by C. P. Rider
Chapter Thirty-One
Lucas got out of the car, filled the Rezvani's gas tank, then went into the twenty-four-hour station to pay. It took a while. When he returned, he was wearing an oversized gray sweatshirt with the words, "I love Arizona" scrawled across it in black script. He'd picked up one for me, too, and handed me a packet of baby wipes, a bottle of water, and a granola bar. "They only had XXL."
"What? You don't like my cowboy shirt?" I used the wipes to take the blood off my face. Instead of putting on the sweatshirt, I draped it over me like a blanket. I was cold, even with the heater going.
"I don't like you wearing another man's clothes. If that makes me an asshole, well, it's not like it's news to you."
"True." I smiled. "I'll take it off after I warm up."
"Deal."
"So, tell me. How did you know Alpha Juan had a cover for that sanctuary?"
"I didn't. I called and asked him. What I did know is that he's been searching for someone he suspects was kidnapped by poachers a year ago. In that short amount of time, he's managed to infiltrate three sanctuaries. He brought down one outside his city and one on the outskirts of Taos, New Mexico. He asked me to fly out and help with the Taos one, but I had my hands full with Malcolm at the time. I suspect that's why he approached you in the bakery without telling me. He still needs help."
"Who is he looking for?"
"His brother."
"Oh." That explained the sorrow in his eyes when he'd looked at the paranormal "Wanted posters" on Harris's bulletin board. He had been looking for his brother's picture. "So, you haven't explained how you got him to help us."
Lucas cleared his throat. "Do you remember that deal I made with the Mar alpha in San Diego?"
I sighed. "You promised Alpha Juan a favor from me."
"Had to. But if you go, I go too. That was part of the deal."
"I totally understand why you did it. I really do. It's only that, more and more, it seems as if I'm sinking too deep into the paranormal world."
Lucas uncapped his water bottle and took a swig. "I hate to be the one to tell you, but you've been neck-deep in it since the day you were born. It's your world."
After that, we rode in silence for a couple hours. I drank my water and ate half the granola bar before my stomach revolted, then I curled up on the backseat again and slept a little.
"You awake back there?"
"Yeah," I said, on a yawn. "What's up?"
"I'm curious. Has your father ever asked you to read or spike someone before?" Lucas adjusted the rearview mirror so he could see me.
"No. He's always told me to keep my abilities hidden."
"A healthy way to grow up." He muttered something under his breath. "I know it was for your safety, but telling your kid to never draw attention to herself is not something a parent should say."
"He did his best."
"Now, on that we agree, because the best thing your dad ever did for you was to send you off with José. It was a perfect plan. No one would ever suspect that an alpha as strong as your father would send off his child with only a beta shifter to protect her."
I pushed myself up on the seat. "What did you say?"
"That I thought your dad did the right thing. If people were hunting you, and that's likely what the issue was, then sending you—"
"No. The part about my father being an alpha. He's human."
Lucas readjusted the mirror, flicked a glance at me. "He's a shifter, Neely. Don't tell me you've never read him."
"Yes, I've read him. But he…" I opened and closed my mouth without speaking.
"But he what? Hid what he is, just like he taught you to do? Lied to you? Is probably still lying to you? About something other than the shifter thing, I mean."
Frustration enveloped me. There was truth in Lucas's words, but I didn't like it. "I told you, I've read him many times over the years. He thinks like a human, not a shifter."
"That only means he's good at hiding it."
We arrived in Yuma, Arizona just after midnight. Without Lucas's exceptional night vision, we wouldn't have found the address my dad had given me. My navigator skills were severely lacking. Mostly because I kept falling asleep.
"I hope they're serving breakfast. I'm starving." Lucas turned off the highway without using his signal and drove down a rutted dirt path. We followed it for a half-mile, then veered right until we encountered a one-story house out in the middle of nowhere. White stucco, clay roof, fenced yard—just a simple house.
I doubted it was as simple as it looked, though. Nothing ever was with my dad.
