William nodded. “I cannot dispute those facts. Nevertheless, she is also other.”
“Okay... so what? This is the best damn news this century!” Cyn yelled, clapping her hands together. Julia looked around her at the serious faces.
“Wait a sec,” Julia looked at Cyn then Marcus. “Why does everyone look like their puppy died?”
Marcus put his hands on his hips and looked at Scott. “You are not pure Singer, you are many things. And if it be that there is vampire, and also Were... what else might there be?”
“I don't understand how this changes things?” Julia asked. “I mean, my blood chose him so everything is still a go. And she can't...”
“Do the dumb ass overthrow...” Adi said and Julia gave a slow nod. That was it- crude, but the truth.
“No she cannot,” Marcus agreed.
“But?” Julia asked, waiting for the other shoe to fall.
“There is the question of the third,” Marcus replied.
Julia's mind turned over the facts. Reagan had appeared and would become an advisor of sorts as foretold, in a deeper magic than anyone had dreamed of coming to fruition. There would be one more, a female vampire. When all the pieces were in place the puzzle would be complete. The question now was when. Julia was perplexed over how Scott's lineage mattered. “What's wrong? So what if Scott's mixed?”
“It adds uncertainty for the future. The vampire female has not been identified, until she presents herself, it is akin to...” Marcus paused and surprisingly, it was Jason who responded, “An engine without all the parts.”
William nodded. “Precisely,” he replied in a tone that held surprise. The two men looked at each other and Jason expounded, “I'm pissed, not stupid.”
“Okay... still not seeing the issue,” Cyn said, flipping her palm out.
They looked at Jacqueline who gave a small dazed smile. “If it be that the female is tied to me, then my relation would be in the inner circle... I would still be victor.”
Even in her stupor she's scheming, Julia was amazed to note.
“The chances of the one component needed to settle this... being a relation of yours?” Reagan scoffed, “is nil on the odds, Singer.”
“But not impossible,” she said in an abbreviated cackle.
“William?” Julia asked and hated that her voice sounded like a plea.
He shook his head. “It is unlikely.” She saw his reluctance to continue but knew he would. “But possible.”
“What a disaster,” Jason said.
Scott agreed. He'd had several nasty ass revelations in the last few weeks and this was definitely one of the worst. Not only was he soulmate of Julia, he was now of unknown Were and vampire lineage.
Drinker ancestry flowed in his veins. He turned his head and watched the expressions of his siblings. Half siblings.
They were empty. As empty as he'd ever seen them.
Scott looked at Jacqueline and she smiled.
He gathered Julia closer against himself. A storm was coming, he could taste the rain in the air. The question was, would they survive it?
Could they?
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Alan
He took his sister's hands within his own and stopped the tremble that had been there.
“Does he know?” Lacey asked, looking at him through the veil of her black lashes.
Alan shook his head and she breathed a sigh of relief.
“He hasn't asked and I haven't felt the need to tell him. As a matter of fact, Reagan took care of him in a most satisfactory way.”
He watched his sister shudder at the reference to Anthony Laurent and he wanted to kick Tony's ass until his foot fell off. Instead he gathered Lacey closer. Alan stroked her hair and murmured, “He knows who she is now, Lace. There's nothing we can do about that.” Alan carefully avoided mentioning Tony by name. It never failed to illicit a flinch from his sister. There was enough tightness around her light brown eyes without the mention of that bastard.
“He will know that his life is spared as long as Reagan lives.” Her voice sounded desolate, like a desert that hadn't had a drop of water in a year—bare and dry.
“Yeah, goddammit,” Alan exhaled in an exhaustive push.
Lacey turned in his arms and laid her small hands on his shoulders. “What about me? Can he... will he...?”
She couldn't finish but Alan did, putting his finger on her lips to silence her words. “He will not. The pack didn't protect you enough when it happened...”
“It's alright Alan, you were a whelp.”
