Raven chewed her lip while her mother and father stared at Charlie with a look of total surrender on their faces. They’d been like that for the better part of an hour, just trying to let everything sink in. She thought it was not unlike the stages of grief. They’d journeyed through denial and then anger, when her father had chastised them all for keeping this a secret for so long, and now she suspected they were entering depression.
They sat shoulder to shoulder on the floral sofa in the living room, both looking a little light-headed, and leaned into each other as if they were holding each other up.
“You’re a witch,” Sarah said absently. “All three of you are witches.”
They’d gone over this a hundred times. “Yes. Just like the family legends always said.” Raven nodded. “It was all true. It runs in our blood.”
Sarah glanced at David as if he were to blame, but, in fact, it was the Tanglewood bloodline, Sarah’s bloodline, that gave them their magic. “I guess it skipped a generation.”
“And you’re a dragon?” David squinted at Gabriel and ran a hand down his face when her mate nodded slowly. “Our grandchild can fly.”
“Yes,” Raven said in her most soothing voice… again.
“It’s really not that big of a deal.” Avery flipped one hand in the air, garnering looks of horror from her parents. “Once you get used to the idea, it will seem perfectly normal.”
Charlie chose that moment to soar across the room and land in Raven’s lap. David’s mouth dropped open in a frown so exaggerated it was almost comical. Gabriel rubbed Raven’s shoulder and pulled Charlie into his arms.
“I never had a family like this,” Gabriel said in a voice like scorched embers. “My childhood was filled with weighty expectations and clenched teeth. My uncle assassinated my father and my eldest brother.”
Sarah inhaled sharply, and David wrapped a comforting arm around her.
“My father was more concerned with how well we fought in the pits than showing us any sort of affection. Still, I missed him after he was gone. Our uncle, as it turns out, was acting under my mother’s influence. She tricked my siblings and me into thinking we must stay apart, and so for three hundred years, we didn’t even have one another.”
A gagging sound came from Sarah’s direction. “Did you say three hundred years?”
Gabriel glanced toward Raven, a resigned look on his face. “I am approximately five hundred years old, give or take a few due to the differences in the time flow between our worlds. I am a dragon. I am immortal. As are your daughter and your granddaughter.”
Now Sarah pressed both hands into her mouth.
“I keep waiting for you all to tell us the punch line,” David said. “But we’re the punch line. The human grandparents.” He gestured toward Charlie, shaking his head. “Is this real?”
Gabriel spread his wings. Her mother looked as if she might faint again. Raven snapped her fingers, and a spark of magic spelled out Merry Christmas in the air between them. Sarah and David looked like they’d stopped breathing.
“It’s real. And you’re not a punch line, Dad. Neither of you is. We thought about keeping this from you, but we think you can handle it.”
Clarissa laughed nervously. “Hey, but it’s not nearly as exciting as you two lovebirds getting back together, am I right?”
Everyone turned and stared at her.
“Just trying to lighten the mood.” She grabbed the sides of her chair and stretched her legs out in front of her.
Charlie started gnawing on Gabriel’s arm.
“Mom, I know you’re still processing all this, but Charlie is hungry. The meal smells delicious. Can I feed her?”
Her mother shook herself like she was waking up. “Hungry? But surely she…”
“She eats everything we eat, although she prefers meat… rare.” Raven felt her smile falter. That was one of the odder things about Charlie that she hadn’t quite gotten used to herself.
Sarah sat up straighter. “I have just the thing.” She pointed over her shoulder. “I made prime rib. She can have the center piece.” She popped off the couch and headed for the kitchen.
“You know your mother,” David said. “Nothing trumps her instinct to feed people.”
Her father must have been right, because in a matter of minutes, Raven found herself at the dining room table, passing bowls of whipped potatoes and fried okra. Her mother had produced a high chair that must have been from the restaurant and succeeded in getting Charlie into it, wings and all.
“Now, you stay right there,” she said, pointing a finger at Charlie’s nose. “And I will get you some nummy beef.”
