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The furrow on Dad’s brow deepened. He pulled out his phone again, striding on into the house. Then he stopped. My former fiancé—who as far as he or Dad knew was still my fiancé—was ambling down the hall to meet us.
Derek paused as he took in my father’s expression. Concern crossed his own face—a face I might have called softly handsome before I’d known what a lying snake of a man he was.
“It’s good to have you back, Maxim,” he said. “Is everything all right?”
He could probably guess. He’d been askingmewhere my stepmother had disappeared to just a few hours ago. Worried about how his co-conspirator’s disappearance might affect him, no doubt. I hoped he’d done plenty of squirming.
He wasn’t talking to Dad as if my father were a fellow conspirator too, but then, I was standing here.
“I’ve been informed that Celestine left the estate late last night,” Dad said, glancing around the hall as if it might offer some clue. “I don’t suppose she mentioned to you where she might have been going?”
Derek held his stance steady, but a little of the color left his face. Oh, yes, let him be imagining how deep a shithole he might have gotten himself stuck in.
“I’m afraid not,” he said.
Dad rubbed a hand over his face. “All right,” he said. “I’m sure it’s nothing serious. I’ll sort it out.”
No, you won’t, I thought, my fingers twisting tighter around each other. No one would ever know why Celestine had left until I let them.
The thought brought a jab of uneasiness—and then a rising tickle of confidence. For the first time, I was the only one in this house with magic. Even if the two men in front of me didn’t know it, I held the power here now.
Chapter Three
Damon
It’s kind of pathetic how easily you can fall back into old habits. A few days spent hanging out with the old group, and I found myself wandering from Jin’s house back through town next to the twins, crossing the town square with our shoes smacking the cobblestones, the mid-afternoon sun searing our heads. You’d almost have thought we were back to being friends. As if I wasn’t just tolerating their presence in Rose’s life because I had to.
Because Lord knew if she’d be better off with me keeping her all to myself, I sure as hell would have.
Everything with Rose was good, though. The high from last night, the intensity of that crazy ceremony, was still racing through my nerves, as if I had some kind of magic in me too. Maybe I did—a little of hers. I’d felt it when she’d sworn herself to me, when I’d sworn my love back to her.
I loved her. I loved Rose Hallowell. And she loved me. I could put up with an awful lot, knowing that.
Even Mr. Brainiac’s inane rambling.
“I should have asked Gabriel if he ever checked out Whaley House,” Kyler was saying to his brother. “That’s in California—San Diego. From what I’ve heard it’s supposed to be the most haunted place in the country.”
“Since when have you been researching hauntings?” Seth said, sounding about as bemused as that humorless guy ever got.
“Oh, I don’t know, something caught my interest a few years back and I did a little reading.” Kyler shook his head dismissively, his light brown curls jostling together. Almost a year older than me, but sometimes he still sounded like that overeager kid he’d been all those years ago when we had actually been friends. “It could come in handy. If magic and witches are real, who’s to say ghosts aren’t?”
“Hey,” Seth said, abruptly serious again. “You shouldn’t talk about that out here.” His gaze scanned the square. On a weekday at this time, there was no one around except a few tourists snapping pics of the big fountain in the middle. Kyler hadn’t even been that loud. Trust Seth to worry anyway.
They weren’t really talking to me, were they? We’d fallen in together as we’d left, but maybe they were only tolerating my presence too. It wasn’t as if we had a whole lot in common these days.Theirparents had gotten through just fine after Rose’s stepmother had kicked them to the curb. They hadn’t had to watch their mom get beaten down just trying to support them.
My dad? Fuck if I knew where he’d been for the last thirteen years. He started hooking up with some chick from the kitchen staff, ran off with her, and not a peep from him since. Lucky him. He missed getting fired by about ten months.
Kyler lowered his voice even more. “It’s amazing that Rose managed to call to him all the way out in California, though, isn’t it?”
I made a scoffing sound. “Yeah, real great work on his part, showing up after we’d already handled the problem.”
Seth frowned at me. “She’ll have an even bigger problem if she can’t trust her dad either.”
“So what? We’ll deal with it like we helped her with her stepmom.We’reher consorts. I don’t think being well-traveled has anything on that.” Even if those travels had possibly struck me with a tiny twinge of envy.
Kyler dug his hands into the pockets of his khakis. “You know if he’d been here from the start, he’d be a consort too.”
Of course I did. Of course he would have been. But the way Kyler said it, like an unshakeable statement of fact, set my teeth on edge. “Well, he wasn’t here, was he? And we were. That’s what’s important. He can’t just ride in on that fucking motorcycle”—of course, of course Gabriel also had to have the sweetest bike I’d ever seen—“and take over everything.”
