Hell's Belle (20 page)

I took another bite, using the gesture to hide my worry. I simply wouldn’t let that happen.

* * *

I was waiting with tea and cocoa when Mynx finally dragged in. Luke had left with a half-asleep Becca hours ago, and my aunt had gone to bed. We still hadn’t gotten an opportunity for a private talk, but I wasn’t too worried. We were living in the same house for weeks yet. Aunt Helena couldn’t avoid me forever.

My aunt might be steering clear of me, but I couldn’t seem to get rid of Jacq. She’d yawned, said it was too late to drive home, and headed upstairs to the newly discovered guest room. That was at nine p.m., and she hadn’t looked a bit sleepy. I didn’t have a clue as to what the woman was up to.

That was three hours ago. I’d almost tiptoed upstairs twice and knocked on her door. It would’ve been nice to talk to her while I was waiting, but I wanted to speak to Mynx alone. Making good use of my time, I’d pulled my laptop into the kitchen to research Wellsy’s accident. I’d found a six-month-old article from a Virginian paper and was reviewing a printout of it when Mynx arrived.

Mynx had spent the last few afternoons and nights on stakeout, and she looked it, with tired eyes and rumpled clothes. I owed her
big
for this and knew exactly how to balance the scales.

“Here.” I passed her the cocoa. “Mini marshmallows. Nothing but the best for you.” I smiled, trying to make my tone light. My body was still strung-out on phers. I’d kept the suppression amulets on, even during my bath, although now they were under my jacket, strung around my neck. The chemical levels were dropping, but being around Luke and Becca, who were both putting out phers, hadn’t helped. The constant arousal was always there, even if the symptoms were suppressed, and it was wearing me out.

“We make a fine pair of bleary-eyed women.” I gave Mynx a bigger, more genuine smile. She just grunted and smiled back before taking the cocoa and passing me an envelope from a familiar photo center. I sipped a simple Moroccan orange tea and browsed the photos. There were several of Fera and different men in locations around The Burg and outside a home that could be the sheriff’s. I stopped briefly at a shot of a café. Fera was kissing Jacq’s cheek. The next showed Jacq whispering in Fera’s ear. Finally, there was one of them in a lover’s embrace.

I curbed my sigh. It didn’t matter. They were both immortals. I was a witch who’d be dead in a hundred and twenty years, if I was lucky enough to live that long. I didn’t have a hold on the woman. I picked up the next photo, my hand barely shaking.

Mynx gave me a look. “I don’t think they’re lovers. They put on a show for this one.” She pointed to a man wearing a fedora. “The Fae knew they were being watched.”

Well, it was a damn good show. Actually, a damning show. I’d briefly considered that Jacq might be a player, an immortal amusing herself with a mortal fling, but that didn’t fit the woman who’d put so much effort into undoing Hex’s destruction of my bedroom. Even if she wasn’t a player, I couldn’t compete with the wildly appealing Fera. My thumb brushed a close-up of Jacq’s face. The heat that was in her eyes when she gazed at me was absent.

I needed to know where we stood, if only for my peace of mind.
Nothing to do with the state of my heart.

I flipped the photos to another man. The angular features, long fangs, and aristocratic look said Kin. He was speaking with the man in the fedora hat outside a familiar office. “The leak?” I pointed at the vamp.

“Yes,” Mynx purred around her cocoa. “The men following the sheriff report to him. His name’s Carlisle and you’re going to find who he works for
very
interesting. What’s this?” She pointed to the newspaper article on Wellsy’s accident.

“
This
,” I passed her the printout, “is something strange.”

She looked at the newsprint. It had a photo of Wellsy, a mining guide named Peter Traylor, and another man, Domini Roskov. The photo had been taken only minutes after their rescue from a coal mine cave-in. The cause of the cave-in was still unknown. The woman that had gone into the mine with them, Jazmine Manizales, was presumed dead. “Wellsy’s a professor. What was he doing in a coal mine?”

“I don’t know.” I looked at the picture. Something about the men’s eyes seemed off. “One man’s a guide, the other a financier. The woman was an illusionist. What were they all doing there?”

Mynx just shook her head. “Strange is right.”

We sat for a few more minutes, making plans, the file and photos between us like a hot brand neither of us wanted to touch. Then Mynx went to bed. Unfortunately, I had a few more calls to make.

