Demons Undone: The Sons of Gulielmus Series (51 page)

“
Sweetie
?” she said in a voice dripping with venom. She drummed her fingers on the sides of her bare arms. “I guess you call everyone sweetheart, huh? Who’s your friend, Charles?”

He tried to tip Sweetie off his back, but she clung tight, chattering in his ear about how he never came around.

He sighed. “Sweetie is her name, sweet—” He clamped his teeth on the word
sweetheart
and squatted so Sweetie’s bare feet touched the ground.

She got the hint and got off, but wrapped her left arm around his waist. He left it there. Wasn’t worth the fight, and she didn’t mean anything by it. She was just friendly. He’d need to follow up on his promise to Calvin to find his sister’s mate soon, or she’d likely cross the wrong bitch.

“Believe it or not, Sweetie’s her legal name,” he said, and nodded in greeting to Mrs. Wolff joining their congregation. “Marion, please meet Calvin’s mother, Mrs. Wolff, and his sister, Sweetie. They live over in town.”

“Pleasure to meet you,” Marion said, but her voice indicated she meant anything but. Her gaze trailed down to Sweetie’s hand at his waist, and red inched up her cheeks.

Oh
.
Let’s not give her the wrong idea.

He took a step sideways and reached into an open drink cooler to subvert Sweetie’s clutch. He extended a bottle of water, and she took it after casting one more warning glare at Sweetie.

He needed to diffuse the situation, and quickly. “Uh, Sweetie. Mrs. Wolff, this is the Marion you’ve heard so much about. My—”

His what? There wasn’t really a term for everything she was to him. Soul mate? Cheesy. Partner? That seemed antiseptic.

“My girlfriend.” The word seemed entirely unsuitable, but it’d have to do. He’d never used that word to describe any woman in his life before. Even before Pop marked him, he’d been far too casual with women to attach any titles.

Marion’s furious expression crumpled into one of adorable confusion, and Mrs. Wolff at her side nodded knowingly.

“I was just telling Clarissa over the phone last week that I reckon she wouldn’t go past the next full moon, and Clarissa said she probably would ’cause women in her family always carry babies over-long. We got to talking and talking, and you know how we do once we start chattering, and she told me about all the construction work going on at the house and—”

“Ma!” Sweetie stamped her foot. “Go get the blanket!”

Mrs. Wolff’s jaw flapped. “The what?”

“The blanket. Go get the blanket from the guest room. For the baby.”

“Oh! I’ll be right back.” Mrs. Wolff gave Marion a little pat on the belly and said, “I made it from an old family pattern. You’re gonna love it, I sure do swear. I make ’em for every girl what gets knocked up. All the Wolves. Everybody in the pack short of Sweetie has one.”

Sweetie sighed.

Marion’s chuckle was dry and a bit nervous-sounding. “Okay. Uh, thanks?”

“Be right back.” Mrs. Wolff hurried toward the deck, and Sweetie turned doleful eyes to Marion.

“You’re so lucky,” she said. “You got you a classy one. Guys around here wouldn’t know a bouquet from a baseball.”

“I think calling me classy is a flattering exaggeration,” Charles said, laughing as much at Sweetie’s words as Marion’s expression of incredulity.

Sweetie rolled her eyes and tossed her long, dark hair over her shoulder. “Oh, stop. I wish someone would love me the way you love her, Cupid. Just the way you talk about her makes me wish for my own Prince Charming. He don’t have to ride in on a white horse or even a white Ford Mustang. I’m not picky anymore. He could drive a gotdang Civic and I’ll be all right with it.”

“It’s okay to be picky,” Marion said softly. “There’s someone for everyone.”

She sounded like she actually believed it. Maybe she did now. He sure felt it when she raised an unusually timid gaze to him.

Oh yes. She needed to be kissed and soon.

“I know. It just gets hard waiting sometimes when you’ve got a mother like mine.” Sweetie inclined her head toward the house. “Let me go see what’s holding her up. She gets distracted real easy. Maybe by the time I come back, I hope you’ll have mustered up some good actin’ skills, ’cause Marion—that blanket’s ugly.”

She walked away with the stealth of the beautiful predator she was, calling over her shoulder, “Get her a sandwich, Charles. There’s plenty to go around.”

Charles stuffed his hands into his pockets and waited for Marion to meet his gaze—for her to say something. Anything.

