I put a gentle hand on her forearm. “Addie?”
“That’s our… She threw me into the creek.” A tear slid down her cheek.
“You remember?” Haley asked.
Addie rubbed her forehead, her face pained. “Just flashes. Gray was begging her not to throw me in. Delly, you guys called me. ‘Delly can’t swim,’ Gray kept saying. Over and over and over, and that woman just… She didn’t even care. She wanted us gone.”
Addie was shaking now, staring at Trinity with a mixture of fear and hatred.
“But youdidswim, Addie,” I said, rubbing her back. “You pulled yourself out of there, and you screamed your head off until a neighbor finally heard. You’re the reason she didn’t succeed.”
“I can’t believe it’s her,” she said absently.
I turned to stare at the woman who’d given birth to us. She was almost beautiful, and maybe had been at one time, but there was something off about her features. She reminded me of someone who’d had too much plastic surgery, and now tried to mask it with too much makeup. Parts of her skin drooped and sagged unnaturally, her brows and forehead unmoving. Her collarbone jutted out at an odd angle, as if it’d been broken and set improperly.
She reminded me of Jonathan, of the side effects of all the experiments he’d done on himself, constantly chasing the perfect hybrid combination that would make him strong and immortal. Trinity may have been immortal—she was a vampire now, after all—but something told me strength had eluded her. Her hands trembled, and her back hunched over as if it wasn’t strong enough to hold her up.
It was hard to believe this woman had almost killed us.
It was even harder to believe she was our mother.
“She can’t hurt us here,” I said, turning back to Addie, offering what I hoped was a comforting smile.
“No, she can’t.” A calm steel edged into her voice, and now Addie moved to stand behind Trinity, attempting to wrap her hands around the woman’s neck. They passed right through her, as if Addie were no more substantial than mist. “And we can’t hurt her, either, which is a shame.”
“Guys, someone’s coming.” Haley gestured for us to join her on the other side of the room, giving us a full view of the table and the entrance from the kitchen, through which four more figures emerged—three fae and one human male.
“That’s gotta be Talia,” I said, nodding toward the fae woman as she took the chair to Trinity’s left. I recognized her wine-colored hair from Emilio’s description. “She’s on the Council. The fae dude with the scar on his cheek looks like a Darkwinter Knight.” He was dressed in a black uniform, with a black-and-gold insignia on the armband. He took the chair on the other side of Trinity, spreading out a bunch of maps on the table before him.
I wondered if he was the soldier Jael’s sister Kallayna had pretended to fall in love with.
I wondered if she was even still alive.
“Who do you suppose the other fae is?” Addie asked, nodding at the male settling in on Talia’s other side. He was dressed in dark gray robes, with long, stark-white hair woven into several intricate braids. Whomever he was, he had an air of importance about him.
“If that’s Talia,” Haley said, “a hundred bucks says Mr. Self-Importance is Fenlos.”
“Who the fuck is that?” Addie asked.
“He and Talia were higher-ups on the Council,” she said. “Jael sensed their magic that night we got into that crash on the highway. They killed some poor truck driver.”
I glared at the pair of them, wondering what it was going to take to kill them.
“And the human?” Addie asked, and I glanced to the opposite end of the table, where the human male was settling in and booting up a laptop. He was short and broad-shouldered, with a weathered face and a scraggly whitish beard.
Everything in me turned to stone, except for my heart, which pounded so hard it made my chest ache.
You and your kind will burn, witch…
The last time I’d seen him, that beard had been blond.
The last time I’d seen him, he’d slit Calla’s throat before my eyes and ordered his son to kill me.
“Phillip Reese,” I managed to choke out. “Jonathan’s father. The hunter who murdered my mother. Mytruemother.”
I felt my sisters seething beside me, our pain and anger shared. Each of us had been wronged by the people in that room. Each of us had scores to settle. If we could’ve lit that room on fire and butchered everyone in it, I’m certain we would have.
But we weren’t really standing there in Norah’s dining room. We weren’t really standinganywhere.And so my sisters and I clasped hands, infusing each other with love and support, and allowed the meeting of our enemies to unfold before our eyes.