Alan's hands became fists at his sides. “It doesn't matter.... I should've done something!” he exploded. Sorrow laced with anger vibrated through his words, the heat of his wolf rising, squeezing the air between them like an unseen noose.
Lacey's hands made their way to his face. “Look at me, brother.” He did, reluctantly. Her soft eyes, like crushed milk chocolate, pierced his with their love, their understanding. “It is not your fault, it is his.” Lacey's gaze moved to the knotted hands in her lap. “He bears my mark against him... forever.”
Alan put a finger underneath her chin and lifted her face until their eyes met. “It's the one consolation.”
She nodded. “He is cursed from mating.”
Alan's lips curled. “He doesn't know.”
Lacey shrugged. “I didn't know either until Reagan became.”
He met her eyes again. “Then we all knew. A fitting justice.”
Lacey nodded in agreement, once. “I suppose...” she took in a deep breath, “...that is vengeance enough.”
Alan shook his head. “It can never be enough for what he did to you.”
They sat there inside the Region One guest quarters and simply held each other, saying nothing.
While Reagan dreamed of avenging her mother.
*
Julia
“Tell me,” Julia said. And it wasn't a question but her first demand from the female Were who would be her advisor.
Reagan walked in contemplative silence and thought of all the things she could not say, of what she planned, of an alliance that might not work and sighed.
“Do you trust me?”
Julia frowned, stopping mid-stride. “No.”
A laugh burst out of Reagan. “That's so honest it hurts.”
Julia sighed. “I don't mean to be an ass... but, I've been shuffled around between three groups, none of which really offer me anything but choices that are varying degrees of bad.”
Reagan felt her lip curl. “You know... some women might think having three gorgeous supernatural men at their beck and call for eternity sort of a fringe benefit of ruling this little posse.”
Julia felt her ire rise and turned, opening her mouth to say something scathing, then thought better of it. A visual of a bleeding Tony silenced the worst of her protests. Instead, Julia tried for reason. “Look, Jason is my husband...”
“Truly?” Reagan asked in shock.
Julia nodded, giving Reagan the barest amount of information. She shortened the story to just the facts and still Reagan shook her head like it was full of mothballs. “So... the Alaskan Were bit off more than they could chew.”
“Don't joke about this mess. Jason's best friend died during the attack, Cyn was left alone,” Julia looked down at her feet and breathed deeply, evenly. When she looked up, her amber-colored eyes met golden ones that were calm, patient. Nothing like the blazing twin suns that had flashed on Tony as she beat him into submission at her feet. “I was taken by the vamps before I knew what happened to Jason... but, his neck...”
Reagan touched her own throat. “He survived a killing blow,” she phrased it like a question.
Julia nodded. “Then, the vamps had me for over a year. A year of thinking my husband was dead, my friends- gone.”
“What did you do when you were held by them?” Reagan asked as she began walking again. They made their way down to the small lake, the swans absent from the still water. Reagan
could smell the Combatant not too far away and increased her pace, distancing them from the protective collective of fighters.
“I survived,” Julia said in a flat voice, almost devoid of emotion.
Reagan sat on a rock that laid close to the shore, its base buried in silty sand bordering areas that wanted to be a marsh but weren't quite there.
“And now Jacqueline...”
“Your accused murderer.”
Julia nodded. “Now she's some kind of royal Singer mixed with Were, mixed with vampire.”
“It changes nothing. She has tried to eliminate you. She is mother to your soulmate, yes?”
Julia inclined her head in the barest nod and Reagan went on, “It is a sticky pile of excrement.” She winked. Julia laughed, she couldn't help herself. Reagan had a habit of mixing old and new language together in a unique way. A way that summed up the bullshit of the moment perfectly.
After a time of silence, Julia remarked, “There was another Rare One...”
Reagan's surprise flowed over her face, giving instant expression to the usual stoic blandness of her features. Julia laughed, tucking her legs underneath her on the soft sand, still warm from the day. “Your face! It's so funny... he was male,” Julia said, looking up into the taller girl's eyes, now shadowed by the deepening twilight.
