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Turning to see Delia’s tear worn face is harder now than it was before. At least when I awoke, she was just as disillusioned as me with Dacari’s sudden departure. Now, I can’t help wondering if she knew of Dacari’s whereabouts the entire time.
“How could you?” I whisper through steam-wrought words. “All this time! You’ve lied about this! You’ve lied about everything, Delia! Tell me, did you know where she’s been this entire time?”
“No, Damina! Please, you have to understand!” Delia sobs. Her tears do nothing but enrage me further.
Without a blink, my movements quickly carry me squarely before her. Only Dranoel pulls her back just enough to evade the force of wind that blows through me at my landing. Dranoel keeps his hands locked on her shoulders and she turns her head slightly to relish in his comfort. A part of me questions just how close the two have grown since my slumber, but right now it is of no interest to me.
“Answer me!” I snap back.
“Yes, I’ve always known Decaux was her father—but I didn’t know she knew. I had no idea she would try to contact him—or even that she found him at all,” Delia pleads.
“Damina, let’s all calm down and talk about this,” Dalcour interjects, but his words do nothing but infuriate me.
“Talk about what?” I shout, turning quickly to meet his fear-laden eyes. Once more, I marvel that someone as powerful as Dalcour Marchand could fear me. But I know the truth. It’s not me he fears. It is Decaux. The one he’s always feared. His truth invades my conscience and I know he is just as worried as I am. Terrified even.
But I will not share this pain with anyone. Not Delia. Not even Dalcour.
Betrayal is all I feel in this moment. Everything I’ve known to be true has been a lie! Over and over the veil of deceit keeps me from the hidden secrets that not only sneak up on me but haunt me. For all I know, everyone in this room has yet another secret that can send my life crumbling in one blow.
Gazing around the room, the air feels thin and I gasp. Figures of Brae, Jackson and Dalcour distort before my view and a dizzying motion rides me hard. Gripping the door post, I try to keep my footing, but I feel as though I’ll be sick. Or worse. Faint.
Darkness swathes my vision and a clear case of vertigo sets in. The walls seem to invert, and I can’t stand straight as the room spins around me. Dalcour grabs my arm, attempting to steady my motion, but his touch is unwanted. Yanking my hand away from him, I hold myself at my knees and try to get my bearing. Brae’s tiny hands rest on my shoulders and it’s the only comfort I can accept.
“Just breathe, Mina,” I hear Delia call out to me, but it only rekindles my mania, resetting my panic.
It’s too much! Everything is too much.
Dacari’s disappearance. My eclipsed heart. Me being Fated. And now this.
Decaux is Dacari’s father.
I can’t take it!
What’s wrong with me? Why do I feel like this?
A rippling current topples me to my knees, and I buckle as a swathing sense of gloom pools over me. Hearing Delia’s continual cries wreaks havoc on my heart. I want to comfort her, and I don’t. This is all too much!
I can’t breathe.
Before the suffocation grips me further, I see a sliver of light at the end of the hall and I know what I must do. I must make my escape.
“Damina, no baby,” I hear Jackson’s calming voice echo behind me. Looking over my shoulder, I look up and see him as I hold myself steady at the knees. He shakes his head, pleading with me not to do what he knows too well I will do next.
Run.
I can’t be here any longer.
Not now.
Whatever explanation Delia has will have to wait.
Closing my eyes, I exhale and punch my fist to the ground and inhale the freeing fragrance of the wind I emit at my will flowing around me. Lunging forward, I use every ounce of the Altrinion force to propel myself past Dalcour, Delia and Dranoel. Faintly, I hear Brae and Jackson call to me from behind as Delia’s cries bellow loudly in my ear.
Surprisingly, Dalcour is silent. I don’t even detect an ounce of his effervescence at my clearing, which is a first. Still, I don’t allow his despondency to halt my motion. With tears flushing my face, I can barely see my way clear, but I press forward, allowing the slither of light at the end of the hall to guide my motion.
I am shocked when the light drives my movements through two large doors that lead to the DJ platform at Razors. It only takes a moment for my mind to replay memories of my first dance with Dalcour on the very dancefloor before me.
Now, more puzzle pieces come together. It makes sense the CC would have security footage of Razors—Dalcour probably owns the club! How could I be so foolish? Of course he does. Everything is connected to him somehow. Even more, I get the strange feeling it wasn’t a coincidence we came together on the dance floor that night.
Crap!
Have I been a fool this entire time?
