Whitelighter

by Angie Derek

  ****

  Reyes waited for Lily and Brenda to reach his truck before asking the question gnawing at him. “What did you do to her?”

  His mother’s eyes narrowed as she drew her shoulders back. “What you asked of me, to make it so the vampires couldn’t see her light.”

  “By taking it away?” He was having a hard time wrapping his mind around the idea of his mother purposely hurting someone. “She didn’t ask that of you. In fact, she didn’t ask anything. I’m the one who brought them here.”

  “And bringing their troubles with them,” she spat out, “just as I feared.”

  “I didn’t know we were being followed.” He had no idea how the vampire had tracked them, if he had.

  She looked over his shoulder. “They will always be followed. You should let them go and take their troubles with them.”

  His spine straightened. “I’m not going to abandon her.”

  She brought her gaze back to him. “I thought you would feel that way.” She shook her head. “After getting you away from whitelighters you still managed to connect yourself to one. I just don’t understand it.”

  He couldn’t explain it either, but he didn’t really want to. He had no intention of leaving Lily. “We have a connection. As long as I can help keep her safe I will.”

  “She’ll never be safe. That was the point of the draining.”

  “Jeez. Draining.” He stared at her dingy aura with dismay. “You could have mentioned what you were doing to yourself.”

  ****

  “We should leave,” Brenda said softly. “There’s a car rental place down by the boardwalk he took us to.”

  Lily shook her head, sheltering Sophie in the front seat and watching Reyes and his mother through the blurry windshield. The rain had picked back up. “We aren’t going to run out on him.”

  “We have enough of our own problems without tying ourselves to his. He can’t deny what his mother did with you standing right in front of him.”

  She shot a silencing look at Brenda. Sophie was listening a little too intently to their conversation. The power surged inside Lily. She couldn’t control it as it tried to find a pattern. Not that it had ever been particularly easy to control, but the pulsing was something she had never experienced before. She closed her eyes for a moment against the pain. Sophie’s fingers touched hers and she opened her eyes to smile at her.

  Her sister glowed. She blinked again as the energy of her sister’s whitelight met the surging power within her. She recognized the light within Sophie. When she’d squashed her own power it had somehow come to her sister. She didn’t know how, but there was no other explanation for her suddenly glowing sister.

  She smiled as Sophie stroked her hand, instinctively allowing her new whitelight to work on taming the power within her older sister. Lily wasn’t sure how long it would take for the energy within her to settle, but it didn’t batter at her as strongly as Sophie’s whitelight soothed her own.

  “We’re going to be just fine, Sophie Baby,” she whispered to her sister.

  Sophie smiled and leaned against her. “I know.”

  Lily’s gaze drifted back to Reyes as he turned away from his mother and walked down to where Brenda had parked the truck back on the road. His gaze flickered from Sophie to Brenda before resting on Lily.

  “Soph, stay with Brenda for just a moment, okay.” She slipped her hand from Sophie’s grip.

  “No.” Sophie shook her head with a frown.

  “Just a moment.”

  Brenda scooped Sophie swiftly into her arms and Sophie sent a frightened look to her, but didn’t call out again. They walked around to climb into the back of the truck and Reyes took the remaining steps to bring him to the open truck door.

  “I’m sorry.” His eyes were fixed on the ground. “I don’t understand all of what happened, but I should have realized something was going on.”

  She shook her head. “You had no way to know how your mother had figured out to hide her light. It didn’t occur to me she was volunteering to be drained by another witch.”

  He kicked his foot into the dirt as he looked at her. “You’re all right? Your swirls are pulsing at a much more rapid rate and you’re brighter.”

  It was her turn to look away as she tried to figure out exactly how to explain what happened. “I think I absorbed the lighter power the vamp had in him when I staked him.”

  His arm shrugged and he inched closer. “That explains it.” He took a deep breath. “I can’t seem to apologize enough.”

  “You’ve nothing to apologize for.” She rushed to reassure him. He wasn’t responsible for his mother’s actions and it was she who had forced the idea of coming down to visit his mother so she could get Brenda to trust him.

  He stepped closer to her, his hand raised hesitantly before touching her lightly on her cheek. “I’m still sorry. I wanted to ride in to your rescue.”

  She smiled. “But you did and most importantly you kept Sophie safe.”

  He glanced over her shoulder to where Brenda and Sophie were probably sitting. “I’ll always keep the two of you safe.”

  She felt her smile drop slightly. Brenda had been wrong about him not believing her on what happened. He did believe her. But could she really ask him to leave his mother who so obviously needed help right now. She couldn’t stay. The master vampire’s arrival had shown her location was compromised yet again.

  He crouched down, his other hand coming up so he could cup her face and tilt it up. “I will keep you safe.”

  “Your mother,” she started to protest.

  He shook his head. “She doesn’t want my help or my presence.”

  She cocked her head. “You want to stay and help her. I understand. Just as I know we can’t stay. Where there’s one vampire a pack is sure to follow.”

  “How did he find you?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know, but I can’t wait to find out.”

  “Have you ever?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You leave as soon as a vampire shows. What if there aren’t any more trailing behind? Don’t you want to know how he found you?”

  “We haven’t felt it was worth the risk before.” She looked over his shoulder at his mother’s house. “She won’t want us to stay.”

  “No she doesn’t. We should probably leave.”

  “We?”

  His fingers caressed her cheeks. “I need to stay with you. Here or wherever.”

