Page 25 of Fateful Reunion

“Damn earthquakes,” Roxanne muttered and turned back to Zane, who was making a phone call on his cell.

“Hey baby girl,” he said in hushed tones, tones that were much softer and gentler than he used with his colleagues. Only when he spoke to his wife did Zane sound friendly. Clearly, Portia, his blood-bonded mate, knew how to bring Zane out of his hard shell.

“How are you and the boys? Did anybody get hurt?”

Roxanne busied herself adjusting the painting on the wall, not wanting to listen in on Zane’s conversation.

“About the earthquake of course,” Zane said, his voice a little louder now.

Something in it made her look at him and notice the deep frown lines that now appeared on his forehead. Their gazes collided. Something was wrong.

“So you didn’t feel it then?” Zane hummed, listening to her response. “No, no, it wasn’t strong. Maybe just a three pointer.” Alarm flared in his eyes as the lie rolled over his lips. “Didn’t mean to alarm you. No, everything’s fine. Hug the boys from me, okay? Love you, baby girl.” He disconnected the call.

“It’s impossible that Portia wouldn’t have felt it,” Roxanne said.

“Exactly my thinking.” He tapped on his iPhone. “We’re on bedrock here, my house isn’t. If we felt it, my house would have shaken even worse.”

Roxanne approached so she could see the screen of his cell phone. “What’s the CGS say? Any alerts yet?”

Zane shook his head. “None.”

Roxanne pulled out her own phone and opened a social media site. “Social media is faster than the California Geological Survey. I bet you a hundred teenagers have already posted or tweeted about it, or whatever they do.” She scrolled through a multitude of posts. Not a single one mentioned an earthquake in Northern California.

“I’m calling HQ,” Zane said.

She was nodding when she heard sounds on the stairs. Charles’s long legs entered her line of sight and she walked toward him as he came down the stairs, meeting him under the door frame.

“Is she okay?”

“Just a little agitated. But Grayson is telling her stories about his siblings and how they made a game of guessing the strength of an earthquake on the Richter scale.” He smiled. “It seems to distract her.”

“Good. Because something isn’t right.”

“What?” Alarm colored Charles’s voice.

She motioned him into the living room, away from the hallway where their voices might carry upstairs.

“We can’t find any evidence of an earthquake.”

“Come again? I felt the earth shake underneath my feet,” Charles said.

“Fuck!” Zane cursed, making Roxanne and Charles whirl their heads toward him. “There was no earthquake. Nowhere in the city. We’re the only ones who felt it.”

Roxanne rubbed her neck, trying to dispel the uncomfortable feeling that was now slithering down her spine. “Then what was this?”

“A warning,” Charles muttered.

She shot him a stunned look. “From the witches of the mark?”

“No, from the ones who want Ilaria dead. And it’s my fault they’ve found us.”

~ ~ ~

Charles felt the cold, hard reality of it crash down on him. He’d known that using his own powers to find the witches of the mark would make it easier for the slayers who’d been hunting him and Ilaria for the better part of two decades to find him. The more of their powers—his and Ilaria’s—they used too closely together, the more of a risk they ran to send out a strong enough magic signature that could be read by other witches. As long as he’d concealed his and Ilaria’s powers and kept moving, the witches who wanted her dead hadn’t been able to get a clear reading on him or his niece. But since Ilaria had started coming into her powers, it had been harder to remain concealed. And tonight, his scrying for the witches of the mark and Ilaria’s fit had caused the pot to boil over and given their enemies enough to sniff them out. The gig was up.

“I used my powers tonight,” he explained to Roxanne, but she wasn’t even listening.

She’d already jumped into action, ripping open a hidden panel in the living room that contained an array of weapons. She and Zane were arming themselves, exchanging short instructions.