pointed to a ceramic serving dish and then pulled open the refrigerator door. “Dump the meat in there. Take it into the dining room. Then, perhaps ask the kid who doesn’t know yet that you’re her daddy if she’d like a taco.”

  He grimaced and transferred the meat. “And then what?”

  “And then get ready to chase your mate across half the county, I guess, because she’s not gonna want to hear what you have to say, but she needs to hear it. She needs to know why you bounced.” She tossed a bag of shredded lettuce and three-cheese blend on the counter and snarled at him, “Go.” Belle pointed to the dining room.

  Tito went, carrying the meat with him. Each step was heavier, slower, like he was trudging toward his doom, and no matter which direction he went in, his fate would be the same.

  He caught December’s gaze as he set the bowl down, and he didn’t have time to process whether it was hostile or neutral or otherwise. The leaf green of her eyes was a trigger to memories he’d been trying to forget for six hundred years.