Two armed shifters in suits met us as we exited the Rezvani. The female shifter on the left gave Lucas a blatant up and down look followed by a slow grin that I didn't miss.
On the way inside, I gave him a whispered earful. "I saw that. You enjoyed the way that woman checked you out."
"What?" He batted his lashes coquettishly as he wrapped an arm around my shoulders. "I can't help that I like being told I'm pretty."
"Nobody said you were pretty, you dork." I laughed and he hugged me closer.
Lucas had a way of making things that would ordinarily annoy me dumb and funny. Maybe someone else wouldn't have found it funny, but that's probably why we were right for each other. We understood each other's weirdness.
They had breakfast waiting for us, which made Lucas happy.
They also had a shower and clean clothing. Toiletries and bandages. After eating a little toast and some scrambled eggs, I went into the bathroom to clean up. The shampoo was cheap, and the conditioner had zero slip, but all I cared about was getting clean. I washed my hair twice and put it into a loose braid, bandaged the back of my neck as best I could, then pulled on a pair of jeans, a black cotton top, and a clean pair of socks.
The clothing fit—a nice surprise. My dad would have had to have guessed at my sizes because he hadn't seen me in years, so I was impressed he'd gotten so close.
Then again, my dad did run some sort of security agency. Was it far-fetched to think he wouldn't spy on his own daughter?
No one would ever suspect that an alpha as strong as your father would send his child off with only a beta shifter to protect her.
Lucas had to be mistaken. My dad was not a shifter. When I was a kid, I wasn't able to control my telepathy very well and I often caught all sorts of random things floating around in people's heads. My dad's especially. His thoughts had been mundane verging on monotonous. Boring human thoughts. Even then, I'd known the difference between a human and a shifter brain.
That only means he's good at hiding it.
Damn Lucas anyway. He didn't know everything, even if he thought he did.
I had just finished brushing my teeth and was scrubbing the blood out of my birthday bracelet when my father tapped on the door to the bathroom. "Cornelia? Can we talk?"
"Sure." I exited the bathroom and followed him into the kitchen. Similar to the exterior, the interior of the house looked like any other normal American ranch-style home: nothing special, and not what I had expected. Three bedrooms, two bathrooms, living room, kitchen, laundry room.
The place was as quiet as an empty church, except for my father's and my voices. If there were prisoners here, they weren't upset about the accommodations. Or they were drugged.
Or dead.
"Are you feeling okay?"
"Better." I held up my necklaces. "I got a little boost from the witches. I'm sore all over and it still hurts to move my neck, but I'm not in blackout pain."
"That's good to hear."
I looked around. "Where's Lucas?"
"With the others."
"The others?" He'd better not be with that female shifter agent. If anyone was going to tell that man he was pretty, it was going to be me.
"Yes. I hope it's okay. I asked Alpha Blacke to give us a moment to talk." Dad showed me into the kitchen, indicated I should sit at the table, then poured me a cup of coffee.
"You want to talk?"
&nbs
p; He nodded.
"Okay. Let's start with a question. Exactly how many lies have you told me?" I picked up the pot of creamer and poured a measure into my coffee with a trembling hand. "Are you my real father?"
"Yes. God, Cornelia, of course I'm your father. You only have to look in a mirror to see that." From the corner of my eye, I saw him shaking his head. "Blacke told you about me, didn't he?"
"Was he right? Are you a shifter?"
He took his time in answering, pouring himself a cup of coffee and drinking from it three times before nodding. "Yes. I'm a wolf shifter—Gray wolf, to be precise. Like your tío was, except I'm an alpha."
"Why would you keep that from me? How could you keep it from me? I don't understand any of this." My hands shook too badly to pick up my mug, so I clasped them in my lap. "Was Tío José really my uncle? Or was that a lie, too?"
"José was really your uncle. Half-uncle, to be technical, but I never thought of him as anything but my big brother. There was no half about it."