Midnight was regular business hours for the Blood-Kin.

* * *

“I know what you are,” Jacq said softly.

The night was quiet. Her voice would carry far, and Cate, in the kitchen, was as close as a walk through the gardens. Through the swirling blue and green wall, gray eyes met glowing red ones. The hound raised its head from the ratty slipper it had been nuzzling before twitching its ears. Jacq squatted, their faces inches apart, separated only by the wards’ magic. “I
know
you understand what I’m saying.” The hound huffed, pushing hot air against the barrier before baring its teeth.

Jacq grinned back, nothing friendly in either’s smile. Predator to predator, they eyed each other, coming to a silent understanding. Finally she rose. The hound laid its head back down, looking bored. “I don’t know whose house you belong to, but I know you were not with the two that attacked, which is why I didn’t bother to track you down before. So you will do me the courtesy of delivering a message.”

The hound huffed again, but Jacq knew it would do as she’d asked. Its loyalty lay with its master, who would want to hear this. “Tell those you serve that I know they will come for her. But if Cate goes,” she let her growing power shine through, the silver so bright and pure that for a moment the night seemed like day, “she must go
willingly
.”

With that Jacq released her magic, letting it sink in again. The hound didn’t bat an eye as the woman left, and it likely wouldn’t. But while the demons might never fear such as her, Jacq had the feeling that they might soon learn to fear their wayward child. There was a reason—a very good one—why the demons had once enlisted her kind to care for their young.

And it had nothing to do with their flair for cleaning up dirty nappies.

* * *

Day Seven

“What are you hiding?”

At my words, Aunt Helena dropped her teacup. I jumped forward, grabbing it. She shouldn’t have been so startled. This talk had been coming for a long time. Although maybe I should be surprised at how easy it was to arise early and catch her alone in the kitchen.

“Thank you.” Aunt Helena took the proffered cup from my hand then turned to take another from the cabinet. I nodded in acceptance of her silent question. We’d have possibly the most important talk of my life over tea and toast. “What makes you think I’m hiding something?” She poured us each a cup of sweet chai with a dollop of milk.

“Aunt Helena, really…” I sighed, blowing at my steaming mug. “You practically run from the room every time we’re alone.” I looked at my aunt, and as always, sadness swept my heart. The jade eyes, the flame-red curls, the face…Aunt Helena was a true mirror image of her identical twin—my mother. It was like having my mom’s specter standing a heartbreaking inch beyond my reach.

The knot growing in my stomach made my tone urgent. “Tell me about the first time my mother went missing…before I was born.”

“How did you—” Jaw set, my aunt shook her head. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter how you know.” Anger flared in her eyes only to be swallowed by something much greater. Her gaze met mine. Grief, like a dark silent river, flowed within the jade depths. “I can’t—” She choked on the words.

“You can,” I urged. “
Please
.”

Aunt Helena looked away, shoulders slumping. There were dark circles under her eyes. Maybe my bad dreams had begun to spread to those around me.

I bit my cheek, watching my aunt’s throat work and her breaths quicken. My own anxiety grew with each moment. Whatever this secret was, it was tearing my aunt up inside, which meant it had to be bad. Really, really bad.

Finally she murmured, “It’s not my place to tell.”

I reached across the table and took her hand. It seemed so fragile in my slightly darker one. “Maybe not.” Aunt Helena’s eyes lifted. “But you’re the only one here, and I have a feeling that I need to know whatever it is that you fear telling me.”

“Oh, sweetie.” My aunt’s eyes watered then overflowed. Maybe it was a chain reaction because I too began to cry as she continued. “I’m not afraid for me. Evie and I were never afraid for us. We just didn’t want to hurt you.” I opened my mouth to reassure her, but she rushed on. “Or put you in a position to be hurt. I’ve always felt guilty because I wasn’t there that night. I was supposed to be. But your mother, she said things happened the way they were supposed to. Otherwise she wouldn’t have had you, and you were her greatest joy.”

I moved around the table to hug my aunt. As I knelt there, loosely holding her, Aunt Helena’s eyes closed, tears leaking from beneath her lids. Her hand absently stroked my hair. After a few minutes, she said hoarsely, “You’re right. For your own safety, the time has come for you to know this.”

