A Legacy Divided

by Holley Trent

  “Yeah,” she said, just as quietly. She didn’t want to wake Elliott. Keith, in the row behind her, was either asleep with his head against the window or pretending so no one bothered him. Asher, in the shotgun seat, was already awake and was peering back at her in the dark, fairy eyes glinting like the surface of a clear pond. “There’s a certain peace about the desert,” she said.

  She rooted her phone out of her bag and one-handedly sent a text to Marty.

  On approach. Vic’s about to turn at the gate.

  Much to Mallory’s surprise, Marty sent an immediate response.

  I’m up. Tell Vic to park behind the bakery. We’ll meet you there.

  To Vic, Mallory said, “Marty says to park behind the bakery.”

  “Did she say why?”

  “Give me a moment.”

  Why? Anything wrong? And who else is with you?

  Nothing is wrong. Will and Chris thought it would be best to exercise an abundance of caution. Erin’s up, too. We’re trying to muddle our section of the Afótama web so Dan doesn’t immediately catch on that Elliott is here.

  “Ah.” She caught Vic’s gaze in the rearview mirror. “They’re being careful in case Dan’s awake and gets some psychic niggling that Elliott is closer. I think their plan is for me, Marty, and Erin to clump around him tonight so Dan can’t sense him.”

  “You think that plan is going to be sustainable?”

  “No. It’s stopgap, at best. There are ways for people like us to occlude our psychic buzz, but suffice it to say that none of the Petersen kids are any good at it. It may be a skill that only the Halls are proficient at. I happen to know that Tess does it all the time when she’s about to do something she knows will get her in trouble with the chieftains. Muriel is pretty good at it, too, but I guess she’d have to be. She monitors the emotional health of the community, and I imagine nobody particularly needs a window into that turmoil.”

  “You may not be good at it,” Keith said in a thick, tired voice, “but if one of us is nearby, we can fog the web…in a matter of speaking.”

  “What do you mean?” Asher asked him.

  Keith straightened up, pulling his head from the window and adjusting the Velcro closures on his gloves. “Perhaps no one else in my family has put the pieces together of our effect on the web. I didn’t notice myself until I was away and had far too much time to think.”

  Vic stopped at the gatehouse and rolled down his window.

  His father stalked up to the van door with his cell phone in hand. “All right?”

  “Yep,” Vic said. “Marty said to take him to the bakery.”

  Adam handed him the phone. “Grab a picture of him for me. Other guys should know what he looks like before he starts walking around the community.”

  “Got it.” Vic took the phone from his father, and Marty took it from him since she had a better angle.

  She patted Elliott’s hand and waited for him to stir.

  He startled upright, blinking several times, breathing erratically.

  “It’s all right,” she said. “We’re still in the van. I need to take your picture for the security guys, okay? Wouldn’t want any of them to think you were a threat. We don’t get many outsiders here.”

  He dragged a hand down his face and sat up straighter, nodding.

  She turned on the flash and took the picture, and then a second one because she didn’t like how frightened he looked in the first. Perhaps he was frightened, but she didn’t want the first glimpse of him the rest of the wolfpack got was to be of a man at his worst. He deserved dignity, even if he didn’t know he did.

  “There you go.” She handed the phone back to Vic who handed it to Adam.

  “Give me some idea of where he’ll be staying as soon as you know,” Adam said. “We’ll do what we can to shunt Dan away from wherever he is. My old lady’s got some ways of distracting Dan for an hour or two since she works with him. Plus, I’m sure she’d love to participate in any scheme you’ve got planned.”

  Mallory snorted. Technically, Mrs. Carbone covered the hours that Dan wasn’t in the kitchen, but she’d noticed early on that the man had a nasty competitive streak. The folks at the mansion loved her hearty home cooking and appreciated all the love she put into the snacks and treats she left on the counter at the end of every shift. But sometimes, she snuck in at off-hours to re-feed the crew after Dan had done his job. Too often, the big Vikings in residence were still hungry because Dan had very specific ideas of what counted as food, and the residents didn’t always agree.

