Blood Tied (11 page)

“Why is that?” he asked. He sat down on the blue carpet that lined the middle of the hallway.

“Because despite the fact she sometimes speaks before thinking, she’s a good person.”

“I have no doubt,” he replied. “But that wasn’t what I was asking. Why don’t you have many friends?”

I shrugged. “Not really a people person. Too busy. More of a lone wolf. Take your pick.”

He scrunched up his lips. “I choose none of the above.”

Interesting answer.

Aiden scanned me, practically piercing through the barriers I had erected. He was worming his way into territory no one but my mother had ever entered.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Seeing you,” he replied as if it were no big deal. “The real you.”

“What you see is what you get.” I stood up. This conversation was making me uneasy, even more than Charlotte’s grand reveal. I had to get back to the library, where topics like shadow weavers and banshees were being discussed. Those made more sense to me.

Aiden wrapped his fingers around mine as I tried to pass. He didn’t clutch them as if he was preventing me from leaving. If I wanted to leave, he wouldn’t stop me, but his soft lingering touch was asking me to stay. How could I say no to that?

“Do you have something on your mind?” I asked, not withdrawing my hand from his. His warmth was too comforting.

“There’s more to you than what can be seen,” he said. His big smile returned, and it lit up his green eyes like the sun. “I can sense it. It’s hidden behind so many barriers, though, it makes you a tough read, but it’s there like a seed waiting for the rain to set it loose.”

Of course. Fire fairies dealt with emotions. They were not only good at kindling them but also sensing them in others.

“I like to be mysterious,” I said with a wink. Perhaps a playful approach might put an end to this conversation.

“It’s not mystery I sense, Thaddeus. It’s sadness.” His eyes welled, and a stray tear slipped down the angular lines of his face. While the fire fae weren’t empathic, they were sometimes affected by what those around them felt. “It’s overwhelming, and it’s what keeps you separate from everyone else. It’s what makes you feel so alone.”

I opened my mouth to deny it, to tell him his fairy senses were on the fritz, but I couldn’t speak. I could only stand there and watch as Aiden shed tears for the pain that twisted my soul. It was odd to have such a big man so freely express emotions, especially since I did everything in my power to avoid just that.

He rose from the floor. He placed his massive hands on my shoulders and rubbed them. “Don’t live in the pain of loss. Your mother wouldn’t have wanted that.”

I recoiled from him, and my response startled him. “Stop right there,” I said through gritted teeth. “My mother is off-limits.”

“Your mother should never be off-limits,” he replied. “You should talk about her with everybody. Every day if you have to. You should visit her grave, sit on the grass next to her and carry on conversations. Tell her what you’re feeling or what happened during your day. She’s not with you physically, but she hasn’t completely vanished.” He closed the distance I’d created between us and placed his hand on my chest. “She lives inside you, and she always will.”

“Stop it.”

“Why?” he asked.

“Because I don’t talk about my mother.” I brushed his hand away, and he made no move to put it back.

“Why does talking about her scare you?”

I clenched my jaw until it popped. My anger threatened to boil over and spill out. “I’m not afraid of a damn thing.” My voice was low but stern. He was pushing the wrong buttons. “And you’re a fae, not a psychologist, so back off.”

“I will respect your wishes,” he said with a sigh. “But I have one more thing to say.”

I eyed him with one cocked eyebrow. “And what is that?”

“This half-naked fairy likes you too.”

I FOLLOWED
Aiden back to the library. I couldn’t just let him drop that bombshell and walk away. After the way I’d treated him, how could he possibly like me?

I
didn’t like me right now.

Drake ran in with the book in his hand. “I’ve figured it out.” A triumphant grin snaked across his face as he sneered at Mrs. Proctor and Mrs. Stonewall, who were obviously not members of the Drake Carpenter Fan Club.

My conversation with Aiden was going to have to wait.

“What did the shadow weaver’s words mean?” Mason asked.

Drake turned to the pages of the dictionary he bookmarked with his fingers. “It took me a while to figure out. I had to familiarize myself with the Greek alphabet and then try to match up their symbols to what the words sounded like to us. It wasn’t easy.”