  “Hmm.” Something inside her relaxed. She hadn’t realized how afraid she was that he wouldn’t want anything else to do with her until he said those words. Even if his mother had refused his help and ordered him away, it had to pain him to be tugged in two directions. She couldn’t in good conscience demand he abandon his mother despite what the woman had done to her. “Then we stay together.”

  “Thank you.” His lips brushed hers in a soft kiss. “We need to figure out how the vampire tracked you here. If you knew how, you might be able to stop the vamps from finding you.”

  She considered his words. They had never been able to stay in any place very long once she was spotted. She had always assumed the vampires randomly ran across her. But that master vampire hadn’t just casually come across her for a second time. What if they were tracking her somehow? Reyes was right. If she could figure out how they found her maybe she could block them.

  Sophie suddenly appeared next to him signaling their alone time was over. She drew away from him to smile down at her sister. Her arms were up in the universal pick me up sign. Reyes scooped her up before Lily had the chance and Sophie slid into his arms easily to give him a hug before climbing into Lily’s lap.

  Brenda trailed behind her. “Are we ready to go?”

  Lily snuggled her sister. “Not just yet. After we clean up the mess we made.”

  The vamp huffed, clearly not surprised and not happy with her decision. “She won’t welcome our help.”

  “She’ll get it anyway,” s
he said and Sophie nodded.

  “Fine. I’ll get started on the most immediate problem.” Brenda paced back toward the house.

  Alandra hadn’t moved from her spot, but finally seemed to react as she shrank away from the vampire striding into her house. Lily pulled her gaze away from Alandra to kiss the top of her sister’s head. She ran her hand through Sophie’s pony tail as her sister’s new light continued to sooth her own erratic light.

  She had always had a magical connection to her sister, but to have her light go to Sophie in that moment such a short time ago seemed to defy explanation. Lily hadn’t intentionally sent the power to her. Yet, it had somehow left her and gone into her sister when she had tried to stop the witch from taking her light.

  Closing her eyes, Lily considered the implications of her sister now being a whitelighter as well. They would be double the target and up to this point the vampires had never been focused on her sister. Now they would be.

  “Hey.” Reyes squatted down and she opened her eyes to stare into his. “You guys are safe.”

  She bit back the automatic “for now” which wanted to emerge. “I know.”

  “We’re just fine,” Sophie whispered, peeking up at her.

  “You and I are more than fine,” Lily reassured her. “Maybe once the rain lets up we should play in the sand?”

  Sophie’s head bobbed, but her grip on Lily didn’t loosen. She hugged her tightly and met Reyes concerned gaze.

  “I’m sure I can dig up some suitable sand toys.” He paused. “Maybe a meeting on tracking and hiding later on?”

  She relaxed slightly at his choice of words. He had remembered her comment to him about terms being crucial around Sophie. A discussion on how the master vampire had tracked her down to the Keys was definitely in order.

  “Tonight?” It was her turn to pause as she considered what needed to be done in that moment. “What do you need us to do?”

  He didn’t answer right away, his head turning slightly as he looked toward his mother.

  She kept her eyes off Alandra even though her thoughts were directly on her. “Brenda will take care of the uninvited guests. Soph and I could put the house back in order. Give you some time and privacy to talk with your mom.”

  He brought his gaze back to her and his lips curved. “Sounds like a plan.” He leaned in for a soft kiss, resting his forehead against Lily’s for a moment. “I love you.”

  He drew back before she could respond and walked determinedly through the rain toward his mother.

  Her heart fluttered and her power flared. He glanced over his shoulder with a grin and a wink at her reaction.

  ###

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Angie Derek writes steamy paranormal romances and romantic suspense. She lives in the Sierra Nevada Mountains with her husband, two daughters, two cats, two dogs, and one pony. Connect with Angie:

  Website: www.angiederek.com

  Twitter: twitter.com/angeliaalmos

  Facebook: www.facebook.com/AngieDerekAuthor

  SNEAK PEEK: THE BEAST’S REDEMPTION

  Cursed shape shifter, Alexander Léandre, is resigned to his fate, but that doesn’t stop him from hunting down the descendants of the sorceress who bewitched him in hopes of obtaining a cure.

  Belle Beaumont is used to men never looking past her curvy figure and pretty face. She dutifully agrees to befriend Alexander in order to protect her father’s herbal company.

  A single touch changes all. Passions flare. When Belle discovers what Alexander is truly after and why, will she accept him for what he is? And will her love and family knowledge be enough to break a hundred-year-old curse?

  EXCERPT:

  The secret smile affected him much more than the practiced ones she’d already given him.

  “When are you going to start asking me questions?” he asked.

  Belle cocked her head and pursed her lips. His blood spiked, the talisman warmed, and he pulled back from his baser instincts. This was getting ridiculous.

  “What am I supposed to be interrogating you on, Mr. Léandre?” Belle’s voice was slightly breathless.

  His blood responded even while his brain told him she did it on purpose. “Why did you agree to have dinner with me?”

  “You’re interrogating me, now?” She shrugged. Her jacket shifted, revealing the curves he’d been trying to see earlier.

  He wasn’t sure he could make it to the restaurant before he ravished her and that pissed him off. There had to be magic at work here. He shouldn’t be reacting to her as deeply as he was.

  “I’m here, because you asked,” Belle answered. He had to touch her even if it was a mistake. Alexander shook his head and reached out to slide a finger along her thigh. He noted with satisfaction her heart speeding up at the contact. “I didn’t ask.”

  “Okay, you threw down a challenge. Why did you?”

  To read more – http://www.angiederek.com/html/books.html

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