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Within minutes he slowed, flying into the coastal range of Venezuela where the mountains ran along the northernmost section of the country.
He flew her to the highest elevation and passed through a forest, then finally drifted through the hard rock walls of the cavern system.
My housekeeper has come and gone, so we’ll have privacy. But she’s left a meal of spicy chicken-filled empanadas and a salad. And beer.
And suddenly I’m starved.
Reyes touched down in the middle of the living room. A thin but very wide waterfall made up the wall opposite, tucked behind a low stone barrier. Soft lights lit the dark rock that sparkled with gold-colored minerals.
Heavy, carved-wood chests and tables sat against the walls but a cream sectional lightened the space. A brightly colored woven rug anchored a solid coffee table. Branches of antique candelabra and ornate silver boxes completed the decor.
Faylen’s boxes.
She moved toward one that sat on a dark wood chest. It was one of the larger ones and had intricate carvings on each drawer. “This belonged to your mother, didn’t it?” Oddly she could almost feel Faylen’s presence in the space, and for a long moment she wished, for Reyes’s sake, that his mother was still alive.
With her hand on the box the room began to spin, faster than ever, a sure sign that a revisiting vision was upon her. Again.
“Reyes.” She gestured for him to come to her.
“A vision?”
“Yes, an important one. Please hold me.” She just had a feeling.
An image swept through her of a woman with auburn hair sitting on a cot, her legs shackled. The room had a stand with a pitcher of water and a chamber pot in the corner.
Angelica’s heart beat hard in her chest. “I think I’m seeing your mother. Tell me what she looked like.”
Reyes took a deep breath as he leaned his head close to hers. “Show me. I have a sense that I’ll be able to see her because of the Ancestral chains.”
Angelica relaxed against him and let her mind flow.
The woman rocked softly on the cot.
“I can see the vision. Oh, God, it is her. That’s my mother.”
“Reyes, where is this? Do you know where this is?”
“No, that is, it feels familiar. But can you tell me when this took place?” Revisiting visions were always in the past.
Angelica was shocked as she turned in his arms, forcing the vision to disappear. “This vision is of something that occurred just a few minutes ago. Reyes, your mother is still alive.”
* * *
Reyes felt hot and cold at exactly the same moment. He’d grieved his mother’s death for well over a century. Sweet Dove had relayed the progress of her demise step by step, how she’d stopped eating and taking blood and had devolved into blood madness, afterward dying.
Sweet Dove had lied to him.
Maybe it was the blood-chains or his increasing Ancestral power, but he could feel his mother now. He just couldn’t believe it was true.
His mother lived.
“Can you sense where she is?” Angelica asked.
He closed his eyes and focused at the same time, letting his Ancestral power surge through him. “She’s alone. Dear God, Sweet Dove kept her sequestered all this time.”
“Do you think she hurt your mother?”
“Almost two centuries of solitary imprisonment would have been torture enough. But let’s go. She wasn’t far from Sweet Dove’s office.”
He held out his arm, and Angelica climbed onto his booted foot. The moment she secured a hold on his neck, he shifted to altered flight and sped through rock and into the air.
A few minutes later he slowed his approach, diving through more rock, centering his path on the image of his mother. Angelica had touched the silver box and the vision had come to her. She had given him so much and now this.
A moment later he passed through the final layer of rock.
When his boots hit the solid rock floor, he stared at the woman in the white, sack-like dress, still sitting on the edge of her cot. She looked as young as he remembered, and her blue eyes were as full of life.
“You found me,” she whispered, rising to her feet. “I knew you would. I never gave up hope.” She opened her arms, her eyes filling with tears.
He gathered her up, holding her tightly against his chest, tears coursing down his cheeks. She clung to him and wept. He didn’t think he ever wanted to let her go.
At last he murmured, “I bought our home back, the one at Cordillera.”
She drew back and planted her hands on his face. “You did?”
He nodded. “As soon as I escaped my captor I began building my fortune. The moment I had enough money to tempt the owner to sell, I bought it back and recovered as many of your things as I could. Remember your silver boxes?”
“Yes. Treasures that belonged to the women of my family for centuries.”
“I found most of them.”
“Brogan Reyes, my darling son.”
More tears followed, until eventually she asked, “But how did you find me? After all this time?”
Reyes finally released her and turned slightly so that Angelica came into his line of sight. “My woman found you. I had just taken her to Cordillera and she touched one of the boxes. She has the revisiting vision gift and saw you here. Right here, not fifteen minutes ago.”
His mother left Reyes’s side and moved in Angelica’s direction. She lifted her hands to Angelica, who in turn took them. “Thank you, my dear.”
“Angelica, I’d like you to meet my mother, Faylen Reyes.”
Angelica nodded as more tears slipped down her cheeks. “I’m so happy to meet you, Mrs. Reyes.”
“Faylen please.” Her gaze fell to Angelica’s throat. “And you’re bonded to Reyes?”
Angelica met Reyes’s gaze. “I am.”
Reyes felt as though nothing had been so real in his life as what stood before him: a mother believed dead and now come to life, and a woman to whom he would give himself for the rest of his days.
“Let me take you home, Mother. I’ll go very slowly, which means this will take some time.”
“I have all the time in the world.”
* * *
Later that night, with Reyes’s mother asleep in a real bed for the first time in almost two centuries, Angelica lay in the arms of the man she loved.
She knew that, in time, she would reunite with her own mother, though she had no idea how she would explain her vampire husband, the constant wearing of the blood-chains, or that over the years her aging would slow to match Reyes’s. But those were small issues to be worked out in the larger scheme of things.
