The official resting place of Felix Perrineau Senior was in Paris, France. But his body, three days after his real and final death, found its last home in a humble wooden coffin lowered by his sons into a dirt grave surrounded by old growth cedar, ferns, and moss. The funeral was small. Only five people attended. They all held umbrellas, but not one of them was in use. No one seemed to mind the rain. The ranch house was only a short walk away, and quiet; Perrineau’s old security force had been dismissed. Neither Blue nor Daniel saw much use for them—if their enemies truly wanted their deaths, those men with guns would be as helpful as dolls playing dress-up.
“He died too soon,” Daniel said, taking off his glasses when the lenses became too wet to see through. “I never thought I would say that.”
Blue agreed, but he was not his brother; he could not bring himself to say the words. All he could do was look at the box in the hole, inhale the rich loam of a forest lost in rain, and think, This is what it comes down to. This is the culmination, the end, and all that matters is what you lived for, because afterwards, you’re just a memory, good or bad. An image in the eye of heaven.
Of course, not even his father could claim that much. No black and white for the old man. Blue did not know what to make of him. Not anymore. A monster, yes. A facilitator of terrible things. Never any doubt of that. But as a father … a father who had given up his life for his sons …
Iris squeezed his hand. She stood beside him, tall and slender, her red hair gleaming like roses in sunlight. Blue’s mother stood on his other side, Brandon just behind her. Brandon did not look particularly sad. Merely … contemplative.
“I think now would be a good time for the truth,” Blue said to his mother, looking past her at the man who was the spitting image of his dead father. “Who are you?”
Brandon tore his gaze from the coffin, and studied Blue’s face for one long moment. “I am your family. I was not his family, but I am yours. If you want me.”
Blue hung his head. “A simple answer would have sufficed.”
“Between Felix and I, life was never simple.”
Blue glanced at Daniel. His brother shrugged. Mahasti, finally stirring from her own deep contemplation of the coffin, said, “Brandon was once a very dear friend to me. Until recently, however, I thought he was dead. Your father’s doing.” She shot Blue a hard look. “He and I are engaged. Brandon will be your family regardless of your wishes. I suggest you accommodate him.”
Iris coughed; a quick glance revealed her biting her bottom lip. Blue could not muster quite the same level of amusement. Daniel looked startled as well.
The rain began to come down harder. Iris leaned into him and Blue slid his arm around her waist. He kicked dirt into the grave, where it thudded on top of the simple pine surface of his father’s coffin.
“Rest in peace,” he said. “Burn in Hell.”
There was paperwork to sign, business matters to attend to, all manner of staff to coordinate and take care of—the various sundries of inheriting a multi-billion dollar business, legal and criminal—but the day after they planted the old man in the ground, Blue, Iris, and Daniel fled south to Las Vegas. By mutual agreement, Mahasti and Brandon were left behind, in charge. Blue thought it very brave of Daniel, trusting strangers.
“Not really,” Daniel confessed, when Blue said as much. “I’m just desperate to get out of there. And, to be honest, I don’t really want his money.”
Blue understood. Their father’s wealth was tied up in blood, much of which he had firsthand knowledge, and his only answer to all that suffering was a tenuous plan to give away his share, every last penny. Use all that power, all those ties bought by cold hard cash, to reverse as much of his father’s dark legacy as he could. The Good Samaritan born again. The irony was not lost on him.
Reilly’s Circus camp was as busy as Blue remembered, but this time there was a part of him that almost welcomed the place as home. Certainly, a great shout went up as soon as Daniel and Iris were spotted. Samuel came running, grabbing both of them off their feet in giant hugs that sent them swinging. He did the same to Blue with only a little less enthusiasm.
“This is a good day,” Samuel said to Iris. “We were worried.”
“Very,” said Pete, walking up behind them. Dark circles surrounded his eyes. He hesitated for a moment, then held out his arms. Iris fell into his embrace with a sigh.
The entire camp seemed to descend upon them; Iris gave Blue a helpless wave of her hands before being sucked deeper into the crowd. Blue, amused, watched her. He knew all she wanted to do was find Petro and the others, but this was just as important.
“She’s happier now,” Daniel said, sidling close. Blue wondered how he had escaped the mob. “Look at her, Blue. She’s hugging them.”
Not big hugs, or long hugs, but the effort was there. Light pats on backs, an arm briefly curled around a neck—highly demonstrative for a woman who had avoided all human contact only days previously. Blue could tell by the look on her face that it still made her uncomfortable. He understood. He was not the highly demonstrative type, either. Except with her.
