Chapter 651: Unhappy Endings
Fairy tale endings are highly overrated.
At least, that's what I kept telling myself so I wouldn't feel so crappy about my life.
Demetrius returned, no sign of Alison. And the Brotherhood seemed to have gone to ground. I really hoped I did some major damage to Belaisle, both with the freeing of the Sidhe and by taking back the power of the Council. And Mom. He had to have been pouring a ton of energy into my mother.
Sucked to be him.
Not to mention all the magic Ameline stole. I had no doubt Belaisle would simply drain some of his own people to replace it, but it had to rankle.
Rankling was good.
Mind you, I wished the Brotherhood were out in the open instead of scurrying around like cockroaches looking for scraps at 3AM.
Gross.
At least with the Council's approval to act, I could start hunting them down and squashing them. That would be awesome.
I just had to find them first.
I had the sheet of paper Charlotte left me translated by a sweet older Russian woman who ran the local coffee shop. She squinted at it a moment before beaming me a smile and a wink. Told me it said "I love you" in Ukrainian.
I figured it was something like that.
But even though I tried to find her in those first hours and days, I finally gave up searching for my bodywere. Charlotte left on purpose, chose to go. And I now could only guess the bond keeping her with me had broken, probably when she almost died. Why I hadn't noticed...? Yeah, more guilt.
Dummyhead.
It wasn't my enemies I had to worry about. Sooner or later my own guilt would kill me.
I let her go, as hard as it was, knowing if she decided to come back, she would. That was Charlotte. But I still wished I could have said goodbye and wondered almost daily if she was okay.
I had to release my need to chase down Ameline, too. That one hurt just as much, only in a different way. Like someone ground a dull knife in my guts kind of way rather than shattering my heart into tiny fragments.
Fun times.
Ameline was necessary. Had to develop her power. Fine. Okay then. She could just do that and hurry the hell up about it so we could track down the Brotherhood and smoosh them.
And then, I would kill her. Happily. With a big smile on my face.
Couldn't wait.
Made it so much worse knowing I needed her.
Gram was recovering somewhat, though her happy-go-crazy attitude had dimmed. I often found her sitting alone in the kitchen, just staring into space. Gone were her fuzzy socks, her cackling laugh. She cried a lot, when she'd let me catch her at it, and I often found Sassafras sneaking in to her room to sleep with her.
She needed him way more than I did, so I was cool with that. Any comfort he could bring her was a good thing.
When Varity visited the first time, she hugged me. Apologized all over again. I felt about three inches tall knowing I'd lied to her and gotten away with it. Mind you, I could have told her the truth, knowing there was nothing she could do about it, but seeing her made Gram happy so I swallowed my regret and welcomed the old Enforcer leader whenever she came to call.
Uncle Frank and Sunny were in close contact, which was a nice change. Sunny happily reported her entire blood clan, from the top down, was clear of the taint. She was concerned still about the Sthol's, though, through the small interactions the other queen allowed her. Mom mentioned she heard a mutter of complaint from Pannera about me showing up at her castle, but she happily informed me since it was vampire business, it had nothing to do with her, did it?
Finally. The rules worked our way for once.
Sebastian crossed my mind many times over the next few weeks, but when I brought him up to Mom, she finally had to put her foot down. Yes, I had permission to act. In our territory. And while technically Celeste and her blood clan-Sebastian's blood clan-chose to live in North America, they were under the rule of the Sthol clan in Austria.
And thus, in Margaret Applegate's purview.
Which meant I had to stay out of it. We argued about it, but it was normal arguing. Mom and Syd arguing. Almost fun, if it wasn't for the seriousness of the subject matter, just like old times. And, in the end, though it broke my heart to leave him there, I knew Sebastian had been through and survived worse. Didn't stop me from swearing to myself I'd find a way to help him, no matter what it took.
No more forgetting about family and friends because I fell into a lull coma.
No more.
Mom spent a lot of time in Wilding Springs, the pair of us, and Gram included when she showed interest, talking about our plans. What to do next. How to protect the covens. Mom mentioned a world conclave, hosting it here. As a way to check in on the other High Councils, to see how far the Brotherhood's influence had spread. I shuddered at the thought of managing those logistics and told her it was a great idea.
If I couldn't go to their territories to do my job, we'd bring them to mine.
The coolest part of all of the time we spent together? I felt like I finally had my mother back. Stronger and more powerful than ever.
Meira's reports came frequently. All quiet on the Demonicon front. She even joined us for dinner from time to time. All we were missing was Dad and we'd be one big happy family again.
Sigh.
Trill and her brothers were gone by the time I was released, but I heard from her shortly after my meltdown over Charlotte. She hadn't worried about me even for a second, knew I'd be fine. Was in pursuit of a dark maji who might be able to give her information on the Brotherhood. I let her go with the promise she'd stay in touch.
Look at me, going all protective and stuff.
Quaid kept his distance and I didn't blame him. He had to be as screwed up about his feelings for me as I was. And Liam's quiet patience made me wish I could just cut Quaid off and move on already.
Especially when I heard from Meira, whispering to me one night with tears in her eyes, Dad had finally narrowed his bride list down to three candidates. That he wanted me to meet them.
Oh hell no. How many kinds of wrong was that? Even my demon protested. Like some slimy high-Plane step mother was someone I was interested in coming face-to-face with, playing nicey-nice just to satisfy our demon family.
Gag. Besides, I was just too loyal to Mom.
But in the back of my mind, as the rest of my stress churned and I thought about Dad's pending marriage, my own threatened in the distance.
Wedding bells?
More like the deep tolling of my impending doom.
Married by twenty-one, huh?
I was so screwed.
End of Book Sixteen
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