“She was trying to awaken witch blood. It wasn’t just your mother, it wasn’t an isolated… incident.”
“But she killed my mother.”
“I am sorry,ma chérie. Sorrier than you will ever know.”
“You’re not to blame,” Cally said, her tone belying her words.
“It’s not a coincidence, is it?” Eve said, drawing their attention. She looked at Antoine. “She’s your sire.” Her gaze turned to Cally. “She bit your mother. And somehow, twenty-five years later, you find each other.”
Cally hugged herself. “Is she right?” she asked. “Was this… targeted?”
Antoine swallowed, the sudden coldness in her tone stabbing at his heart. He spoke slowly and clearly, even though every word hurt to say. “It is exactly as Eve has said. She hoped that I would find one of the children whose mothers she had bitten.”
“Why?” Cally shook her head, raising a hand. “No, don’t tell me,” she added, her voice turning bitter. “She wanted you to bond with a witch.”
“I am sorry,ma chérie.”
“Don’t call me that again,” Cally snapped. “I’m only here because… My mother…” Tears filled her eyes, and she turned away.
Antoine bowed his head. “There is no more news, nothing else I have not told you.”
There was no reaction from Cally, but he hadn’t expected one. Eve watched him leave, fingertips pressed to her lips and eyes heavy with sadness. But no sympathy could undo the hurt of the message he had needed to deliver.
He closed their door quietly behind him, then walked alone to his own room, never feeling more the outcast than in that moment.
Forty
“Okay, I’m just going to say it, because no one else will,” Eve said into the silence of Antoine’s departure. “I understand you’re upset about your mother, but it wasn’thisfault. That was totally uncalled for.”
Cally swung on her, tears in her eyes. “My mother isdeadbecause of him!”
“No,” Eve said quietly, “your mother is dead because of Belle.”
“Yes, and Belle did it forhim!” Her arm flung out, finger extended in accusation toward Antoine’s room.
“Still not Antoine’s fault.”
Cally planted her hands on her hips, glaring. “I didn’t even think youlikedhim.”
“Antoine?” Eve shrugged a shoulder. “He’s okay. I’d like him a lot more if he wasn’t sleeping with the girl I can’t stop thinking about.” She closed the book on her lap and set it aside, then crossed her legs. “Go and apologize.”
“Apologize? To him?” Cally tried to hold onto her anger, but the guilt pushed through. Damn it.
“Antoine just lost his territory, right?”
Cally wiped at her eyes with the sleeve of her blouse. “I s’pose.”
“And this house, where he’s lived for decades.”
“Yeah.” That just twisted the knife deeper.
“All because he refused to hand you over.”
Damn Roberto for that.
She’d lost sight of it in the news of her mother, but she could only imagine Antoine’s rage at that attempted manipulation. There’d never been a question of what he would do. He neverwould’ve surrendered her; he was too possessive, too bound to her, and she to him. She was his. No matter what Roberto threatened, Antoine would burn before he gave her up.
The thought of Roberto trying to use her as leverage made her blood boil. Her fists clenched, nails digging hard. “That bastard Roberto needs to die.”