Raven couldn’t believe it. Charlie stayed absolutely still, watching with widened eyes as her grandma cubed up the red portion of the center cut of prime rib and put it on her tray. She started eating without a fuss.
“That’s incredible,” Raven said. “How did you get her to mind you?”
Sarah waved a hand dismissively and spread her napkin on her lap. “It’s all in the voice. You have to tell them what to do. You don’t ask a toddler, you tell them. She knows I’m serious.”
For the next glorious hour, Raven enjoyed a relatively normal family meal. She kept exchanging glances with Avery. Her sister had been right. Mom and Dad could handle this. Everything was going to be so much easier now that they knew.
And then David asked a question. “Now that you’re back, are you going to live above Blakemore’s? Or in that Garden District place you bought before the wedding? I’ve got to tell you, I think that place needs work. If Charlie is going to be growing up there, we need to fix up the yard. Maybe buy a swing set.”
Sarah held up a finger. “Oh, Bob from church is selling their swing set. Beautiful castle-like thing with a slide. It would be perfect for Charlie.”
Raven swallowed what was in her mouth. “We, uh, can’t stay.”
Forks rattled against plates as her mother and father stopped eating.
Avery came to her rescue. “You heard Gabriel talk about the horrible things his mother did, but he hasn’t told you about the horrible things she’s doing right now. We came here because we think that the three women who started the Three Sisters hid something here for us to find, something that could help us conquer her.”
“Conquer her?” David chuckled. “You make it sound like you’re going to war.”
“We are,” Gabriel said gravely. “Now that Marius is gone, I am the heir to the throne of Paragon, and with the help of your daughters’ magic, we plan to right the wrong my mother has inflicted and take back the kingdom.”
Sarah’s eyebrows rose. “You plan to be king?” she squeaked. Her fingers tugged nervously at her ear.
Gabriel nodded darkly. It took all Raven’s self-control not to elbow him in the side. He was brooding, and his eyes were doing that fiery devil thing they did when he was thinking about something serious. He was going to scare her parents out of their skin.
“More potatoes?” Raven asked lightly, taking a heap for herself, then attempting to pass the dish. Nobody took her up on it.
“Which means you will be queen,” David said, staring at her, slack-jawed.
Clarissa stopped chewing, her gaze ping-ponging around the table. “Mmmm, potatoes. Pass those over here.”
Raven handed her the bowl, then turned back to her father. “Yes. I will be queen. If we can conquer Eleanor.”
“Can we… visit?” Sarah asked.
Gabriel smiled. “Once it is safe, we would love to have you as our guests.”
Sarah nodded and absently stroked back Charlie’s platinum curls, then took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. “Well then, we need to find whatever it is the original three Tanglewood sisters left for you.”
The entire table seemed to release a collective breath, even David, as if he was happy as long as Sarah was happy.
“Do you know what it looks like?” Sarah asked.
Raven nodded. “A tree. Or part of a tree.”
&
nbsp; Sarah snorted. “Not the tanglewood tree?”
All three sisters leaned forward.
“Yes, Mom,” Avery said. “We need a piece of the tanglewood tree.”
“You know the legend is that our ancestor was burned at the stake over its pieces.” She rubbed her chin.
“I’d heard,” Raven said. “But we think there might be pieces of it left.”
Sarah nodded. “Well, yes. There are three.”
“What?” Raven, Avery, and Clarissa yelled in unison.
“Sure. Well, you two know.” She wagged a finger between Raven and Avery incredulously. “It hangs above the bar. The wands. The magic wands!”
When Raven stared at her blankly, her mother clarified. “Right above the beer taps. On the wall. Oh, for Christ’s sake, let’s go down there. I’ll show you.” She pulled the napkin from her lap and tossed it onto the table.
They all followed Sarah through the back door and down into the closed restaurant. She walked behind the bar and pointed up. A dropped section of ceiling ran the length of the bar in the same shape as the counter. And there, hanging so that only the workers would likely see it, was a shadowbox with a framed piece of wood.
