“No ‘welcome home,’ Mama?” I queried with a scowl.
She stared at the men at my side. “Who are they?” she asked, ignoring my sarcasm. “Apart from Fae.” Then she lifted her chin. “Your Virgo?” Her hand tightened on my brothers’ shoulders as she shook her head. “Are you trying to bring attention to the family? Fae dropping in is only going to cause gossip, Gabriella!”
Because she always made me so mad, I blew out a breath and sought patience—it took too long to come my way. “We sneaked in.” That was all she cared about. Hiding in plain sight. Sure, it was probably ingrained in her, but Sol damn it, didn’t she even give enough of a shit about me to come and hug me?
“They did, Luisa,” my father agreed. “They surprised me too.”
Her nostrils flared. “Well, that’s something.”
“We have news,” I told her, wishing we had the kind of relationship where I’d go to her for a hug upon greeting. Truth was, that was the kind of thing I’d done with my abuela. It was why we’d been so close.
“What kind of news? If it’s about the Academy, I don’t want to know.”
“You made that clear last time we spoke,” I rasped, my irritation surging once more. “But this is about Abuela.”
My grandmother had been standing over by the window since we’d heard Mom’s key in the door, now, she twisted around and walked over to us.
The first sight of her had my mother frowning. “Who are you? Is this Fae magic?”
Abuela scoffed, “No. It’s your daughter’s magic.”
Luisa’s eyes widened. “You sound—”
“That’s because I am.” Gabriella swallowed, and I saw the traces of pain and shame on her face. Sure, she’d done it out of what she considered the best intentions, but those intentions sucked. “I didn’t die, Luisa,” she said, her tone so apologetic that with her words, I wanted to release a bitter laugh. Abuela knew my mother wasn’t going to be happy about her not being dead… How sad was that?
Seph, who was standing close to me, squeezed my shoulder, almost like he was reading my mind. Either he wanted to laugh too, or he was telling me not to. I wasn’t sure which, but the little squeeze kept me in line.
“What kind of locura is this?” Luisa spat, her gaze narrowing on me with the precision of a set of crosshairs because, sure, this had to be my fault.
“I haven’t done a damn thing here. This particular craziness has nothing to do with me.”
Grandmother shot me a look which required no translation—stop with the attitude. I just huffed and folded my arms across my chest.
As she explained what happened, my mother gradually took steps back and away from her, until she was pretty much in the hall again.
That she wanted to run away was a given, but when she caught sight of Linford, her mouth dropped wide open and her eyes sparkled with tears.
“Hola Luisa,” he told her softly, a gentle smile on his lips.
“I remember you,” she whispered, her mouth trembling.
“You would. I used to visit when I wasn’t supposed to.”
My grandmother rolled her eyes. “I always knew when you’d been around.”
Linford stepped forward, his wings trailing a path as my brothers steered around them to avoid him and edge away from my mother. When he reached out, his hands cupping her shoulders, he chivvied her, “Today is a good day. You have more family than ever before.”
The tears in my mother’s eyes had me biting my lip. Luisa wasn’t the kind of woman to cry. She was hard and could be mean sometimes. I had to figure there were moments where she could be soft because surely my father wouldn’t have stuck with her if she was always a pain in the ass, but Sol if I knew.
She reached up and cupped his chin. “How do you look as young now as you did back then?”
Of course, that drew the explanation of the meteor back into the equation, and had me fidgeting around like someone had dropped a shit ton of itching powder into my pants.
“How is this possible?” Luisa drawled, her tone irritated once more as she repeated the question. “Riel finds it hard to make even the most common spells come to life.”
“Because she’s witch born,” Abuela reasoned. “She was always strong, but her magic reacts differently than ours. She has the Fae’s magic to contend with as well. It changes things.”
My mother narrowed her eyes at me. “You did this?” She gestured at her parents’ faces. “You made them young again?”