She took a few shuddering breaths then began. “Over thirty years ago, a rogue cult tried to open a darkmirror. By a chance of fate, your mother got there first. I was at a night class when the cult began their spell. I left immediately but had a blowout. I spelled the tire rather than waste time changing it. Even so, I arrived just as Evie opened the gate, creating an outgoing path so the cult couldn’t create an incoming one. Things went terribly wrong.” Her head shook in agitation. “And your mother and the cult members were sucked in. The house the gate was in collapsed. By the time I got to the mirror it was closed. And without knowing the destination, I couldn’t follow.”

As the story progressed, my eyes dried. I’d already cried so many tears. There really weren’t that many left. But my aunt still wept an occasional silent tear, unburdening her soul and releasing years of bottled grief. Lost in memory, she seemed to forget that I was there. Aunt Helena had been so strong when my mother had disappeared three years ago for what I now knew was the second time. I’d always thought my aunt had grieved in private. I’d heard my Nana cry more than once behind her closed door. Goddess knows, I’d done the same. Now, I thought maybe Aunt Helena had never allowed herself the necessity of mourning. She and Nana thought I didn’t know their traveling was cover for their continued search for my mother. Like me, both women had worked themselves to exhaustion looking.

We sat like that for a long time, Aunt Helena sharing what my mother had told her about her stay in Denoir, the first of Hell’s realms, and the man she’d loved. When Mynx returned we helped my emotionally drained aunt upstairs. Maybe my face didn’t reflect my emptiness, my shock. Or maybe Mynx saw from Aunt Helena’s troubled state all she needed to. Whatever the reason, I was grateful that Mynx didn’t ask any questions.

I tucked my pale aunt into bed and kissed her forehead, saying, “Sleep. Everything will be better tomorrow.” If only I could believe my own words.

I closed the drapes against the hot noonday sun then closed her door tightly behind me. It should’ve felt strange to have our roles reversed. I should’ve been angry to hear my life’s story told with details I’d never known and saddened to know a new side of my mother and not have her here to explain it. Maybe I should’ve felt all of those things. But at that exact moment, I couldn’t feel anything. I was completely…and utterly…numb.

I’d been shocked to learn that my mother had been trapped in the Otherworld before I’d been born. My world had been rocked on its axis when I’d learned that she had loved a demon. And not just any demon, but one whose blood was my own.

My father had been a demon.

All these years, I’d joked about Hex being a hell-spawn when I was literally one. Or, at least, half of me was. That would’ve been enough to knock me to the floor, but the most overwhelming fact hadn’t been my aunt’s words. No, it had been the immense sense of déjà vu they had evoked.

Without a doubt, I knew details that Aunt Helena hadn’t said. Likely couldn’t have said. Like the fact that my father’s hair would be the same raven black as my own. I scrubbed my hands over my face as I headed downstairs. I couldn’t consider this. My mind emptied of everything but work. Perhaps it would have been better if I hadn’t sent Jacq away this morning.

At this moment, the infuriating, smoldering detective would have been a welcome distraction.

I was still viewing the world with a dispassionate eye when Mynx and I left later that night. As the day had progressed, my numbness had grown, sinking deeper into my body and mind, chilling me until even my soul felt frozen. As the sun set, we drove toward The Burg. The thermometer registered ninety. But while the outside might be a steam box, inside I was so cold I almost asked Mynx to turn on the heater. But I stopped myself. No external heat would help this.

There would be no quick thaw for my soul, not even if heated by the fires of Hell. I released a mirthless laugh. Mynx gave me an inquiring look. She probably already knew as much or more than I did about the events leading to my birth. Still, I kept my own counsel.

Tonight was a night for revealing secrets, just not mine.

* * *

Carlisle couldn’t believe his luck. No one needed his services tonight, not Nicodemus, the Council, or Louisiana’s Vampire King. That left him free to serve the master he owed true allegiance to—himself.

He was barely in the door of his favorite club, Lady D’s House of Delights, when the hottest babe in the place signaled she wanted to play. His fangs were straining at his gums, itching to pop out and sink into her throat, before the brunette—sleek in black leather boots, a kitty-cat mask, and the largest black whip he’d ever seen—even reached him. He usually wasn’t a submissive…but for her, he’d make an exception. Besides, if things went too far, he could switch roles easily. Inhuman strength was one benefit of being a vampire.