Chapter Seventeen

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Warrick looked at Viktor, who looked back at him and shrugged. Bianca just stared at the stranger without expression. He should have known Cassandra wasn’t through with him yet. He was surprised his mother knew her, though.

“Last time I saw you, the constables had tracked you down to deliver you to justice.”

Cassandra sneered. “I know you told them where to find me and how to catch me.”

“You’re dangerous. I will not let you harm my family.”

Cassandra moved closer. “You can’t stop me, Vilma. I’ve grown more powerful than you.”

His mother laughed with genuine amusement in the sound. “I know that’s what you tell yourself to get to sleep at night, but that doesn’t make it true.” She didn’t appear frightened in the least.

Cassandra looked at Warrick. Then she stared at Bianca. “Is this your girlfriend, Warrick? Pfft. She’s not that impressive.”

“Bite me,” Bianca said.

“Don’t tempt me, pet. I just might do that.”

“I’m not your pet.”

“We’ll see about that.” The woman looked up into the air as if thinking. “I know what would be fun.”

Cassandra lifted her arms and started chanting in a language Warrick didn’t know, but it sounded familiar. An arc of electricity danced between her hands. “I curse you to fall in love with Warrick’s brother, Viktor. Go to him. Give him a big juicy kiss to show your newfound love how much you care for him.”

Bianca wrenched her hand from Warrick’s and ran toward Viktor. “Bianca, no!”

Viktor backed up into the wall next to the fireplace, a genuinely horrified expression on his face. It would be comical if the spell weren’t so perverse. “Bianca. I don’t think this is a good idea,” his brother said, putting his arms out straight to keep Bianca from jumping him.

Bianca kept moving toward him, dodging his rebuffs until she was snuggled between his arms. She gazed up into his eyes. He looked like he’d rather be staked outside at dawn and set on fire before the sun came up.

Tortured, Warrick watched his girlfriend, his love reach up to cup his brother’s face between her palms. She tilted her face up until her lips were a breath away from the vampire’s.

“I’m sorry, Viktor, but I am in love with your brother. Cute as you are, I don’t want to give you a big juicy kiss.”

Bianca dropped her hands to his rib cage and started tickling his sides. His brother let out an unmanly giggle and swatted at her hands. “Stop that, Bianca.”

She stopped tickling him and stepped away. “I can read your mind. I know you’re ticklish one other place, too.”

“Do not say it out loud.”

“Okay. It can be our little secret. As long as you stop saying rubber baby buggy bumper every time I come near you. You’re thinking it so hard it projects out of your mind. Makes me crazy.”

“Noted.”

Bianca raced back to Warrick and lunged into his arms to give him a big juicy kiss.

Cassandra’s mouth hung open for only a second. “Wait a minute. I put a powerful spell on you. You love Viktor now, not Warrick.”

Bianca pulled away from Warrick and faced her. “No. I love Warrick. Your spell didn’t work.”

“Do not speak to me, mortal.”

“I may be mortal, but I’m also an Alpha. That means I’m an alien. Get out of here right now or else I’ll show you my alien powers.” She lifted her hands, shaped her fingers into menacing claws and made a face.

Cassandra disappeared in another bilious puff of green smoke before Bianca could make good on her threat. Whatever it was.

Viktor asked, “What is your alien super power?”

Bianca shrugged. “The power of persuasion, I guess. I mean, she’s gone, right?”

“Good riddance,” Vilma said. She rang for Rochester, who brought coffee and snacks as they all sat to discuss the interesting events of the evening.

“Well, that was certainly unexpected.” His mother added, “We have a lot to discuss, but first I apologize for putting a spell on you, Bianca, even though clearly it didn’t work.”

“How do you know it didn’t work?” Warrick asked.

“Cassandra just attempted the same spell I used.” She shrugged and smiled at Bianca. “Apparently, you’re immune, dear.”

“Are all aliens immune to spells?” Viktor asked.

“No,” Bianca said. “A friend of Astrid’s put an illusion spell on her when she first came to Nocturne Falls to change her appearance so she could hide out. It worked until Bubba said her real name.”

Warrick hugged her. “It must be that you are an extra special alien, then.”

“I’m glad you think so.”

“I’m glad you fell for me without having to be spellbound.”