“What about us?” Blue asked him. “You happy, Daniel?”
His brother was silent for a long time. “I don’t know. Maybe. I still have a lot of … issues I never worked out. I wish I had been able to.”
“Yeah. I was pissed off when our father was alive, and now I’m pissed off he died. I just can’t be pleased.” Blue glanced at him. “But if you have any problems with me …”
“I do. Not because I think you deserve them, but because …” Daniel hesitated. “Did Iris tell you about the pictures? I wasn’t joking, Blue. I don’t know where he got them, but they were always around. In the beginning, when I was little, he called you his first son, his real Felix. Not born with a silver spoon in his mouth, but someone who would make his own fortune, because he was tough, strong, smart. Not like me. Not like the little boy who knew his daddy, who wanted things from him. Even if all I wanted was a little respect. I swear to God, he made me feel guilty for being alive. And he did all he could to isolate me. To mold me into what he wanted.”
Blue had trouble answering him; he was still trying to absorb the fact that his father had actually bragged about him, albeit for a monstrous purpose. “It didn’t take. You fought him off. I’d like to know how. You mentioned your mother.”
“She was stronger than he ever gave her credit for being. And his employees liked me more than they liked him.” Daniel shook his head, sighing. “I don’t know, Blue. I guess I was as stubborn as he was. The more he pushed, the more I pushed back, until all I wanted was to be nothing like him.” He smiled bitterly. “Did you know he killed my dog?”
“Shit.”
“Yeah. A little stray I named …” Daniel sucked in his breath. “Sorry. I’m not going to talk about it. Now’s not the time.”
“Whenever you want,” Blue said, and then, quieter, “Did he know about your … other abilities? Your telekinesis?”
“You say it so matter-of-factly.” Daniel snorted. “No. Maybe, yes. I’m not sure, Blue. A lot of things got broken inside the house, though, when I was growing up. We replaced a lot of windows.”
“And you’re not scared anyone else will find out?”
Daniel sighed. “The one thing I learned from our father is that if you fear something, or someone, that object or person will have power over you. So I stopped being afraid. Or at least, I learned how to control it. I get up on that stage every night because I really don’t give a shit. After everything else that’s happened in my life? All I want is to be happy. To forget all of that. To forget me. And this does it for me.”
The two men stood for a while longer before Daniel excused himself, slipping away into the crowd to mingle with his friends. Blue did not join him. He felt a bit like an outsider, but that was fine. He had no intention of going away; he would grow on these people eventually.
He finally ambled off, hefting the duffel with both his and Iris’s things. As he walked to her RV, his cell phone rang. It was Fred.
“I wanted to say thanks,” the agent said. “You helped.”
“I suppose we did,” Blue replied, a bit underwhelmed by this lackluster expression of gratitude.
Fred sighed. “Okay, you saved our asses. That better?”
“I can live with it. I could live with it even better if you had some deep dark secrets to spill about the people you work for.”
“Sorry. I will tell you this, though. Unlike Santoso and Perrineau, and all the other casualties at the facility who were recovered and sent home in body bags, there’s still one person missing from the compiled list, and he can’t be found anywhere. You want to guess who?”
“Broker,” Blue said, a good dose of dread coursing through him.
“Yup. And I don’t know about you, but in this line of work, I don’t trust people to stay dead unless I have their corpse right in front me.”
Unfortunately, Blue felt the same. “What about the Consortium? Any more information on who their leader is?”
“No, and if your father knew, he took it with him to his grave.”
Blue thought about the old man, replayed his death in his head. “Did you know he was working for the Consortium?”
“I wish. If we had, we would have taken a different tack.”
“There’s always Artur. We could ask him in to take some readings of his belongings.”
Fred did not say anything for very a long time. “Are you proposing a collaboration? That we … work together?”
“I think you’d have to take that up with Roland.”
Fred grunted. “How’s Daniel?”
“Confused. Just like me.”
“Right,” Fred said. “Confused and filthy stinking rich. Billions await you and your brother, most of it tied up in various criminal organizations. You be careful, Blue Perrineau. And give my best to Iris. Tell her … it was fun.”
“Yeah. A real barrel of laughs.”
“Better than crying,” Fred said, and hung up the phone.
Late that night, Iris lay in bed with her lions. Petro and Lila needed therapy, and she was happy to oblige. Blue was just outside the RV, sitting on the steps with his brother. Daniel had stopped by to say goodnight, a tiny gesture that had become a two-hour conversation.
