AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“By herself,” he stated, scowling. The air around him started to shimmer.
It only occurred to me that he was wearing soft pants and a vest shirt; I’d only ever seen him in his Guardian uniform. But, even in this low lighting, I should have noticed earlier because his arms and chest were on display. Mangled scars went down one arm and across what I could make out of his chest.
The shimmering stopped, and he was once again in his uniform, his helmet clutched beneath his arm and his claymore strapped across his back. “You’re sure she’ll open the portal for you?” he asked.
“We hadn’t even brought up the portal to her, yet she brought us here on her own when she realized Mikey was taken,” I explained. “She told us to split up and hide.”
“Who is ‘us?’” Penelope queried. “Where are the rest of your friends? And your mate?”
You can come out.
Good. My knees were starting to hurt.
I chuckled. The sound of rustling started, followed by a yelp. I had no doubt that she’d fallen out of her hiding space.
“I’m okay!” she announced. “I’m good!”
I stared at Penelope as she stared at Aria. She sucked in a harsh breath, and I watched her entire demeanor soften as Aria made her way to my side and laced our fingers together.
Your mother’s genes are honestly unfairly superior,she grumbled. I couldn’t help but agree. Granted, I was ginger while my siblings were bleach blonde down to the eyebrows, but my eyes? I definitely got them from her.
However, Grel is still… pretty scary.
That’s fair, but he’s also missing half of his face.
“Penelope, this is my mate, Aria Gribald,” I said. I didn’t bother introducing Penelope as my mother.
“You’re beautiful,” she replied, her eyes shining wetly.
“Mom, please,” one of the twins groaned. They flanked their mother. “I’m Aki. I’m Penelope’s eldest daughter. It’s a pleasure to meet you, though I’d prefer that this was under different circumstances.”
She was on the left; she seemed more relaxed than the other sister.
“Yeah,” Aria chuckled. “I know what you mean.”
“While you get to know each other, I’ll help Lucia get the other free,” Grel interjected, glaring at us. “We’re on a time crunch. Pray that you can meet each other again when you have time to be awkward and tense.”
He vanished before any of us could respond.
“We’ll find your friends. I’ve seen the human woman around; I can sense her in the maze. The wolf is a little harder to sense, but if they’re together, we’ll find them,” Kora said, grasping her sisters' hands. “It was a pleasure to meet you.”
They left Penelope, Aria, and I standing near the fountain, facing off.
Penelope’s fingers twitched subtly as she glanced from Aria to me. When the tension continued to ratchet the longer we stood there in silence, Aria broke it with a question.
“Why are you helping us?”
I was curious about that, as well.
I assumed it was out of some misguided idea that helping us would convince me to fix our nonexistent relationship. Maybe before meeting her, I would’ve been confident that her help would’ve made no difference, but I wasn’t sure I could dislike her for the rest of my days or anything else quite so dramatic. Some part of me had always yearned for my birth mother.
That wasn’t to say that Lucy and Credence didn’t consider me their flesh and blood, but there was always that niggling in the back of my mind reminding me that the woman who grew me in her tummy for nine months pushed me out, then raised me for a small part of my life had also left me at Azazel’s doorstep.
“Because he’s my son,” she said simply. She turned to me, her eyes clear, a sad smile on her face. “Whether he will forgive me for what I’ve done or not, he is still my son.”
“You never went back for him,” Aria pointed out, stepping between Penelope and I. Was she protecting me? Defending me? “He’s twenty-five years old. Did you try contacting him at all?”
Penelope glanced down at her hands.
