Her Secret (12 page)

“For what reason?” he asked suspiciously.

“To keep a choker in,” I said vaguely, hoping
he’d think I meant Danial’s. “I don’t want to keep it in my jewelry
chest with my other jewelry.”

“I can’t make it completely invisible,” he
said slowly, turning the box to examine it. “But I can make it
respond to you the way Danial’s safe is in his room responds to
him. No one will be able to see it but you, except when you open
and close it.”

“That will be fine.” What a relief.

“Leave the box here. It will take me a day or
so to do it. What’s number two?”

“You said the second potion I drank would end
my dream of Theo, make it fade until it was just a normal dream.
But he was alive, not dead, and the dream got renewed. What exactly
does that mean?”

“I’m not sure,” Terian said with a shrug.
“That is what the translation of the spell said, that the dream
would be renewed.”

“Give me your opinion, then.”

“I’m guessing that it means that you and he
are bound, much as you were the first time.”

“Bound how?” I asked. “I can have normal
dreams of him now, Terian. That seems to be the only thing that’s
different. What does it mean for us that we shared the dream
again?”

“It’s very rare, to have the dream once, Sar.
It’s rarer still to have it twice.”

“That’s wonderful, but what does that
mean
?’ I asked, frustrated.

“What is it you really want to know? You’re
upset.”

“I thought the dreaming together signified
soul mates or something to that effect. If that’s true, why did
Theo fall in love with someone else?”

“That women you found him with was probably
just sex, you know how weres are—”

“I’m not talking about Aspen. Theo loved a
girl he met overseas, Terian. He said he loved her as much as me,
but that wasn’t true; he loved her more. He was planning to come
back here, break things off with me if I was still waiting, and
then go back and marry her. He admitted as much to me.”

Terian said nothing, but a little blackness
curled out of him before he clamped down on it. “If he loved her so
much, what happened so that he ended up with that other girl out
west?” he asked, his tone sulfurous.

“She married someone else at her father’s
wishes. She told Theo not to come back.” I paused. “I need to know
if what we had was true love, how could he toss aside what we had
so easily?”

“He shouldn’t have been able to,” Terian said
finally. “I know that isn’t what you wanted to hear, but that’s my
only answer.”

“He was frozen in cougar form for a while by
a sorcerer. Could that have been the reason?”

“No.”

“He was apart from me for more than a year,
He was badly hurt—”

Terian crossed the room to hold me in his
arms. “Sar, stop looking for a reason. Whatever the reason really
was, it doesn’t matter now. Theo’s married to you.”

“It does matter,” I said, wiping my filling
eyes and drawing back from him. “Theo isn’t the man he was when he
left, and I’m not the woman I was then, no matter how I’ve tried to
be. He doesn’t like who I became while he was gone, Terian.”

“Sar, he loves you.”

“No,” I said, resigned. “I think he loves who
I was.”

“People change over time,” Terian said
consolingly. “You’re much more mature than you were before. That’s
a good thing.”

“That’s just it. Theo was the single most
important thing in my world years ago, but he’s not anymore;
Theoron is. Danial’s also become much more important to me—”

“I’m sure Theo understands that,” Terian
assured. “He didn’t love this other woman more back then because of
how different you are now.”

“It’s good he and I are going to counseling,”
I muttered, wiping at my eyes. “I’m constantly upset over this and
can’t seem to get past it. I know it’s irrational, it’s not like I
was waiting here alone, for God’s sake—”

Terian’s phone rang. He looked at the caller
ID, then smiled widely. “It’s Valerie. Can you give me a
minute?”

“Sure,” I said, going outside the room to
collect myself.

I waited there a few awkward moments. As I
went to leave, Terian came out.

“Sar, want to go with me to the Alan’s Creek
Park? Valerie wants to meet me for a walk near the river in a few
minutes.”

Despite I was dying to have a look at this
mystery woman, I tried to take the high road. “No, you should go
without me. She’s not going to want another woman along on your
date—”

“You’re married, so she shouldn’t care. And
it’s not a date, just a quick stroll on my break. C’mon, I want you
to meet her.”

Well, enough of the high road.
“Sure.
Let me call Brian and tell him where I’m going.”