“Oh,” she said softly, her eyes filled with understanding. “So you would have been for their coven.”
Julia nodded. Her loyalties torn. “But, it's like a franchise...”
“What? Like McDonald's?” Reagan chuckled.
Julia nodded. “Not exactly but it'll do pig.”
“What?” Reagan's brows drew together.
Julia waved the movie reference away. “Each coven is different. With William's involvement... it would have been different. Gentler. And remember, I thought Jason was dead.”
Reagan looked at her thoughtfully for a moment. “Did you...?” Reagan asked without judgment.
Julia shook her head, grateful for small favors. “No, but it was moving in that direction. I mean, I had no one. Well, there was William's cousin, Claire. But that's not the same thing we're talking about here, is it?”
Reagan shook her head. “But just their little underground hole in the wall and your role as what... Singer cum breeder?”
Julia nodded reluctantly, remembering the battles within the kiss. How she was like those old-fashioned Gumby dolls, pulled in all directions. “The Vampire are very deliberate with all that. They see a Rare One as a way to solidify a thousand years of interbreeding that will give them daywalkers. They're very practical.”
Reagan grunted. “Slavery.” That one word was a derisive drop of noise in the stillness by the water, like a pebble landing in a pond. The barest breeze lifted the word and threw it around them. It's meaning lingering like an unheard echo.
“I think William wanted something different for me. For us,” Julia whispered.
“Hey,” Reagan called.
Julia tilted her head to look at Reagan, so still on the boulder, the full moon caressing her skin, burnishing it to a dull ivory. Her eyes were like liquid holes in the deepness of her face. Julia knew they looked like spun gold in the daytime but with just the moonlight they lay like pockets of dark secrets. “It's not your fault that this went down the way it did. Any more than it's my fault that my mom was brutalized by Tony...”
Julia watched a smile turn up the corner of her lips, it wasn't a nice expression. “What? What is that look on your face for?” Julia would have killed to have one more moment with her own mother. Nothing seemed amusing here, but she didn't offer an explanation for her sour memory.
“I think Tony will get his comeuppance. And I'll be there to celebrate, to revel in it.”
Julia didn't press but wanted to know what that would be. What more could she do? She'd already beaten him. Of course, he was alive. Tony still existed because of Reagan. The circle of those thoughts hurt Julia's head. If he hadn't attacked Lacey Greene, then Reagan would not exist. Since she did, he couldn't be executed, yet she'd kicked his nasty ass around. However, without those shackles, it might have not gone her way. Julia didn't say any of this. She didn't think Reagan would listen anyway. Just a feeling.
Julia folded her hands, the night holding the women in a comfortable silence. Julia was surprised how at ease she felt with Reagan already, especially with their abrasive and shaky introduction. Again, a consequence of fable and genetics. But how did Jacqueline fit into it all? Would Julia always be looking over her shoulder at an enemy that couldn't be killed? Jacqueline was back under guard now. Sleeping off the effects of the blood loss that was now energizing William.
Reagan broke the quiet with, “So what are you going to do?”
Julia said nothing.
Reagan looked down at her. “It's not a fate worse than death, you know.”
Talking with Reagan wasn't like talking with Cyn. She wasn't her bestie... but she would be a powerful person in Julia's life and she couldn't discount that. And she was a supernatural, whereas Cyn had just slid into her Singer abilities. Though, now that Julia thought about it, Cyn seemed to be accepting her new role much better than Julia had. Maybe because Cyn hadn't had the extra drama of being kidnapped, running, being captured, and running again. Julia had resisted. In some ways, she still did.
Julia sighed and said, “It's not that... maybe I could get over my squeamish sensibilities...” Reagan gave a soft chuckle at her words and Julia returned her humor with a wan smile. “But... my husband has accidentally hurt me twice and made it very clear that he's happy to... consummate,” Julia clenched her eyes shut, “... our relationship but that's it. Just a ritual of being together then he moves on.”