“And?” Mr. Stonewall asked, tapping his foot.

“Well, if I’m right, what it said was somethin’ like ‘you belong to me.’”

That sounded vaguely familiar but also not quite right.

“But after checkin’ online,” he continued, “I realized that was a literal translation. I think what it was trying to say was—”

“You will be mine?” I asked.

Drake’s stitched eyebrows told me I was right. “How’d you know?”

“Because I’ve heard that before.”

Everyone’s eyes were suddenly glued to me. Ben and Aiden stepped forward but when each witnessed the other make the same move, they stopped.

“When?” Mason asked. “Because I’ve heard those words too. In my dreams a few days after Mabon.”

After I told everyone about the nightmares I’d been having, the room grew deadly quiet. The Proctors and the Stonewalls exchanged glances with each other that accused me of once again withholding information. My brothers glanced at each other before gazing into the storm that silently raged in my father’s blue eyes.

“And you didn’t think to tell us this before?” he asked.

“It was a dream,” I answered with a shrug. “How often do you share your dreams with me? Or anyone?”

“Considering all we’ve gone through, and the fact that Mason had a similar dream over a month ago, I would think you’d recognize a warning that obvious.” Although he didn’t say the words outright, his tone condemned me for my stupidity. My father, who’d been reining in his emotions the past few weeks, stepped back, and Oliver Blackmoor, the impatient, hotheaded warlock took his place.

Maybe it was foolish of me for not considering the nightmares a bad omen, but bad dreams had become a regular occurrence since Mom died. In them, my loved ones were always in danger, hunted by creatures I could hear but not see. How was I to know
this
dream was any different?

“You’re not being fair,” Aiden said. He stood by me and crossed his arms. It was a posture I’d seen Mason take many times over the past few weeks. He was trying to protect me, but why? I had basically bitten off his head a few moments ago. Plus I didn’t need anyone to come to my rescue. So why did tiny fluttering wings suddenly tickle my stomach?

“Fair?” Mrs. Proctor asked. “This isn’t about being fair. This is about withholding vital information.”

“Camille is right,” Mr. Stonewall said. “Had we known about this, we might have been prepared for what happened here tonight.”

“You think too much of yourself. As is typical of your species.” Aiden met Mr. Stonewall’s cool indifference with an emerald fire in his eyes. Only dismounting a white steed and drawing his sword would make his intentions any clearer. He was ready to defend me with words or weapons.

“Where was your preparedness when the shadow weaver attacked?” Aiden asked. “You knew of its existence, yet each and every one of you stood there like dim-witted trolls. Foreknowledge clearly doesn’t provide you with what you think it does. It seems to me you’re using Thad as your convenient scapegoat.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself, and for once, I didn’t have to. Aiden evidently had my back. The only other person who had ever defended me so fiercely was my mother.

“He’s right,” Pierce said. He trotted over to stand next to Aiden and me. My brother’s sudden show of support surprised me. He rarely openly defied the High Priests. He saved his massive size and big mouth for our enemies or for tormenting Mason and me. “We’re all to blame for this. We’ve known for weeks that some unseen enemy is out there, and we’ve done nothing about it. And why?”

“Because the Conclave told us not to,” Mason answered before joining Pierce at my side. Both brothers supported me. Maybe Aiden had been right earlier. Perhaps I wasn’t as alone as I’d believed I was.

“Are you questioning the motives of the most powerful of us all?” Mr. Proctor asked.

We were, and my family had been for some time now. Admitting that, though, was not an easy thing to do. The Conclave included warlocks, witches, and wizards capable of turning every one of us inside out with but a stray thought, and they didn’t take kindly to being second-guessed.

Their word was law. No middle ground existed.

Aiden was right about one thing. I hid my emotions and perhaps that was wrong. Denying what I felt didn’t solve anything. Only admitting what rang true could fix what was inherently wrong. “Yes,” I finally answered. “We are.”

“And that is why we are here now.”

Nine hooded and robed figures, three in black, three in white, and three in gray suddenly shimmered into existence before us.

The Conclave had arrived.