Iris eavesdropped shamelessly, feeling inside herself a rare contentment as she listened to the two men discuss their childhoods, and their father. The more she heard about the old man, the more intensely she disliked him—except, every now and then she remembered his face as he stared down upon her in Santoso’s lab, and in her memories she always thought she saw compassion. Brief, but undeniable.
The mind could play such tricks.
She heard Daniel say goodnight. He had an early morning meeting with the hotel executives. According to Pete, his fire act had gotten good press; the suits wanted him to have his own show. With Iris. An ironic pairing, to say the least. She was not sure how she felt about working for the Miracle, given what little she knew about its owners. It felt … wrong, somehow.
The stairs creaked; Iris got ready to move Petro and Lila out. Before Blue opened the door, though, she heard another sound, and felt inside her heart a sharp tug, like ropes around glass; close to shattering.
“Serena,” Blue said.
“Mr. Perrineau. Or perhaps, just Blue.”
“Just Blue is fine,” he said, and then, in a softer voice: “The eye patch suits you.”
“If you say so. I am still … adjusting.”
“Better you than Iris.”
“Yes. I could not agree more.”
“Iris is just inside. I’ll go wake her up. Unless … you are going to talk to her, aren’t you?” Blue sounded alarmed. “She has questions, Serena. Where—you can’t do this to her.”
“I have no answers, Blue. I betrayed my daughter.”
“I think a simple apology might go a long way.”
“You are naïve.”
“Maybe, but I still think I’m right.”
“Because you know her so well? Because you think loving her makes you an authority?”
“Because I know she loves you, and that won’t change, no matter what you tell her.”
Silence; Iris held on, breathless. “I think you forgive me.”
“Maybe. Or perhaps I’m just patient.”
“No,” she said slowly. “You are a good man.”
Iris could almost hear Blue smile. “You sound shocked, Serena. Good men don’t exist where you’re from?”
“They do not. Or in such rare quantities as to be likened to dreams.”
Iris shook herself and rolled off the bed, running to the door. She pulled it open, and there stood her mother. Blond hair, sharp chin, a black eye patch covering half her face. She looked like a pirate, and there were hard lines around her mouth that Iris did not remember. A different woman, maybe. A secret life.
“Iris,” she breathed. Golden light coursed through her eye, splashing her skin, trailing fire down her throat. She took a step toward her daughter, and stopped, staring. Iris stared back. They stood like that for a long time, saying nothing, just looking at each other. Drinking everything in.
“You must hate me,” Serena said softly, with such quiet pain that Iris flinched. Blue drifted backward, into the shadows.
Iris fought for words. Her heart hurt like hell. “I don’t understand you. But that’s not the same thing as hate. Far from it.”
Serena nodded, wetting her lips. Slow, tentative, she held out her arms. Iris did not hesitate. She jumped down the steps, hugging her mother hard, savoring the sensation of being held in return, enveloped by touch and scent, which was wild as bramble, green with wood and sap and some cool breeze off the moon.
“I’m sorry,” Serena murmured. Lila and Petro pushed through the door of the RV, and the two women sank to the ground, letting the lions crawl over them. Con and Boudicca were suddenly there as well. Iris glimpsed Blue by the holding pen.
No one spoke for a long time, until finally, Iris said, “Why?”
Serena looked away from her; Iris stared at her eye patch, and remembered Santoso. “Because I had obligations that could not be ignored, promises I had made before you were born. It was for your benefit, Iris, though I knew at the time you would not thank me for it.” Serena finally met her gaze, and her face was stark, haunted. “I tried to protect you. Part of my agreement for going undercover with Santoso was that you would be cared for.”
“And I assume being stalked by Santoso was not part of the plan.”
“No,” she said grimly. “In fact, it was orchestrated.”
Blue finally emerged from the shadows. “What?”
Serena flinched. “When Santoso arrived in this city, he found Iris by accident. He took a liking to her—an appreciation that quickly turned into obsession. My employers were intrigued by this, and decided, against my wishes, that you be allowed to … hang. To see what would come of Santoso’s interest, and whether it would distract him enough for other things to come to fruition.” Serena swallowed hard; her scent turned sour, bitter. “They would not listen to me. I begged them, Iris. I did everything I could think to persuade them, and they would not budge.”
“You couldn’t just quit?” Iris asked, horrified.