“Me, too. That means I loved you at first sight all on my own.”

His mother clapped her hands in gleeful satisfaction. “I knew the two of you would be perfect for each other.”

Viktor looked from one to the other of them, as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Hang on. While I’m happy everything has worked out for Warrick and Bianca, I still think you have some explaining to do, Mom. For instance, who is Cassandra? And why is she vengeful?”

“Oh, that girl.” She shook her head as if disgusted. “Well, before I found the two of you in the orphanage, Cassandra was my protégé. I was trying to guide her into learning the craft and casting spells for good, but she was a willful child and even at the tender age of ten wanted power and lots of it. I dismissed her and told her family I wouldn’t train her further. Soon after, I received a message about an orphanage nearby where two babies were in need of a supernatural home. I decided to change my life for the better.

“I brought the two of you to my home to raise you as my own, which of course you know all about. But Cassandra wanted to come back and be my protégé. I told her no. I was a mother with a duty to my sons and she didn’t want to learn what I was willing to teach her anyway.

“She was angry, and powerful despite her youth. That was why we moved the first time, although you were only babies and can’t possibly remember it.”

“What now?” Warrick asked. “How do we keep her away?”

“I’ll talk to Corette Williams and ask her to speak to Alice Bishop who has the influence over Cassandra’s residency if these problems continue. Cassandra is also wanted in several countries overseas. I can make a call and have her whisked out of here if she causes us any more trouble.”

Viktor stood up. “Well, it’s certainly been an interesting evening. I think I’ll take my chances elsewhere.”

“One other thing before you go,” Warrick said. “Tell Mom what you heard about the two kids who broke into the library.”

“Oh, right. I heard a rumor that they were paid to do it.”

Vilma frowned. “But who would pay anyone to do such a thing?”

“Don’t know. Just that someone paid them to take a picture of the coat of arms.”

“The coat of arms,” Warrick said. “You didn’t tell me that.”

Their mother stiffened. “Someone wanted a picture of the Hart family coat of arms?”

“I guess so,” Viktor said. “Why? Is that important?”

“Sit down. I guess I have one more thing to tell you.”

“What?”

She looked from Viktor to Warrick and back again. She clutched her hands so tightly in her lap that her knuckles turned white. “I never meant to keep this from you for so long. It just never seemed the right time to tell you.”

“Spill it, Mother,” Warrick said.

“I know I’ve let you boys believe I’m only your adoptive mother, that there’s no blood tie between us. The truth is, I am a blood relative. The orphanage contacted me because they discovered who your father was. My brother. The both of you are truly half brothers, born to different females in the year after my brother lost his beloved wife in childbirth. And I am your aunt as well as your adoptive mother.”

“That means we are half-witch and not half-human?”

Vilma shrugged. “You’ve never shown any inclination toward the powers of sorcery, so I assumed being a dragon and a vampire were powerful enough to override them. I tested you when you were younger, to be certain.”

“Why is the coat of arms an issue, then, and why would anyone care about it?”

“I always wondered if there were more children than just the two of you. I’m sad to say my brother was more than a little wild and reckless before he married as well as after his wife died. I did look, but found no others. Perhaps I missed someone who is looking for us.”

Bianca said, “I know someone who is looking for her long-lost family.”

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Bianca shifted beside Warrick on the floral-patterned sofa, uncomfortable as the man she loved as well as his brother and mother stared at her as if they’d just been reminded of her presence.

“Who is it?” Vilma asked.

“A girl named Ruby. I did a psychic reading on her recently. She was thinking about an image of a shield on a wall.” Bianca hadn’t seen the item clearly in Ruby’s mind, but enough to know it could easily be the coat of arms. There had been words curved along the top of the shield, a design of some sort, like an emblem in the center and two figures on the lower half.

“Ruby? Her name is Ruby?”

“Yes. Why?”

Vilma put a hand to her chest over her heart. “That was the name my brother and his wife planned to give their daughter. But then my brother’s wife died after the birth of their only child and he was inconsolable until his untimely death. I had always assumed the baby died with her mother. That’s what her family told my brother.”

“Well,” Bianca said. “There’s only one thing for us to do.”

“There is? What’s that?” Warrick asked.

“Find her, of course. And I know just the man to do it.”