She fidgeted her water bottle’s cap and pulled her bottom lip between her teeth.

“You get used to being around the wolves. They come on a little strong sometimes, but they don’t mean anything by it. You should be flattered. The enthusiasm means they like you. If they were uncomfortable, they’d shun you,” he said when she didn’t break the silence.

“Does everyone know what you can do? The Cupid thing, I mean.” She kept her stare trained on her bottle cap.

“Yes. I think most folks do by now. It was something I kept under wraps about myself until last year.”

His phone vibrated in his back pocket, and he pulled it out, squinting at the screen as some female werewolf—one he didn’t recognize—pulled Marion away, chattering about her cute haircut.

Clarissa had texted
You don’t need to know. That knowledge wouldn’t serve you or either of the girls in any way, shape, or form. Will you have Marion home in time for dessert? I churned ice cream. Tell her it’s butter pecan. She likes that.

He growled, having one mind not to answer, but did anyway. Marion did like butter pecan. He wouldn’t want her to miss it.

• • •

“Momma, what do you know about Charles’s mother?” She handed her grandmother two more clothespins and nudged the basket of wet linens with the side of her foot.

Momma draped a fitted white sheet over the line and bobbed her shoulders in the slightest shrug. “Probably not much more than you. I saw a picture of her once, though. Charles had a copy on his old phone. I wonder if he transferred it over to the new one.”

“What did she look like?”

“Why?”

Marion rested a hand atop her belly and nudged the baby’s foot from her sore right ribs. Maybe she shouldn’t have had the second cup of coffee. The girl was wriggling all over the place today. “Just curious. He told me a little bit about her yesterday here, and then some more at the cookout. I think he was going to tell me more but then we got interrupted by all those excitable Wolves.”

“Yeah, they’re funny that way. Damn good time, though. They throw a hell of a party. I was hung over for two days after the last one.”

“Momma!”

“What?” She rolled her eyes. “I’ve got a young body and get a wild hair to do stupid shit and reenact the olden days every now and then. Sue me.”

“I wish he hadn’t run off last night. We can never finish a damn conversation. Julia brought us back, Claude showed up from God-knows-where, and then they were gone again.”

“Probably got a call from one of their siblings in peril or something. I swear, them kids get in more trouble than—”

Bang-bang-bang-bang!

Marion turned toward the echoing woods beyond the two acres of meadow and squinted into the far-off trees. “What’s that noise?”

Momma blinked. “Maybe it’s a woodpecker or somethin’. We’re in the sticks. What do you expect?”

Marion cocked her head to the side and felt in the cloth sack for two more pins. When the sound didn’t repeat, she grunted and handed off a pin. “Maybe so. It’s just that it sounded more manmade than natural. Didn’t you notice?”

Momma fixed a clothespin at the corner of a kitchen towel and shook her head. “Live here long enough and you learn how to block out the background noise. It’ll drive you nuts if you go trying to catalogue every little sound. Relax, baby girl.”

Marion huffed. “I am relaxed.”

“What’s with the sour puss?” Momma took the clothespin bag from her and grabbed out a handful of pegs.

“I bet you know. If Charles’s mother was demigoddess, does that make him a demigod?”

Momma’s face went stony. “Why do you care?”

“You’re trying to distract me with backyard psychoanalysis. I’m not going to vent my spleen for you. I asked you a simple question, and I’m sure you know the answer. You said it yourself. He and the boys are the closest things to grandsons you’re ever going to get.”

Rolling her eyes, Momma turned back to the line. She bent and hauled one of the bathroom rugs out of the basket. “Of course I know the answer. I know everything, just short of the meaning of life. That doesn’t mean you should know it, too.”

“And why not? I’m not a child. I’m twenty-five years old and am eternally bound to a demon or two. That doesn’t give me the right to know some simple truths? If he’s a got fallen angel for a father and had a demigoddess mother, how did he get stuck with boring-ass me?”

Bang-bang-bang-bang!

There it went again. The echoes coming from the woods didn’t sound like bird beak against knotty pine. It sounded like fist against metal.

Clenching her teeth, she growled out some wordless frustration and ducked beneath the clothesline. Peering toward the treeline, she asked again, “What
is
that?”

“Cool your jets, little girl. Sound travels out here. Could be someone a mile away fixing their roof or something.”