“Can I help you?” I hear a dark, froggy voice call to me from a shadowed corner near the bar. “Club’s not open yet. We open tonight at six.”
“Sorry, I was just leaving,” I mutter under my breath. A chill wraps around my body and I realize that somehow, along the way, I lost the trench Dalcour gave me.
“Lady Damina?” The Voice says as if we were familiar. Just then, a huge, hulking figure of a man stalks from behind the shadows, peering with golden eyes just beyond the sun’s light. “You’re awake!” The Voice exclaims as though he were happy for my uprising.
“Yes,” I say, shyly gazing around the darkened club floor.
“My apologies. I know we’ve never met. But Lord Marchand has ensured all his staff are aware of you. The name is Crawley. Is there anything I can do for you?”
“No, Crawley,” I answer tepidly. “I—I just need to go!” I cry, just as I spot the exit, lunging forward once more and make my escape. The door swings open behind me and a part of me hopes Crawley kept back from the door. Something tells me he’s not a candidate for sunlight just yet.
Bursting outside, the sun rays are too much for me and my eyes burn as the blinding light envelops me. Shuttering, I scream and cover my face, trying to shield myself from the brightest known star of the cosmos. I’m not sure how early or late it is, but the sun seems brighter than ever.
I want to return inside the club and attempt to make my way back to the Civility Center, but my strength feels depleted. Weak. Anguish and fear grip me once more and I sense the Altrinion force forsake me as my legs give way to the weight of my heart.
Just before I topple to the ground, I feel strong arms wrap around me and a cool, nutty scent tickles my nose. Peering through the blinding light, a slender young face and crooked smile are all I can make out before exhaustion takes over and I leave myself in the strength of the stranger’s arms.
This time, opening my eyes is starkly different yet familiar. The smell has changed. Gone is the crisp, clean smell of the mansion. Now the aroma of fresh baked goods, seafood and all manner of delightfulness fills the air as the melodic sounds of jazz play in the distance. This bed is also familiar but not. The silky satin sheets I’ve become accustomed to sliding around on are now replaced with a high-count cotton that is cool to the touch.
“I was so hoping you would wake up soon! I mean, I really don’t like being out and about at this time of night and such. But tonight I thought I’d make a special exception. Only for you sugar,” I hear Melvina’s distinct deep southern voice say just beyond the terrace doors.
“Melvina? Is that you?”
“Well, of course it’s me, chile! Who’d you expect? I didn’t think you and my Bésame were on good speaking terms. I figured when Lorien got you here, it’d be best for my face to be the first you saw,” Melvina replies through a hearty laugh. She saunters toward me, hands on hips as usual, and laughs once more, this time only her shoulders move in response.
“Lorien? Lorien brought me?”
“Why yes! He found you almost laid out in the streets in nothing but your unmentionables. Good thing he was out getting his art supplies and such. Could ‘a been somebody else—someone uncaring to find you and such the way you were,” Melvina replies in a motherly tone. She plops down on a chair adjacent to me and smiles as she takes my hand in hers. She glances at me for a moment before asking, “Are you all right, honey?”
“No, I’m not. I am so not all right, Melvina. Everything is so messed up!”
“Well, every time I’ve seen you everything is messed up and such. When you gon’ git it right?”
“Me? I’m sorry, but it’s not me who needs to get it right. I’m not the one messing up everything, Melvina. That would be everybody else!” I snap back, pulling my hand from beneath hers, pushing myself up against the headboard.
“I suppose there may be some truth to that. But honey, you the only one I keep seeing run. You were running from somebody when I first met you and now every time in between. You gon’ have folk think a bounty hunter was chasing you the way you about on the run and such,” Melvina answers with a sly laugh as she pulls a crochet net out of her hip pocket.
“But it is everyone else, Miss Melvina. Every time I think I can breathe, the walls of deceit all around me come closing in. Every time I think I know the truth, I find out everything is a lie!”
“Oh, really?” Melvina says as she begins her cross stitch.
“Yes, really! I mean, at first there was Jackson! I didn’t know he was a wolf-now I do. I thought he cheated on me before our wedding and then he didn’t! Oh, and don’t get me started on my family! First, I think I’m just a regular, ordinary human being. Now I find out I’m Altrinion!”
“I see,” Melvina mutters quietly, only lifting up one eye over in my direction. I hate feeling like she’s not taking me seriously! I need to drive my point home!