I stared at him for a beat before saying, "He's Latino."
"So am I. As I said, he was my half-brother. We had the same mother, different fathers."
"Are you really half-Scottish?"
"More like a quarter. My mother's father was from Edinburgh and her mother was from Guadalajara. I never met them, and I barely knew her. She died when I was very young, and I went into foster care until your tío was old enough to take me in."
So that part rang true. I'd known he was a foster kid for a while, though he'd definitely left out key details. "How did you keep this from me? I'm a telepath, for heaven's sake."
"I know what you are, Cornelia. I've always known."
Well. That didn't sound ominous at all. "Then how?"
"Practice. I'd worked with telepaths for years, and learned a few tricks. I hid my wolf behind a wall in my mind and created a new identity in front of it. I'd let you peek into my brain, see that I was another human thinking human thoughts, doing human things. It was safer for you that way."
"Safer? What do you mean?"
"You've seen how paranormals treat you. Letting you believe you were human was the best way to keep you, and those around you, safe. Your mother agreed with me, and so did your uncle."
"I don't follow."
"You thought you were human. As a result, you behaved as if the paranormal side of you was the other, rather than the human side. It helped you assimilate into the human world. It gave you your humanity."
I wasn't going to admit to my dad that it made a certain kind of sense, but it did.
"Was Alma Costa really my mother?"
He poured more coffee into his mug, pulled out the chair across from me, and sat down. "No."
I opened my mouth. Closed it. Opened it again, but nothing came out.
"Alma Lopez, was not your real mother." He stared down at his coffee. "I'm sorry."
"Costa," I whispered. My voice had left me. "Her name was Alma Costa."
"No. Costa was José's surname. We used it to hide her identity. She was an agent with the organization at the time and needed to keep her real name secret."
"You mean your brokerage?" I sounded as pissy as I felt. So many years of emotional pain brought to my life by a woman who wasn't even my own blood. In that instant, I hated my father ten times more than I loved him.
"Yes. Although it was a smaller American agency then. It's only over the last twenty years that we evolved into the international group we are today. Alma was a wolf shifter, like me. She joined us right out of college."
"So, if 'Alma' has to keep her identity secret, why are you telling me this?"
"Because it doesn't matter anymore."
"Why not?"
"She's dead."
Chapter Thirty-Two
"Dead?"
I don't know how I felt about that. She hadn't been my real mother, but a liar, like the man across from me. But she was also the only mother I'd ever known, flawed though she was. I felt a loss, I just didn't know what to do with it. My grief didn't feel like it belonged to me.
"How?"
"In the line of duty," he said. "Doing what we were doing today."
I had no idea what to say.
"Alma loved you like a daughter. She helped me raise you from an infant, and she grew to love you tremendously. In the end, that's why she left. She couldn't bear to lie to you anymore, and she was losing her objectivity. Making foolish mistakes that put you in danger—like the day she accidentally let you into her head and you saw her real father. It was her love for you that forced her to leave. Please know that, if nothing else, you were a loved child."
"Just not by my real parents."
"Yes, by your real parents." He sighed. "But there was only one of us able to take care of you. Me. And I have loved you for your entire life. It may not seem that way to you, but—"
"It seems to me that you've been lying to me my entire life. And you don't lie to the people you love. You just don't, Dad." I stood. I couldn't stand to sit across from the man and watch him slow-drink his coffee as if he had the right to enjoy anything, even something as simple as a hot drink. "There's a big part of me that hates you right now."
He lifted the cup to his lips again. Said nothing. I wanted to slap it out of his hand, anything to get a reaction out of him. I was behaving like a child, and I admit I sort of felt like one.
"Where's my real mother?"
"She was murdered shortly after your birth."
"Murdered? By whom?"
"By the same sort of people who keep our kind incarcerated in sanctuaries. Someone like Garrett Harris. I tried to protect her, but I didn't know how. It was before I got involved with the organization—hell, it was why I got involved. Maria's death, and to keep you safe."