Marion wasn’t sure if she believed her, but she let the subject drop. She’d have better luck squeezing blood out of a rock. Besides, she had other ways of getting information. Julia was probably at home, and when Julia got bored, she liked to talk. Sometimes, she
forgot
she was keeping secrets, and Marion hated to exploit the poor dear that way, but she’d had to become mercenary. Everyone else around her was, so why not her?

“Why don’t you go get off your feet? Your ankles look about as swollen as mine did before your kid’s grandpa turned me into this hot young thing.” Momma batted her eyelashes and fanned herself like a coquette.

Marion propped her fists on her hips. “Speaking of that, you let that guy get close enough to touch you and walked away better for it. I want to know about the woo-woo magic knife and what you did with it to freeze that guy up.”

“Why?”

“In case I need it.”

“Going somewhere?”

“Maybe.”

“Then no.”

Marion stomped her swollen foot and didn’t care if she looked bratty. “Why not? You afraid I’m going to use it on Charles?”

“No. That’s serious magic to be messing around with for what amounts to a mere lover’s tiff. I won’t teach it to you right now for the same reason it took me a year to teach it to Ariel. You’ve got to temper your righteous indignation with wisdom, because sometimes, too much knowledge makes people reckless.”

“I’m not going to go looking for a fight, Momma. I just want to be able to protect myself. I even left my own frickin’ knife in my truck. God, I had that thing since I was nineteen and that thing had a beautiful grip.” She sighed.

Momma rested her hand atop Marion’s shoulder. “The woo-woo magic knives are called athames. They’re not hard to come by, but you need to be deliberate with them. They’re not toys, not your typical knives. I’ll get you one.”

“Really?” Marion imagined she must have been grinning like a lunatic.

“After you wean that baby.” Momma poked a finger at Marion’s shoulder. “And don’t go rushing that. I know you want wandering room, and you’ll get it. Just be patient and let Charles do what he has to do. By the time the boys are done cleaning up, no one with ill intent will come within a mile of you.”

Marion opened her mouth to rebut, but Momma nudged her jaw up.

“Go get off your feet. I’m making sandwiches for lunch with that really thick country bacon you like.”

“With mayo and lettuce?”

Momma patted Marion’s head, turned her, and gave her a little push toward the deck. “And those big juicy tomatoes. Maybe I’ll even fry them.”

“Sweet Jesus.”

Marion entered the house, ascended the staircase up to the house’s new second story, and plopped onto her bed. She’d just crossed her legs at the ankles and reached for the remote control when the front door downstairs creaked open and banged shut.

“Who this time?” She pulled an extra pillow behind her back and depressed the power button. Ten o’clock. It was probably too early for gossip mongering disguised as news, but she could probably stomach a bit of courtroom snark. She flipped back and forth between
Judge Mathis
and
Divorce Court
and finally settled on the latter.

“Oh, this ought to be good.” She tossed the remote onto the bed and rubbed her palms. “Baby-momma drama and devastating secrets. I wonder why that sounds familiar.”

Claude’s lilting voice climbed into her open window, and although she couldn’t hear the words precisely, she could tell he was out back with Momma. He must have brought someone with him. That wasn’t unusual. If a day went by when a stranger didn’t romp through the house, Marion would likely fear the apocalypse was upon them. But if Claude was back, did that mean Charles was back, too?

She tamped down the television volume and concentrated on the gregarious discourse outside.

Footsteps sounded up the stairs, and then continued down the hallway toward her room.

She smoothed wrinkles out of her shirt as a tentative knock shook her door.

“Come in. I’m decent.”

The door swung in, slowly, and Charles poked his head in. “Hi.”

Marion straightened up and ripped her raggedy bandanna off her head.

Maybe that wasn’t a good idea. She patted her hair down at the edges. Her hair had been short so long, that she didn’t know how to negotiate this growing-out stage.

Why’d she care, anyway? It was just Charles, and she’d looked worse last night.

But why did Charles always look so put-together when she couldn’t even manage to pair off her socks? He pushed the door open for her to see his crisp white shirt rolled up at the forearms, khaki shorts that revealed toned, tanned legs, and boat shoes that looked to be at least slightly broken in.

As far as she knew, the guy didn’t have an actual home base, so where was he keeping that expansive wardrobe? Maybe he just snapped his fingers and a perfectly matched selection of clothes appeared for his inspection.