Wasn’t it weird how a part of me felt like I’d been force fed the world’s encyclopedias, how that part was throbbing with knowledge I didn’t understand, but could somehow tap into, and yet my mother always managed to make me feel like a twelve-year-old? A twelve-year-old she’d accused of cheating from her friend’s test.
“I did.” I kept the answer short and sweet to stop any of my irritation from leaking out. Digging the metallic tips of my nails into my palms helped some, but not totally. I was careful not to draw blood, so maybe that was why it wasn’t as satisfying as I’d hoped.
“Why?”
“Because I could.”
She narrowed her eyes at me. “You always did like the easy way out. Have you never stopped and thought of the repercussions of the magic?”
My nostrils flared at her criticism. “In the hundred plus years you’ve been creating portals, Linford, have you suffered for using the magic?”
He hitched a shoulder. “No.”
“Portals?” my father blurted out. “They’re a thing?”
“A rare thing, Ernesto,” my grandmother explained, casting a look at my bewildered father whose mouth was agape. “That’s how we made it in here today without your knowing.”
“Your magic is evidently different than his, so you can’t use him as a comparison,” my mother retorted.
“There is nothing I can compare myself to. Maybe it will kill me in the morning. Maybe the radiation was too much for me to absorb and I won’t be here to piss you off much longer, Mama, but while I am here, I’m going to take advantage of what I can do.”
“Short-sighted as always,” she chided.
How I bit my tongue, I’d never know. The desire to spew a life’s worth of bitterness at her bubbled up inside me. Not only from how she’d thought me useless as a witch and had let me know it, but from the way I’d been free childcare for seven kids.
My men seemed to sense the breach in my control because they came to stand around me. Daniel grabbed my hand on one side and Matt the other. As they squeezed my fingers, I whispered, “I think it’s time to return to Cuba, Abuela.”
My grandmother’s eyes were sad as she switched a glance between my mother and me. “I think so too.”
“Why are you going there?” Luisa demanded, for the first time taking a step forward. My little brothers, ever her puppets, shuffled a few steps forward too.
“That has nothing to do with you, because you don’t consider witch business relevant to your life.”
I turned to my papa and hurried over to him. He’d been mad at me when I’d arrived too. I knew why—he caught the backlash of the shit Mama spewed on me, so I wasn’t mad. Instead, I just hugged him hard, not giving him much say or much of a chance to pull me off him.
When he curved his arms around me too, I sighed, loving the scent of him. He always smelled of laundry detergent and mint Altoids. “You in danger, mija?” he rasped into my hair.
“Maybe.”
He jolted at that, probably taken aback by my candor. “Do you know what you’re doing at least?”
“Nope,” I admitted, squeezing him one last time. “But I’m doing what I think is right.”
“And what about what everyone else thinks?” my mother demanded, her voice angry, but I ignored her.
“She’s doing the right thing, Luisa,” Gabriella stated softly, but I ignored her too.
Stepping up onto tiptoe, I pressed a kiss to my papa’s cheek and said, “Te quiero, Papa.” Then, to Linford, I murmured, “I think
Carlos and his people will have had enough time to discuss the situation, don’t you?”
We’d been here for over three hours, after all. Three long, bitter hours that made my stomach ache with tension.
My grandmother nodded, and she did as I wouldn’t—went over to my mother and hugged her. The embrace was very stiff. Understandable, considering my mother had to be both angry and confused. Sol, I was still feeling the same way, deep in my heart, so I didn’t blame her even if the sight agitated me.
I worked my jaw, but quickly hugged my two youngest brothers before my mother could stop me, then I turned to look at my men. Their concern for me was evident, written into every line on their face. I reached up to rub Daniel’s scowl away from his brow, and as Matt curved his arm around my waist, I tugged Seph’s hand into mine. Today hadn’t gone according to plan. My father didn’t understand these guys were my mates, thought they had something to do with astrology, and my other parent had looked at me as though I were shit on her shoes…
Definitely not what I’d intended.
When the portal started, I didn’t even bother looking at my mother. There’d be a reckoning between us one day, but today wasn’t it.