Chapter 5

FOR SEVERAL
minutes, we all stood in silence. No one knew what to say or do.

Even though they were our governing body, personal audiences with the Conclave were uncommon. They only appeared when a threat needing our attention turned up, and then they usually only spoke to our parents. They rarely, if ever, addressed us.

I’d never understood why. We were members of the protector covens too, but whenever I asked my father that question, the answer I had always received was, “That is the way of the Conclave.”

And it was those mysterious ways that had inevitably led to my distrust of them and their actions. How were we to blindly follow people who didn’t address us or even let us see their faces?

Since the days after the mad warlock, Bartram Kane, they preferred to govern in secret and from afar, and while that may have worked as the magical community rebuilt its decimated ranks, it no longer worked for me. Or my brothers.

“Your thoughts betray you, Thaddeus,” one of the Conclave spoke. His gray robes marked him a wizard, and he stood dead center in the foreboding line of power that was assembled before us.

But it wasn’t the words he spoke that caused me to step away from my brothers, who stood as bookends of protection on either side of me. I recognized the voice.

“Who are you?” I asked, inching closer. “You sound familiar.”

“I will not stand for this insolence any longer,” Mr. Stonewall said. His typical indifference melted into a blaze of anger. He pointed his hand at me, and a sudden force of unseen energy compelled me to my knees.

My head exploded in pain. He was using his active power on me, forcing me into submission.

“Oh, fuck no!” Pierce said. Sparks of energy snaked from his fists. “This shit is on!” He let loose an explosion of electricity that slammed into an invisible barrier around Lawrence Stonewall.

Edith had projected her force field around her father.

To make matters worse, a dozen vampyren suddenly surrounded my brother. They hissed and pounced on him. My father and Mason immediately responded, but their powers passed through them without causing any damage.

I settled my gaze on Mrs. Stonewall, who held her fingers to her temples. The vampyren weren’t real. They were illusions she had created.

“Stop attacking my son!” my father yelled. With a wave of his hand, Rachel Stonewall flew backward and slammed into one of the bookcases. Her projections immediately disappeared.

After that, chaos erupted. For the first time in centuries, warlock fought wizard and witch.

“Your entire species is unstable,” Mr. Proctor said after hurling a fireball at my father. He managed to switch to his stone form just in time. The attack bounced harmlessly off his earthen armor.

“Us?” Mason asked. He crafted inky tentacles from the shadows that wrapped around Mr. Proctor. “We were attacked first.”

Adam Proctor, who’d once had a thing for him, slammed Mason with a gale-force wind that sent him rolling across the library.

“Now this is what I’m talking about!” Ben shouted before joining the brawl. A satisfied smirk tugged his lips when he created a small sandstorm and sent it barreling toward Adam. It swept him away and up to the second floor of the library, where he landed with a crash.

The roots that had once secured the banshees shot toward Ben as Camille got her revenge for the attack against her son. They wrapped around his arms and legs until he couldn’t move.

A dome of fire suddenly surrounded me where I still knelt on the floor. “I’ll keep you safe,” Aiden said. He stood over me and studied the maelstrom for any sign the tide of battle was coming our way.

I smiled in thanks, because I didn’t know what else to do. I was used to standing on my own and taking care of myself. It was a learned behavior fashioned after years of feeling as if I was the odd person out within my own family. It had only gotten worse after my mother died. But not only had my family sprung to my aid, but Aiden put himself between me and the battle that raged around us.

Even though I couldn’t speak or move—Mr. Stonewall’s power kept me glued to where I knelt—confidence I’d only pretended to have before filled my soul.

“That is enough,” the familiar voice in the gray robes announced. He and the others didn’t move. They remained in the same pose they had arrived in, but their thoughts reached out around them. In an instant, every person in the room, with the exception of Aiden and me, was lifted off the ground and dangled like naughty kittens before the Conclave.

Their hidden eyes studied us intently before they turned to each other and nodded. They lowered everyone to the wooden floor of the library, and the power that had previously kept me on my knees faded.

Aiden helped me to my feet and then stood by my side as the gazes of the Conclave settled upon me.