  “It’s hilarious,” Asher said to Adam. “I think Dan installed some sort of alarm in the kitchen. Every time I’ve gone down there to fetch something, he’ll turn up a few minutes later asking what he can help me with. I think he worries about being pushed out of the job.”

  “The Halls would prefer that he think it’s due only to his job performance and not because he’s being investigated for clan treason,” Keith murmured.

  “I assure you that the rest of the Petersens would prefer the same thing,” Mallory said without looking at him. Elliott squeezed her hand and gave her a curious look. She realized that he didn’t know the things that Dan had done in the community and that someone—her, probably—was going to have to share them. “I’ll tell you in the morning,” she said to him and then groaned softly. “Maybe. There’s so much stuff to tell you. I don’t know what’s important. Hell, people are still teaching me stuff. I’ve only been here since spring, myself.”

  “Hey. We’re all newcomers,” Vic said. “Except for Keith.”

  Saying nothing, Keith closed his eyes and put his head back against the window.

  She wished he’d say something—anything to soothe the collective fears of the group—but he was disappointingly silent as always.

  Why are you like this? Why are you so cold?

  As though he could hear her query he glanced her way only to sigh wearily and turn right back to the window.

  She didn’t get him. She also didn’t know why she cared that she didn’t, only that that static between them didn’t feel right. It seemed forced, and not by her doing.

  Adam raised the gate.

  Vic drove through and put his window up. “Damn, I hope they’ve got coffee on.”

  “You can go to bed, Vic,” Mallory said. “I’m sure one of the other guys will take over in the morning.”

  “Nah. Now that we no longer have to work in wolf pairs, all us guys have specific lists of tier one people we’re assigned to. We rotate a bit to fill in for whoever’s taking time off and such, but mostly, we aim for consistency.”

  “I had no idea you guys were so organized. Who are you assigned to?”

  “Technically, I’m assigned to you and Keith, but there’s sometimes overlap because Darius has Marty.”

  “Wait,” she put up her hand to stop him from saying more, realizing the meaning of something he’d said. “We’re tier one?”

  “Yep.”

  “Why? Because our father is a threat?”

  Keith snorted. “No.”

  “Why then?”

  No response from either.

  She gritted her teeth.

  There had to be some keep your enemies close strategy there. She and Marty liked to think amongst themselves that they were important, but, in the scheme of things, they were just commoners trying to live normal lives…within the scope of what was normal for witches, anyway.

  She turned to Keith, insistent. “Why, then?”

  No response, except the very unsubtle rolling of his eyes.

  Jerk.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Idylton

  Jody

  “Starving yourself isn’t going to get either of us anywhere we like.”

  Jody had tried small talk. He’d tried wheedling her. He’d even tried flattery, which he should have known better than to attempt. Even when Lora’s guard was completely down with him, she’d never been susceptible to compliments.

  Nothing
reasonable seemed to help ease Lora down from the high-alert state she was in, so he figured he’d take a page out of Ollie’s book and resort to mild shaming. That strategy worked all the time on Tess.

  Lora didn’t even open her eyes at Jody’s scold, though he knew for certain she was awake.

  She’d gotten off the sofa at around three A.M. to use the bathroom and then had returned with her shoes off to curl up in her former spot. But, she’d been tossing and turning in the four hours since, and he hadn’t been able to sleep because she couldn’t. He’d hoped that in all that time, she’d explain herself, but she didn’t.

  The burden was on him to do the talking.

  “If you don’t want the food Faye packed, I’m sure she would send something else down in the dumbwaiter. Just tell her.”

  Lora took a deep breath and let it out. She had her back turned to him, and looked so small and frail lying on her side. He wanted to settle onto the sofa beside her and rub down her mussed hair and feel if the skin that was flushed so pink was too hot.

  But, not wanting to agitate her further, he kept his hands to himself.