Reagan frowned, flipping the thick tail of her braid over one shoulder. “I see. He's going to sacrifice himself to be with you and blood bind with you for your immortality and protection- but he won't act as he should on a permanent basis.”
Yeah, that about summed it up. Julia cocked an eyebrow at her and shoved her hair behind her ears, noticing her expression. “What?”
“I know more than most.” Reagan crossed her legs at the ankle, bracing her arms behind her on the stone and Julia watched the muscles on her arms play and dance subtly underneath her skin. She gave Julia a sharp look. “When I became...”
“Like me?”
Reagan shook her head. “No, our puberty comes earlier. You Singers...” she shook her head. “Late bloomers.”
Julia smiled and gave a small nod.
“Anyway, I became and then they knew I was the Moon Warrior.
“How did they know?” Julia asked.
Reagan moved her nearly black hair, loosely bound, away from her temple and even in the insufficient light, Julia could see a crescent-shaped scar.
Like hers.
“Familiar... Julia,” Reagan commented.
“But... I got mine in the accident...” she began to explain, her fingers brushing the small crescent of her own scar.
Reagan nodded solemnly. “Yes, but what is ordained is tied,” she said, lacing her fingers together. “We are bound in many ways.”
Julia didn't want to be bound to any more people. As it was, she was bound to Scott, who she cared about- even loved. That was the lie of the soul meld, though it felt like a truth. But there was the complication of the ceremony, if she wanted to entrap the Combatant forever by taking only Scott. Or she could commit the ultimate sacrifice and marry all three, ensuring immediate unity of the groups, immortality, and free the Combatant from their obligation to protect her. It was almost too much to take in.
Reagan didn't know Julia's thought process and continued, “Suddenly,” she clapped her hands together and Julia jumped out of her skin. “I needed to become a scholar on the histories.”
“Whose?” Julia asked, leaning forward, putting her chin on her knees, scooping cooling sand between her fingers and letting it slowly trail out.
Reagan stood, stretching. “Yours, mine.
.. the drinkers.”
Julia stood as well, wiping the granules away like dark sugar. “William is a vampire.”
“Drinker” was a negative term for vampires and Julia found herself offended, though her people had burned them in the flames of a war that had spilled into Region One. William had taught her they were not all alike.
“Yes.” Reagan waited for Julia to elaborate. But she didn't. Reagan's eyes narrowed. “What's his story?”
“Well,” Julia began, looking at her hands instead of the woman in front of her, “He was tortured so Merlin's people could get to me, then he massacred the Southeastern kiss and is now their leader.”
Reagan gave a low whistle. “He gets after it, doesn't he?”
Julia just looked at her. “You have no idea. William can be savage when he's been tested- when we've been tested.”
“He has Singer blood?”
“Yeah. And he can shift to a raven.”
“Well... that's very interesting.” Reagan put her hands behind her back again, thinking. “That is rare even for a Singer?”
“Yes. But a lot of vamps who have Singer ancestry can do some... unusual stuff.”
“I bet,” Reagan said. “Makes the whole lot of them more dangerous.”
“Kinda,” Julia said and blew a hair out of her face, “depends on who you ask. William is a different guy... sophisticated... deliberate.”
“How old is he?”
“Three hundred years give or take.” Julia laughed at how ridiculous it sounded. “That sounds so weird,” she said out loud.
“It's normal to me but for you... you weren't raised as a Singer?”
“No,” Julia said. “In fact, I didn't even know what I was until I was taken.”
“What a disaster. But being a Rare One is random. You must have manifested late.”
Julia nodded. “I did. I've 'become',” Julia said, her fingers making little airquotes. “And now I have all this crap I have to instantly decide. Because, let's hear it for all kinds of life experience to lead people. Nope. I just have to because I got stuck with the perfect blood.” Julia began to walk beside Reagan and they made their way back to the house.
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