“He still has you call in every hour?” Terian
said, raising his eyebrows.

“I’m used to it now,” I replied, giving him a
smile to soften my defensive tone. “Besides, someone needs to know
we’re leaving the grounds.”

After alerting Brian via cell, Terian grabbed
my hand, and instantly, we were standing at the park gates, near
some trees.

“Aren’t you worried about someone seeing us
teleport in?” I asked, peering around for possible gawkers.

“People just think they didn’t see you walk
up to the spot you appear at, not aware that they couldn’t have.”
Terian let go of my hand. “Valarie is already here, somewhere by
the pavilions.” He strode off.

I followed, looking uneasily upward at the
dark clouds. “That’s smart. It didn’t look this overcast back at
Danial’s.”

A crack of thunder sounded directly above me,
then drops hit my hands and arms.

I stopped and looked at Terian, bewildered.
“Wait, it was supposed to be clear today. I watched the Weather
Channel—”

Terian grabbed my hand again. We were
suddenly standing beneath a pavilion. Lightning cut the sky with a
flash, and instantly rain poured down

“So much for your walk,” I said as he
released my hand. “Do you want to call her back and say we headed
home? We’ll never find her in this downpour.”

“She’s not answering,” Terian replied, phone
to his ear.

The rain was coming down in sheets now,
soaking everything, and the wind was coming up. A few cars drove
past us towards the park exit, their wipers beating furiously.

“She probably just left—”

“No,” Terian said slowly. “That’s her.”

A woman was coming toward us in the rain. She
was pretty, with long brown hair. She also wasn’t wet at all.

“You have to ask her how she does that,” I
whispered, awed.

“I’ve been trying to reach you, Valarie,”
Terian said, walking towards her. “Why’d you turn your phone
off—?”

She smiled at him, and then raised her hand
and hit him with a lightning bolt drawn from the sky. Terian was
thrown back on the ground, the bloody hole in his chest
smoking.

I let out a scream, and ran to his side. His
eyes were open, unseeing. His wound was healing. The woman was
advancing cautiously, eyes on me.

My adrenaline spiking, I tried to grab
Terian’s gun, but it was beneath him. Wedging my arm under him, I
felt for the gun, trying to get it out of his back holster.

Terian groaned.

“Wake up!” I shouted in his ear.

He blinked his eyes, then with another groan,
pushed himself into a sitting position, raising his hands. He began
to murmur words.

“No,” the woman said in a commanding tone,
raising her hands. Terian’s murmur was cut off instantly.

“Who the hell are you?” I said hatefully,
still trying to unclasp the goddamn gun.

“I go by Leri,” the woman said, her long
brown hair blowing in the gale around us. “But my full name is
Alerian.” She turned hateful. “I’m your mother, Terian.”

Chapter
Six

Terian and I gaped at
Leri, incredulous.

She glared back, then screeched, “Why did you
have to show up here, now of all times?”

Terian found his voice. “My brother, Keriam,
told me my mother was dead. She died giving birth to me.”

“I knew Danial had a half demon working for
him, one who was good with potions, and some of the other darker
arts,” Leri ranted bitterly. “When I heard you mastered
teleportation in a few months, I knew you had to be mine.”

“You’re his mother?” I said disbelievingly.
“Are you part demon?”

“She’s not,” Terian groaned. “I’d have felt
it. Why not attack me when we met? Why wait until now?”

She cast a glance at me. “I couldn’t handle
this in front of Danial. He knows who I am and he’s smart enough to
figure out the reason. You were supposed to come alone. What kind
of dolt brings someone with him to a makeout session?”

“You kissed your own son?” I said,
grimacing.

Leri ignored me, looking down at Terian with
disdain. “Idiot,” she said harshly. “I left you with Keriam all
those years ago, altering his memories to cover my trail. He was
not your brother at all, he was just a college kid I found who I
bespelled to take you in. His name wasn’t even Keriam, that is just
what I made him believe—”

“Whose son am I?” Terian said angrily, his
eyes red. “What demon fathered me?”

“You are Titus’s son. He knew I didn’t want
children, but he wanted a son, badly. So he experimented with a few
potions without telling me.” She laughed ruefully. “He’s a master
spell caster.”

