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Desmond. Desmond. Desmond.
Grandmere.
Desmond.
Mercedes.
Tyler.
Desmond. Desmond.
As I cleared the last of the messages, the phone began to buzz in my hand. I didn’t bother checking the screen before answering. It didn’t matter who was on the other end, I was about to get an earful.
“Hello?”
“Just where in the hell have you been?” Aha! So Sig could get angry.
“I can’t really get into it—”
“Don’t. Don’t start. I will not listen to excuses. ”
“I wasn’t making excuses. ”
“You vanish off the face of the planet, leaving Ingrid in Los Angeles to make excuses for you, while the goddamn Tribunal thinks you’ve made off with some precious artifact. I’ve got Eilidh complaining to me about a window, and she assumes you’ve run off with Holden, while Rebecca would love to know what you’re doing with all her offspring. ”
I was glad I was already sitting because it was a lot to hear all at once.
“I didn’t run off. I went looking for Sutherland like the Tribunal requested. It just took longer to recover him than expected. ”
“Two weeks longer? And your phone has been off the whole time? I find that hard to—”
“I don’t care,” I snapped. I’d held my composure pretty well over the past several days, all things considered, but I wasn’t about to take a browbeating from Sig because he believed I was shirking my council duties. I would not be guilt tripped or talked down to. Not after what I’d been through. “I don’t care what it looks like, Sig. I don’t care what the West Coast council or Ingrid think. I have been through hell getting my father back, and I refuse to explain myself to them, to you or to anyone else. ”
Static filled the line, making me think I’d lost the connection.
“You aren’t going to have a choice. You have to explain it to the West Coast Tribunal, and sooner rather than later. ”
“Why?”
“Because this morning Galen Altos issued a warrant for your death. ”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
I didn’t imagine the first time I’d meet my father would be because I was trying to get us both out of a death sentence.
When I was younger, I’d thought about him a lot, the way I imagined most girls with no parents did. My grandmere warned me about my mother to high heaven, so I didn’t have the same fantasies about Mercy as I had with Sutherland.
The man I’d imagined as a child was not the man I met in the lobby of the military hospital. I’d used what limited pull I had with the FBI—and through them Major Logan—to secure my father’s release. It was amazing what people were willing to do when you explained your life was on the line.
I didn’t kid myself that my wellbeing concerned them. Tyler might have cared, but to everyone else I was a resource they’d invested time and money into. If letting a crazy vampire out of a military hospital was what it took to keep me alive, they were apparently okay with signing him over to me.
He emerged from a back office with an armed attendant. Normally I’d have said it was uncalled for, but given what Logan had told me about Sutherland’s mental state, I wasn’t going to question any precautions the humans wanted to take.
The first thing that struck me was how young he appeared. He’d been fed and had physically recovered from his wounds—whatever they’d been—and now he looked like a boy. It was hard for me to think of this man as my father.
“Hello,” he said sweetly when he reached us, his voice sticky with a Southern drawl much like the rest of my family’s. He nodded to me and Desmond, then to Holden. “Hello. ” The o sound was drawn out, and something about the way he spoke was a bit…off.
“Sutherland, do you know who we are?” Holden touched my father’s arm, and seeing them side by side was too bizarre to comprehend. Holden was forever frozen in his early thirties, whereas Sutherland would have to show ID for liquor for the rest of his unnatural lifespan.