Was I disappointed? You bet your ass I was.
Neither was I surprised.
I’d come here to lay foundations. My mother needed to know about her parents, and that had to start somewhere. At least now, my family could start to heal, even if I wasn’t involved in that healing. I couldn’t say why that was important to me, just knew that it was.
Maybe it was a portent of things to come, or maybe it was just the action of a daughter who’d once tried to please a mother who was impossible to please—kind of like banging your head against a brick wall and expecting not to get bruises.
The portal was like a door into space and time. We didn’t fall to the ground as we landed, didn’t even stumble. One second we were in Miami, in my parents’ too small, one-story house, and the next, we were back in the office.
I half-expected more AFata to be there waiting on us, an attack imminent. But the second I landed, I allowed my magic to diffuse around us. It was a second that could have gotten us injured if that was the AFata’s intent. Seemed like it wasn’t, because there were more people in the office than before, but they were waiting on us.
“You’ve reached your decision?” I asked softly.
“We have,” Carlos uttered, his tone firm. “We’ll join you if you start a war.”
My lips twitched, but I controlled my smile. “I’m glad to hear it. The AFata will be the first to know if the Fae want my blood.” I sucked down a breath, then to Seph, murmured, “I think it’s time we spoke with your father, don’t you?”
His eyes caught mine. “You sure about this?”
My tone was cheerful as I declared, “Nope, but we’ve got to start somewhere, and if the Assembly wants me enough to send a battalion of Fae out to grab me, then I think we’ll save them the bother by going to them first, don’t you?”
I sensed his unease and understood it. He didn’t like or trust his father, and dealing with the Assembly was like putting your hand in a pool of piranhas and expecting not to get bitten.
Still, we had to make a move before I had another battalion stored away in the closet space I was making in the ether, along with the original set of warriors and the lodestone, and I wasn’t afraid to play white to their black in this particular game of chess.
Their queen was mine, and they didn’t even know it, but they would soon.
Eight
Seph
“Father.”
Noa’s brow was furrowed as he stared at me. “You’ve been ignoring my calls.”
Nonchalantly, I shrugged as I set the comm unit on the scarred Formica table in the kitchen of the family finca. As predicted, the tarantula had gone walkabout so my focus wasn’t on the glass box my mate had fashioned for her new pet—just the thought made me want to puke. Sol, I’d always hated spiders. The prospect of the damn thing walking around the kitchen didn’t make me happy either. I leaned on Gaia’s mercy and prayed it had left through the open kitchen window.
Barely refraining from shuddering, and cutting a look at the window with hope, I mumbled, “My phone remained in Honolulu while I was elsewhere.” Funny how his rebuke meant nothing to me now when, days before, it would have crushed me.
Looked like Riel wasn’t the only one whose powers were getting to their head.
“How unapologetic you sound,” he murmured, his annoyance evident. That was something Riel and I appeared to have in common—the ability to piss off our parents.
“I’m not calling to apologize,” I told him bluntly. “A lot has happened—”
“I know. A Virgo bond that has come to fruition as well as a battalion seeking entry into Cuba and subsequently vanishing.” He pursed his lips, his gaze taking in the changes in my nature. Maybe I was a little less servile than usual, and maybe he was right—the Virgo bond had changed me in numerous ways. My bond with my family was no longer the epicenter of my life. He sighed when he saw exactly how unapologetic I was, then muttered, “I assume the missing battalion had something to do with you?”
I dipped my chin, but I was surprised at the lack of ire in his voice. Especially considering my brothers were in that battalion… “Kind of.” For a second, I wondered what the general had leaked to the Assembly, and subsequently, my father, then I shrugged it off when Riel snorted, shoved me out of the way, and moved to take the central focus of the comm unit.
“Hello Noa,” she chirped cheerfully, and I had to shake my head in amusement at her rude greeting.
My father narrowed his eyes at her. “Hello, Gabriella.” Then his eyes narrowed even farther until he was practically squinting at her. “You look different.”