"Her name was Maria?" I'd wondered why my parents chose Maria as my middle name. I'd always figured it was a Costa family name.
"Her name was Maria Fernanda Sanz MacLeod." Our gazes met. His was soft and a little damp. "I loved her very much."
"What did she look like? Do you have pictures of her?"
"Back home. I'll get them to you." His smile was tinged with sadness. "She was lovely—on the inside, too. She looked very much like you. Same beautiful, curly hair."
"Was she like me? Was she a spiker?"
"She was a telepath. If she was a spiker, she never told me so, but it's possible she was. We'd known each other less than a year when you were born. I suppose we were both still learning that we could trust each other. You know how important it is to keep what you are a secret. She would have known the same, I imagine."
Yeah, I wasn't buying that. I tried to read him, but his thoughts were, as ever, hidden behind a wall of white noise. I was so tempted to spike him for the truth, I had to grit my teeth against the urge.
"I find it hard to believe she wouldn't tell her own husband."
He nodded, too fast. "As I said, I didn't have her in my life for long. Cornelia, sweetheart, there are things I can't—"
"—tell me. Yeah, believe or not, I've figured that out already." I leveled a furious look at him. "You know I can spike you for the truth, right?"
He ignored my threat. "There are more components to this situation than you know. When you come to see me in Austin, I'll tell you everything."
"No." I folded my hands in front of me, calmly sat back down at the table across from him. "That's not good enough. Not after what you've done. I need more."
Tiny beads of sweat appeared on his forehead. "What do you want me to tell you?"
"Was my mom a spiker?"
His jaw tightened. "Cornelia, please. Not here."
I stared directly at him, challenging him in a way I'd never done before. His gray-brown eyes faded into green ochre as his wolf rose to the forefront to confront the challenge I presented. How had I never noticed his eyes before?
"It's a simple question. Yes or no. Actually, it's a three-part question. Yes, no, spike."
He took out a handkerchie
f, dabbed at the sweat on his face, then folded the square of cloth and returned it to his pocket. "The answer is, it's not as simple as Maria being a spiker or a telepath."
"Why won't you tell me what she was?" I inhaled—a deep, pinching breath. "Why do you keep lying to me?"
"Lying to you has never been my first choice. Believe me."
"Believe you? You told me I was human my entire life, and today I find out that was a lie. If you want me to believe you, tell me the truth about something that matters. Tell me what my mother was."
"Not here." He glanced over my shoulder to the doorway behind me. "Not now."
"Enough." I pulled energy from him and reached for his mind. I tried to grab hold of the electrical impulses in his brain and ride them into his head, but they were slippery. No matter how hard I pushed, I couldn't get a hold of them.
What that meant was, not only could I not truly read my dad telepathically, I couldn't spike him, either. Maybe I was asking the wrong questions. Maybe my concern should be less about my mom being a spiker, and more about whatever my dad was, because I was starting to think he wasn't just an alpha wolf.
"Why can't I spike you?"
"Probably because I'm your father. I assume I have a natural immunity." He leaned back in his chair, regarded me. "There's no need for you to spike me, Cornelia. I will tell you everything. You only have to patient for a little longer."
That felt like a lie, but I didn't push him. He wasn't going to tell me anything and if I couldn't spike him, I had no leverage. I'd have to wait.
I decided to move on to another uncomfortable subject. "Why didn't you at least come around once in a while after I went to live with Tío?"
"Fear. Every contact I had with you put you at risk. There were dangerous people out there who knew what you were. José knew this and understood—mostly. I frustrated him a lot. He loved you, Cornelia. He wanted me to show up for birthdays, holidays, graduations… But I couldn't. We had to keep you hidden to keep you alive. Like it or not, it really was for your protection."
"I believed you hated me, did you know that? You really hurt me." I clenched my hands into fists on the table. "I'm messed up, Dad. Do you know I spiked people in that sanctuary? Do you know how many?"