  It was the worst kind of torture, not being able to soothe someone he loved who, for the moment, didn’t love him back.

  “Do you want eggs?” he asked. “Toast?”

  She drew in another deep breath.

  “Fruit? Cup of tea? Or can you even handle the acid? Tess couldn’t when she was pregnant. She had the baby, by the way. A few days ago. She named her April after our mother.”

  Surprisingly, Lora rolled over then and looked at him. “Who’s Tess?”

  “My little sister.” He made a you know gesture. “And your boss.”

  Lora furrowed her brow and rolled back over. “I can’t believe I’d work with anyone associated with you.”

  “I’m wondering if perhaps I should just keep my mouth shut until you regain more of your memories because obviously you don’t hold me in very high esteem.”

  She shrugged.

  He let down the foot of the recliner he was lounging on and draped his forearms across his thighs. “What do you know about me? Do you know my name? That seems a good place to start.”

  “No.”

  “No, you don’t want to start or no you don’t know my name?”

  She sighed.

  Grimacing, he grabbed the cordless phone from the coffee table and dialed Faye’s cell. She’d claimed she’d be up early and to call if they needed anything. Given the intimate nature of his and Lora’s relationship, she didn’t want to have to turn on the camera. She’d wanted to give them privacy, but he suspected it’d be a while before they were anywhere close to needing it. He wanted to be gentle with her, but at the same time, there was a credible threat to Lora and the Afótama, and he needed his woman’s brain running at its usual velocity. She couldn’t make good decisions if she didn’t have her memories.

  “Mornin’!” Faye chirped into the phone.

  Jody shuddered at the sound. It was too early for cheerfulness. “Hey. I’m going to send the basket up. Lora didn’t eat, but don’t feel too offended. I think she’s starving herself to spite me.”

  “Well, that won’t do. She’s gotta take her medication with food, or she’s just gonna get sicker. Make sure you tell her that.”

  “I’ll tell her.”

  “Good. Oh! And just so you know, Claude had a nice chat with your grandmother this morning. And by ‘chat’ I mean she screamed at him for a good twenty minutes, and he was sweating when he hung up.”

  Jody pinched the bridge of his nose and rubbed his tired eyes. “I’d lie and tell you that her bark is worse than her bite, but the truth is, she’s not someone you want to tangle with. Did Claude explain everything to her?”

  “Tried to.”

  “Did she buy it? Being down here in this bunker, I’m totally tuned out of the web.” They may not have had any unusual abilities of their own, but they’d done a damn good job constructing a space well equipped to protect psychic sensitives.

  “Dunno if she did, but I got the sneaking suspicion that if your sister weren’t immediately postnatal and in need of mothering, your grandmother would be here raising hell.”

  “That’s a safe bet.”

  Faye sighed. “Said she was sending your uncle out to act as a liaison, along with his wife. Ótama wanted to come. Your grandmother told her no, and Claude agreed that’d be a big oopsie if she did. It’s better for now if fewer folks know Ótama’s alive.”

  “I agree.”

  “Well, I’m glad we can agree on some things.” She let out one of those Midwestern groans that always sounded so long-suffering. “I’ll send down food in ten minutes. Need anything else, just holler.”

  “Thanks.” Jody disconnected and slid the phone back onto the table. He glanced at Lora to try to glean whether she had any opinion whatsoever about the conversation that had just transpired, but she hadn’t moved.

  Grunting softly, he stood, carried the half-eaten dinner to the dumbwaiter, and raised the door.

  “Haven’t used one of these in forever,” he said, chuckling. “Keith and I used to joke when we were young that we could drive our parents crazy by sticking Tess in the one at the mansion. The plan was to let her pop out and surprise folks.” He shoved the tray in and hit the button to send the box upward. “Never really went through with it, though. I guess that seemed too irresponsible, even for us.”

  No response.