“You do not quit these women,” Serena said. “No one does. But there are ways around them, and perhaps because of that I did some … foolish things. I had Fred install a camera inside your RV so that someone could keep you under constant surveillance. And I orchestrated Kevin Cray’s attack on the cats. I hoped that if they were taken from you—or if you were threatened enough—you would stop your performances at the hotel. Leave of your own free will.”
“My God,” Blue said. “You fired that shot at her. You were the sniper.”
“No,” Serena said, looking him in the eye. “Fred was. It was a favor to me.”
Iris sat back, leaning against Con’s broad side. A tremor ran through her body, her head, her heart; her entire world was shaking. “I can’t believe this. I just … can’t. How could you?”
“I had no choice.”
“Bullshit.”
Serena’s gaze hardened. “I will make no excuses for my actions, Iris. I did what I had to. Count your blessings that you have had an easier life.”
“Not so easy,” Blue interrupted. “You’ve been in contact with Pete, too, haven’t you? You asked him to fire me.”
“Oh, not Pete,” Iris said, but Serena nodded. Iris rolled back her head, staring at the sky. She could barely see the stars past the city lights, and for a moment she hated it all. Hated her mother, her life.
“I thought I was acting in my daughter’s best interests when I asked him to get rid of you,” Serena said to Blue. “I did not trust your motives.”
“Who do you trust, mom?” Iris asked, wanting to scream. “You sure as hell don’t trust me.”
“That is not true. I was protecting you. This life, what I do … it is not for you, Iris. You are better than that. You are … sweeter.”
“Sweeter,” Iris echoed. “Not so sweet anymore.”
“I know,” Serena said sadly. “I know.”
“So,” Blue said, much later. “Are you ready to cry yet?”
Iris bit back a hard laugh. She lay on her back in the dry grass of the holding pen, nestled against him. Two lions, a tiger, and a jaguar pressed warm around their bodies, the world drowning in the sounds of heavy breathing, the occasional groan and purr. A nest made of fur—and one very good man. Iris ran her hand up Blue’s arm. She was still trying to see the stars.
“I’m too confused to cry,” Iris said. “She’s crazy.”
“She’s perfectly sane. Just like my father. At least your mother had your best interests at heart. Mine …” He stopped, sighing. “I don’t understand him, either. Why he had me go after Daniel. Why he couldn’t just bring us together. He said it was because we never would have listened, but I keep thinking it was just another one of his games. Always games, down to the bitter end.”
“And you’ll never know if he loved you,” Iris said.
“You have to make your own love.” Blue’s arms tightened. “Find your own family.”
“But it still hurts.”
“Yes,” he said softly. “It does.”
Iris kissed his cheek, his throat, sliding her hand beneath his shirt to touch his skin. He shifted, rolling so that he could hook his leg over her hip and slide her near. His body was heavy and warm, his arms strong. She listened to his heartbeat.
“We’re taking a risk here,” Blue whispered. “If I ever lose control—”
“If I ever lose control—”
“You wouldn’t. Not like that. I trust you, Iris.”
“And I trust you, Blue.” She peered up into his eyes. “I love you.”
His jaw tightened. He brushed back her hair, his thumb sliding down her cheek to the corner of her mouth, making her breathless with the heat and hunger rising slow.
“I love your eyes,” he murmured. “I’ve loved them since the beginning.”
And I’ve loved yours, she thought, heart aching, thinking about her life as it had been, and what it could be.
“Shape-shifters mate for life,” she told him. “You think you can handle that?”
His mouth curved. “I’m looking forward to it.”
“Ah,” she whispered. “Then I say we pack up the cats in my RV and we roll ourselves to your cabin in Colorado. Go sit on a mountain and commune with nature.”
“What about the Miracle?”
“My mother owes me one. She’ll pull strings.”
Blue smiled. “And what will we do on that mountaintop? Be at one with the world?”
“I was thinking more along the lines of being one with each other.”
“And if we happen to make a pit stop at some little pink chapel? Maybe rope ourselves a preacher who looks like Elvis?”
“I’ll be dazzling in fur.”
He laughed, but only for a moment. He caressed her left hand, pressing his lips to it and lingering. “I’ll buy the rings tomorrow.”
Her breath caught, heart thudding itself into a lovely ache. “I think I’d like that, Blue.”
They stared at the stars. The city drowned out the night, the dark expanse.
“Blue,” she said. “Turn out the lights. Just for a minute.”
So he did.