Terian’s father was the demon who worked for
Devlin. But Brian had said of the two, Leri was the more
dangerous...

“When I found out I was pregnant, I hid it
from him with illusions. Everything I tried to rid myself of you
failed. I decided to birth you, and then kill you—”

My fury overwhelmed my fear. “This wasn’t his
fault, you bitch! Why kill him? And why come here now? Terian’s
been here for years.”

Her eyes flicked to me, and then back to
Terian. “I expected him to stay in the Midwest, where Titus almost
never goes. As Danial found out two years ago, Terian is hard to
kill. It was easier to give him another life apart from mine, far
away from me. But now you’ve returned and it’s only a matter of
time before Titus discovers your real identity.”

“I want nothing from you or from him,
either,” Terian said coldly. “I’m not here to make you answer for
your sins.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Leri replied, raising
her hands. “I have to erase your existence. If Titus learns of you,
he’ll know what I did. He’s forgiven me many things, but he won’t
forgive this. I’m not losing him, we’ve just reconciled after
fighting for the last two months.”

Lighting arced down from the sky to collect
in her hands. I pulled the gun from beneath Terian with a desperate
cry, and rolled away from him as Leri threw the lightning into
him.

Terian arched his back, screaming, as his
chest reopened, the smell of burning flesh filled the air. He
collapsed back on the ground, his eyes blank, smoke curling up from
him.

As Leri gathered more lightning, I took aim
at her and fired, empting the clip of explosive bullets. Her body
jerked as the bullets hit her, but she didn’t fall, the points of
impact bulging, then slowly receding. The lightning in her hands
flashed, then disappeared.

“Sar,” she said evilly, gasping in pain.
“Stop firing or I’ll do more than erase your memories of this when
it’s done. I’ll teleport you to Tennessee and give you to the state
ruler there, after reactivating your condition—”

I threw the gun at her. “Fuck you and don’t
call me Sar!”

She evaded the gun, but the swift movement
ripped her bulging skin, blood gushing out along with shrapnel. She
let out a gasp, and clutched at her gaping skin, murmuring
words.

Terian struggled again to a sitting position,
hissing in pain, his chest bleeding badly. Leri threw more
lightning she’d gathered, but Terian blocked it, a glass sphere
forming out of the air to encircle the energy. In a blurred
movement, Terian seized and threw the sphere at her, the lightning
crackling inside. It hit Leri in the throat, the sphere shattering.
Leri convulsed, electrified, then toppled backward without a sound.
With a moan, Terian lost consciousness, collapsing back to the
muddy ground.

I leapt to my feet, panicked. Terian’s phone
was a mess of fried plastic. There was no one around. The storm
continued around us, raging, the wind howling now. There was zero
visibility outside the pavilion.

I kneeled beside Terian. He was breathing was
labored. The huge hole in his chest was still bleeding, and not
healing. When I tried to put pressure on the wound, I let out a
yelp, rubbing my hands vigorously. Damn it, his blood was steaming
hot, and so was he.

“Wake up,” I said hysterically, shaking
Terian. “I can’t deal with this alone, I need your help. God, why
couldn’t we be back at Danial’s house—!”

In an instant, Terian and I were in Danial’s
living room, staring in shock at Aran. Aran let out a surprised
yell.

“Danial!” I screamed. “Danial!”

Danial was through his office door and at my
side in moments, already dialing Theo. “Hurry, Terian’s hurt.”

“He needs food!” I yelled hysterically. “We
need meat!”

Aran ran into the kitchen and came back with
some raw meat. He tried to drip some blood in Terian’s mouth, but
he was unresponsive. The smell of sulfur from his torn flesh was
noxious, sickening me.

“Terian!” I yelled, shaking him again.

Theo slammed open the front door, and then he
was kneeling beside us, his expression worried. He shot a glance at
Danial, and then offered his wrist. Danial nodded once, and took
Theo’s wrist, biting down hard with his fangs, and tearing it open.
Blood spurted out, and Theo put his wrist into Terian’s mouth,
using his other hand to hold up Terian’s head so he didn’t choke. A
few seconds passed, and then Terian bit down on Theo’s wrist,
drinking greedily. Theo grimaced in pain, but made no sound.