“I can’t believe I never noticed that before,” Avery said.
Sarah grabbed a stepladder and climbed up to pull it off the wall. “I’m surprised we can still see it through all the dust.” She blew along the top, and a cloud settled down around them. She handed it to Raven.
“How do you know this is part of the tanglewood tree?” Gabriel asked.
“It says so, right on the back. That’s why I left it up there all these years. Grandma said it was lucky because it came from our family tree.”
“Literally,” Clarissa said.
Gabriel, Charlie in his arms, tapped the back of the box, and Avery and Clarissa leaned in as Raven turned it over. Etched into the wood on the back was Tanglewood 1625 with a triquetra beside it.
“It’s three, you know.” Sarah pointed a manicured finger at the box, and Raven turned it back over and stared at the blur of brown behind the glass. “Grandma told me it’s actually their three magic wands, wrapped so tightly together that it looks like one solid branch. She said it was a symbol for the three sisters’ undying affection for one another.”
Clarissa reached for the box. “Let’s get this baby open and see for ourselves.”
Raven tried to open the back, but it was nailed shut. “Mom, do you care about the frame?”
Sarah shook her head. “Not a bit.”
“Clarissa?” Raven held it up and turned her face away. Without another word, Clarissa sang a high note and the glass shattered. Avery caught the brown hunk of wood as it fell from its mount.
“I see it now,” Avery said. “Mom was right. There’re three separate branches.” Avery grasped the stub of one. “It tingles.” Raven reached for another, and Clarissa looked between them before grasping the third. The wood vibrated, then stopped.
“This isn’t mine,” Clarissa said slowly.
Raven looked at her. “I thought it was just me.”
They switched sides. Instantly, a flood of heat flowed through Raven’s body.
“Ugh,” Raven said. “My mouth tastes like basil, and my veins feel like they’re sprouting leaves!”
“Mine feels cold, like dark ice.” Clarissa smiled.
Avery looked between them excitedly. “Mine feels hot and bubbly.”
“I think… Try to pull. I think mine is slipping! Maybe we can pull them apart!” Avery said.
“Careful. They’re so old. We don’t want them to snap,” Clarissa added.
But Raven could see a faint light growing between the coiled branches. “It won’t snap. Slow and steady. One… Two… Three…”
Raven pulled evenly on her wand. The light grew brighter, and then the wood untangled, one from another. She grasped her piece tighter as wind rushed up between them. Hers was six inches in length, polished smooth, and twisted naturally from its base to a slightly upturned tip. Through a column of light, she stared at her sisters, their hair blowing back from their faces. Clarissa held up a sleek and dark wand slightly longer than Raven’s with an elongated knot in the wood of one side. Avery’s was crooked and held a hint of bark.
For a second, Raven smelled something sweet, like blossoming fruit trees. And then a flood of power surged between them. It knocked the air from her lungs before crashing to the ground and flowing across her toes. Once she could draw breath again, she locked eyes with her sisters. She could hear their hearts beating. Without a shadow of a doubt, something important had just happened. They were even closer now than before. Bound. Before by blood, now by an even stronger magic.
“Oh my god,” David said incredulously. “It’s all true. Your crazy family. This damn bar. All true.”
The wind and the light faded away, and Raven drew in a deep, cleansing breath. “It’s true. You have no idea how much you’ve helped us, Mom.” Tears filled her eyes as she stared at her beautiful mother, her father’s hands supporting her shoulders. “This… this means everything to me.”
Sarah placed a hand over David’s on her shoulder. “That’s all we ever wanted for you. For each of you.” She met Raven’s eyes, then Avery’s, and finally Clarissa’s. “Every choice we ever made was meant to give you everything. Everything you needed.”
Raven leaned forward and kissed her mother on the cheek, and then, because the feeling gripped her, she kissed her father too. She’d carried so much anger toward him for so long. He’d skipped out on her and her mother at the darkest point of her illness. But somehow, if her mother could forgive him, so could she. Tonight, she’d challenged both of them in ways they’d never been challenged before. And here they both were, looking as though either of them would cut off their own pinkies to help.