My lips twitched at that definite understatement. “A lot has happened since last we spoke, father.”
“Indeed,” he intoned grimly, his gaze still drifting over the many changes in my mate’s appearance.
“I’m Riel,” she stated on a huff at his prolonged stare. “Things got a little complicated on the name front when we found out my grandmother isn’t actually dead. So, she’s Gabriella and I’m Riel.”
My father’s face blanched. “Gabriella lives?” Then his mouth tightened. “This isn’t possible. I sensed her passing.”
“You sensed my interference,” Linford interrupted, popping up behind Riel to utter those words.
“Linford!” My father gaped at his old troupe brother like a koi seeking food at the surface of a pond. Did it make me a mean bastard if I enjoyed seeing his discomposure? After a lifetime of pristine perfection, witnessing him acting this way made me feel like he was human and not the robot I’d always thought him. “Impossible! You’re older than I!”
“Our granddaughter touched a lodestone.” Noa’s hiss told me what he thought about that. “This is one of her abilities.”
My father shook his head. “This isn’t possible.”
“Oh, it is. Very possible,” was Riel’s happy reply, and though I knew the cheerfulness was fake, I could definitely sense her amusement. My father was set in his ways, ultratraditional and ultraconservative. Riel, being the pain in the ass that she was, probably appreciated blowing his mind.
“She used her gift on us both, Noa,” Gabriella murmured softly, stepping into the screen too.
The way he looked at her was all the evidence I needed to see—he still loved her.
I wanted to ask him what the Sol he’d been playing at by consorting with my mother, by refusing the Virgo bond in favor of a dynastic match, but he’d made his mistakes and I hadn’t been foolish enough to follow in his footsteps.
“Gabriella,” he breathed, his heart in her name.
“Hola, Noa,” she replied softly.
“Good Gaia, it’s been a lifetime since I last saw you in the flesh.” He swallowed thickly. “I’ve missed you.”
“And I’ve missed you.” She blew out a breat
h. “I missed you all, but the ache becomes bearable with time, doesn’t it?”
“Not for me.” Noa firmed his chin. “When you died, I thought I was—” He shook his head. “But you didn’t die.” He cut Linford a look. “You always were a sly bastard with those machinations you could pull.”
Linford shrugged. “It’s a gift.”
“I’d like to know how you did it, dammit,” Noa grumbled.
“I can implant suggestions and erase memories, you know that, Noa,” Linford retorted. “I waited on a funeral—Silke vil der Hunst had just died and you’d attended that day. A little erasing here and a little suggesting there, it was no longer Silke’s funeral but Gabriella’s.”
Mouth flattening into a sneer, my father rasped, “I’d kill you for that.”
“But you wouldn’t survive the duel.” Linford smirked at him. “There are advantages to having a talented granddaughter. Perhaps, if you’re kind to her, she’ll treat you thusly.”
Noa glowered at his troupe brother, but he surprised me by not jumping on the offer and grabbing it with both hands. When I studied his face in the screen though, I saw his focus was on Gabriella. The yearning there was enough to make me uncomfortable.
No man should see his father’s response to another woman and feel no guilt or regret on his mother’s behalf. But I didn’t. I just felt sorrow for the wasted life my father had without Gabriella at his side.
But then, when I thought about it, really thought about it, I realized everything happened for a reason.
Had my father not married my mother, I’d be tied by blood to Riel, and that blew my mind.
Kismet, whether I liked it or not, had made the move for a reason, and my parents’ misery was just a casualty in its ever-moving, ever-changing path.
“Noa,” Riel called, drawing my father’s attention to her. It didn’t take a miracle worker to see that she was feeling sorrow for the broken Virgo pair, so I curled my arm over her stomach and hauled her into me. The bond between us was still unsealed, and I felt it like a raw, gaping wound in my soul, but survival mattered more than that.
Finally Faeling: An Eight Wings Academy Novel: Book Three Page 12