  He shut the dumbwaiter door after poking his head inside the shaft and watching the tray crank upward on via the electronic pulley system. Apparently, to maintain the psychic-proof seal on the room, only one of the doors could be open at a time. If the one in the cellar was open, neither the one in the kitchen nor the one on the second floor would function. He’d had to close the door so Faye could fetch the tray.

  “Tess used it a lot at the end of the pregnancy, though,” he said. “She was hungry all the time and couldn’t handle all the stairs to go back and forth to the kitchen. Mrs. Carbone offered to make her some stuff and carry it up, but Tess felt bad about her having to do the extra steps. The dumbwaiter got put to good use.”

  “She had a baby,” Lora stated.

  Cocking a brow, Jody perched against the recliner’s arm. “Yeah. April. Chunky, squishy, and adorable. Seems to have her father’s eye color defect which surprised us all.”

  “Why?”

  Of course she didn’t remember. Jody was going to have to explain the significance of throwaway things and hoped something clicked before he dropped the heavy news on her. There were some things he just had to rip the Band-Aid off about, though.

  “Her father—Ollie…” he started. He scraped at the hangnail on his middle finger as he carefully chose his words. He didn’t know what she didn’t know. He needed to explain things to her as though she knew nothing at all about where she’d lived nearly her entire life. “Ollie isn’t like most Afótama. That’s what the group I’m from is called, by the way. Afótama. Actually, he isn’t Afótama at all. He comes from a small town in Nevada called Fallon. Same place as my father. He’s not only an outsider, though. He’s got some heritage that goes beyond the standard oddities found in our gene pool.”

  Lora didn’t say anything but did sit up. Her sleep-swollen eyes narrowed and forehead creased deeply. “What are you talking about? I already know about witches. As far as I’m concerned, witches are human enough.”

  “Good to know.” He picked up his hat from the back of the recliner, raked his hair down, and pinned it in place with the cap.

  He could have cut his hair. Gods knew he wanted to. In fact, he’d wanted to for five years. The only reason he hadn’t was because of Lora. She’d never explicitly told him not to cut it, but he read her subtle clues, noticed the way she fondled it when she thought he wasn’t paying attention. He paid attention to the quiet murmurs about the color and how it changed in the light—about how she’d never be sure if it was more brown or more red.

  She
hated gray areas—hated not being able to put tidy labels on things or to be able to sort things into specific boxes.

  He’d been helping her give up some of her stress over things beyond her control in small ways. He’d been helping her cope with the fact that when things didn’t go as expected, she wasn’t necessarily to blame. She needed to be easier on herself. Nobody expected her to be perfect, and especially not him. She was already perfect enough for him. He couldn’t ask for more in a woman.

  He’d never even thought to try.

  “Ollie is a little more than a witch.” Jody shoved his hands into his pockets and stared up at the drop ceiling, wondering briefly what materials Claude had used for psychic proofing. Nan preferred steel embedded with agate and various other gemstones, but she could also afford it. Claude didn’t seem to be the kind of guy who’d have inherited wealth at his disposal.

  “Well, what is he?” Lora asked.

  “His mother was fae.”

  “You mean…” She pointed upstairs.

  “No, no. Not like Faye. F-A-E. Fairy, like Sídhe.”

  “Huh.” She pulled her legs in crisscross style and twined her fingers atop her feet. When she sat that way, the bulge of her belly was so obvious, and he wondered why he hadn’t noticed before then that she was pregnant.

  But she had been especially difficult to pin down in the past few weeks, giving him excuse after excuse about why he couldn’t spend the night. He’d believed that she was busy because they always were busy. Both of them.

  That wasn’t good enough, though. Deep down, maybe, he’d known something wasn’t quite right with their days of separation, and he’d brushed off the worry.

  I should have pushed harder.

  “What does him being fae have to do with his daughter’s eye color?” she asked.

  “Ollie explained that eye color in Sídhe people isn’t always straightforward genetics. Sometimes, their eye color is due to inheritance, but it’s just as likely to be due to the nature of whatever magic they have. Ollie’s eyes are blue except for a section of brown in one of them.”