Popping up to my knees, I near the edge of the bed, hoping to get her attention. She needs to understand the gravity of the situation. “And then there’s your boy—Dalcour! He knew I was an Altrinion, but he waited to tell me until I fell for him. Then he says, ‘oh yeah, by the way, I’m an Altrinion Vampire, and Braelyn, well she’s a vampire and that one over there he’s a wolf, and this one is a pra—’ what do you call it?”
“A praesidium.”
“Yeah that!”
“So, I see it’s everybody else’s fault that you’re in the mess you’re in?”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you!”
“Then why are you telling me that, child? Shouldn’t you be telling them?”
“Well, I suppose so. But I just couldn’t be in the same room with any of them. I needed some space. Some room to deal. To breathe. I have to try to wrap my head around this myself first.”
“Ah! I see, so you just needed a little time to come to grips with everything that’s happening now?”
“Exactly!” Great, now she’s understanding my point.
“So, I should also guess that is why you didn’t tell your cousin right when you found out you were Altrinion. Right?”
“Well...”
“And that’s probably why you didn’t call your aunt or Jackson the moment you found out you were Altrinion, right?”
“Well—I—I.”
“That stands to reason that’s why you ran to Perry’s friend to get you here, and after you got here and found out what you were, you ran away from here with Dalcour only to run back now. Right?”
Slowly, Melvina’s words both infuriate me and disturb me all at once. Mostly, it hits me square in the heart. A deep rumble pulses through me and the sky darkens at my dismay. I know as of late I’ve had a bad habit of running away from things I don’t like or that are unsettling. But this is different.
Isn’t it?
“You can tell your little storm to settle, missy. You won’t be scaring me away with that. I got some storms of my own, you know.” Melvina’s words are sharp, daggering my heart, but it’s her surprisingly cool hands on my shoulder that send a tidal force of calmness to my otherwise erratic state.
Looking up at her, tears pool in my eyes and the eminence of my situation boils within me. I don’t like this bratty person I’m becoming. How can I save my cousin from Decaux like this?
“Listen, honey, I know all of this is enough to send anyone, yourself included, hurling about like a windstorm and such. But how do you think the supernatural community has survived all these years? It’s certainly not because we’re traipsing through the French Quarter in our underroos and ballgowns leaving cyclones and hurricanes in our wake.”
As she speaks, I think on my actions as of late. I’m not doing too well controlling my emotions. Dalcour has told me more than once I needed to get my abilities in check. If I keep at this rate, I’ll inflict more damage than the Altrinion of Pompei ever did. In fact, even Mikkel and Keiron said it’s been all my Altrinion activities that alerted them of my arrival.
Get it together, Damina.
“Now, look, don’t be so hard on yourself, honey,” Melvina softly says, lifting my chin. “No one is saying all of this is easy for you. It’s gotta be difficult. To be honest, it’s within your rights to be mad about the truth being kept from you all these years. But your family only did what they thought was best for you. Even Jackson. And even my boy, Dalcour. Your auntie is a nice woman. A bit more sophisticated than this ol’ bag of bones, but a good woman, nonetheless. I’m sure she wanted to tell you and your cousin the truth all these years, but put yourself in her shoes. There she was, a single woman, single-handedly taking care of an aging parent, her orphaned niece, and no other family support. And since she was a hybrid, she didn’t really have a pack to lean on. She’s a strong woman that one. Made sure you had a roof over your head, clothes on your back, and kept your light cloaked on her own until you got with that good looker of yours—your Jackson. I would say she did a darn good job.”
“I would say so too. She’s amazing,” I quietly acknowledge, as tears stream down my face. She’s right.
Melvina pats my head and stands up, pushing her crochet kit back in her hip pocket and walks to the terrace door.
“Now, then there’s that Jackson. Well, he’s just a bowl of good soup as I like to say. Just all hearty and healthy. A nice bowl of everything that’s good for you. I know he’s got his own story to tell, but let me just say, the way that man sat at your bedside these forty or so odd days—that man loves himself some you, child! He really and truly does. I’ve known a lot of wolves in my day—some good—some not so good—but that one is good through and through. Not perfect. But good. If I was a betting woman, I’d put money on my word and swear. That man is gonna do right by you until his dying breath. You can hold me to that, fo’ sho!”
I can’t help chuckle and blush hearing Miss Melvina speak of Jackson with such admiration. Then again, I’ve never met anyone who didn’t think well of him. I can see why.
Melvina bends over and checks the terrace door border as if she’s inspecting the work Lorien did when all the water came into the suite from before. For some reason, however, her quietness is disturbing.