Behind her, Charlie started to fuss in Gabriel’s arms. There was a loud pop, and Nathaniel and Xavier appeared behind them.
“Clarissa, I felt a charge down the bond,” Nathaniel said.
Raven noticed her parents’ faces turn ashen. “Mom, Dad, this is Clarissa’s… Well, Mom, you’ve met Nathaniel, and this is Avery’s husband, Xavier.”
“Yes, we’ve met,” Sarah said absently, gaping at Nathaniel. Then her face morphed from surprise to anger as she took in Xavier. “Wait… Avery, you got married? Without telling me?”
David’s eyes raked down Xavier to his kilt. A muscle in his jaw worked wildly until he blurted, “I need a beer.”
“’Tis a fine idea,” Xavier said. “And a pleasure to meet ye both!”
Gabriel raised his chin. “May I suggest we continue introductions upstairs? Charlie needs to finish dinner… and there are gifts.”
Thankfully, after drinks were poured, everyone agreed, and Raven thought perhaps the truth really had set them free.
Chapter Fifteen
Obsidian Palace
Paragon
Eleanor closed her eyes and opened them again, coming back into her own head. She’d been in and out of Grigori’s mind for days, following her children and their mates in the earthly realm, listening through windows and air vents. And still, she wasn’t certain any of it would be of use to her. She dug her nails into the arms of her throne, her teeth gnashing. What she needed was a plan.
Ransom charged into the room, looking as if he might be sick. “My empress.”
“What is it now, Ransom? I’m in the middle of something.”
“I’m sorry to disturb you. It’s Rogos. I have word from our spies that Lord Niall announced tonight his intention to declare war on Paragon.”
The arm of her throne cracked beneath Eleanor’s grip, the wood splintering angrily up to her elbow. She tossed it aside. “Are you certain of this?” she asked through her teeth.
“Our informant has always been accurate in the past.” Ransom inched backward, his gaze darting away from her. “There’s more.”
“Well? Out with it!”
“Niall has wed Queen Pen
elope of Darnuith. Their kingdoms are aligned.”
This time, she popped out of her throne and paced, her rage causing her skin to bubble from within, her need to shift raising the temperature in the room. With a slap to her own cheek that made Ransom jolt, she tamed her inner dragon. This was not the time to lose control. This was the time for cunning, and that was something Eleanor always had in spades.
“This is a complication,” she said softly. “But it will be nothing once we have the book. All I need is for the three sisters to find it and remove it from the wards that now protect it from me. Then I will take it.”
To his credit, Ransom didn’t say a word.
She wrung her hands, remembering all she’d seen through Grigori’s eyes. “Does the name Crimson Vanderholt mean anything to you?”
He shook his head. “Only the witches of Darnuith have such names.”
“Or those from Earth.” She drummed her fingers on her bicep. “I’ve recently learned that one by that name is the reason Gabriel and Raven’s child exists. She must have been a witch of great power to perform such a feat.”
“Would you like me to try to find her? If she’s in Darnuith—”
“Oh, I am quite sure she is dead.” Eleanor frowned. “But death is not the end, and to one such as I, one who is destined to be a goddess, death is no barrier to knowledge.”
“What do you plan to do?” Ransom shivered.
She rolled her eyes. The man was truly a coward. “All you need to worry about is locking down all trade routes between the kingdoms. Let nothing through. I’ll take care of the rest.”
“Yes, Empress.” He bowed low and started for the door.
“Bring me a child.”
Ransom stopped, waiting for a beat before turning to face her. “A child? I wouldn’t know where to find one.”
“Figure it out. I need a child’s blood. Find one. Look among the peasants or in the pits. Do it, Ransom, or I will use your blood in its place, and believe me, the spell will require much more of it to compensate for your age.”
“Yes, Empress.” He all but ran from the room.
The Dragons of Paragon Page 10