“And what about Dalcour?” I question delicately, almost afraid of her response.
“Oh, my boy?” she answers brightly as she lifts up and leans against the walls adjacent to the terrace. “Now I know why you and my baby are Fated. You’re so much alike. Stubborn as a mule but always on the run like a bull. I swear you two see red everywhere!”
“I’ve never seen Dal run.”
“Ha! Lucky for you then! Because when he runs, it never turns out for no good,” she replies darkly. Turning to peer out the terrace, she exhales and then folds her arms at her waist and looks back at me, searching my face. “Well, I guess you can handle it now, so I’ll tell you. First, let me ask, did Dal, as you call him, ever tell you why he can’t come into the Tavern?”
“Well, no as a matter of fact he hasn’t. But Javier did mention something about him bringing those women through the Tavern. Is that why?”
“Please, child! I hate to be the one to tell you, but Dalcour’s been bringing women in and out all his life. And that’s a mighty long time, let me tell you. But no, it wasn’t them women. It’s what he did before he brought the women. You see, the night before you two became star-crossed infatuations with each other, Dalcour went on a rip and binge as I call it after dealing with some of his calamities with his brother. Things got pretty bad. A lot of people died. His inner beast was in full swing. It took everything for the Guard to clean up behind him. So when he came into the Tavern, we weren’t sure if he was on another binge or what.”
As she speaks, memories of his beast coming toward me the night after the ball haunt me. I have no doubt had I been anyone else, I’d be a dead woman right now.
“I’ve seen it. His beast, I mean.”
“Then you know what I’m talking about. See, when you run, you disturb the balance of nature. When he runs, if you will, he not only disturbs nature, but life itself. To be honest, I don’t know if the world can handle you two!”
“I guess we’re quite a pair, aren’t we?”
“Well, only you can answer that, Damina. Are you and Dalcour a pair? Or is it Jackson? That’s your choice for sure. And I am certainly not biased. I’m sure you’ll be fine either way. Frankly, I’d hate to be you. It’s like choosing between better and best. You can’t go wrong.”
“Whatever I choose, somebody will get hurt.”
“I suppose there’s some truth to that. But even you can admit there’s some freedom in the truth. Right? So why don’t you do for them what you wish was done for you. Give them your truth. How they handle it is on them. You’re not responsible for their response.”
“You’re right. The only thing is, right now, all I care about is Dacari. I need to get her back from Decaux.”
“Ha! Ha! Good luck with that!”
“What do you know of it?”
“I know enough to know whatever Decaux wants, it’s best for everybody to let him have it.”
“I’ll never let that monster have my cousin. Father or not!”
Melvina stares at me for a moment before pushing herself from the wall and walks toward the door as I hop off the bed to my feet. Twisting her mouth as if she’s trying to bite back her words, she turns away from me and then turns back again. “Listen, Damina, I know you want to get your cousin and I can understand your reasons. Sure, Decaux is a monster, but before he became a monster, he had a heart. Don’t just go running in, guns a blazing to get your cousin. Try to understand what he wants and if it makes for your good and the good of the world, then so be it. Because I can tell you this, it was his broken heart, and the broken hearts of those before him that got us all in the mess we are in. Nowadays, nobody is looking to fix the monster’s heart—maybe that’s where we’ve all gone wrong. Just my two cents.”
Her sentiment puzzles me. How can she even think I’d allow my cousin to remain with someone so vicious and cruel? Dacari doesn’t know what she’s gotten herself into. I may not understand everything, but I do know I need to get myself together so I can save my precious cousin Dacari.
“Thanks for the talk, Miss Melvina. I appreciate it. I should probably get going,” I reply with a forced smile.
As if she sees straight through my bull, a sly smile forms at the corner of her mouth and she grabs my hand. “Well, I don’t think you need to parade through the Quarter in your nightwear. Your aunt came and took most of your things, but you left a few things in the drawers and such I think you can use. There're some toiletries and such in the bathroom so you can freshen up too. Once you’re out, I’ll send some dinner up for you. You can’t go on being nobody’s hero if you can barely stand. After that—by all means go and save the day!” Melvina says with a dismissive laugh as she walks toward the door.
“But I—I.”
“I won’t take no for an answer, missy. Besides, I told your men folk and aunt you were here and safe. They’ll be along to come get you after a while. Now, go and wash yourself. You were sleeping for over forty days, you know. You ain’t gonna have no man left to choose if keep walking about stanking and such!”