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“Get used to it.” Sky leaned over to plant a kiss on my nose. “Tell me about your brother.”
Sighing deeply, I stared up at the ceiling. “Alberich ruled the Leyore coven before me. Everyone loved him and he was a good king. His death was unexpected, it shook all of us…”
I glanced over at my prying companion. Sky was listening with rapt interest, her thumb massaging circles on my shoulder.
“It was me who found Alberich’s body. He was dead in his home, with no wounds or signs of a struggle whatsoever. At first I thought he was sleeping. The only evidence of any foul play was this lingering scent all over the house—a witch’s scent.”
It had been a terrifying night, a painful one. Alberich had been so still, his skin cold to the touch, his glassy eyes wide and unseeing.
Sky’s nose wrinkled. “So witches are real too? Like old crones with moles on their noses?”
“Witches are beautiful,” I murmured, eyeing the twins from the corner of my eye. “That’s what makes them so dangerous. They can blend in with mankind well enough, but they mess with dangerous magic far beyond human comprehension.”
When Sky didn’t respond I continued, “Anyway, I tried to track down the witch by her scent. Whoever she was, she was the last person to have seen Alberich alive. I followed her scent through the woods, but eventually it disappeared without a trace. What I did find though, was a patch of red earth, signs of profuse bleeding right before her scent cut off. I didn’t know what any of it meant.”
“Do you think she was whisked away by some kind of magic?” Sky speculated. “Is that even possible?”
“With witches, anything is possible.” I closed my eyes again, reliving the vivid memories that followed. “I reported what I had found to the Leyore coven, but looking back I wonder if I should have kept my findings to myself. At the news of Alberich’s death, and learning that a witch might be involved, Jeremy launched an attack on the witches in Manhattan.”
“He took revenge on the witches?” Sky’s surprise was mingled with disgust. “Even though there was no real proof that it was a witch who killed Alberich?”
“That’s right.” I cringed away from the gory memories, scenes of bloody violence burned into my retina forever. “We managed to arrest him and had him banished for his cruel actions. But we were too late to save any of the witches. Jeremy had attacked at night, during one of their gatherings in the park; they didn’t see him coming.”
The relationship between vampires and witches had always been tense, but most had overcome the deep hatred kindled by hundreds of wars waged in the past. Jeremy’s attack had refueled that anger, driving a wedge between vampires and witches all over again.
“That’s terrible,” Sky whispered, most likely recalling the attack at the apartment, realizing just how bad things could have gone. “But how does this tie back to the twins?”
I hesitated then, the truth of the twins’ birth something I had struggled to come to terms with for a long time. “Two days after the attack, I got a knock on my door in the middle of the night. No one was there when I opened the door, not even a lingering scent. But at my feet there was a basket, with two newborns bundled up inside.”
Sky looked from me to the twins and back again. “The twins were dumped at your door?”
I nodded. “The moment I laid eyes on them I knew they were Alberich’s kids. They looked just like him, but their scent was strange. They smelled like vampires, and their eyes were red with newborn bloodlust. But they also expressed a different scent, one similar to the witch’s fragrance that I had picked up in Alberich’s home.”
The information took a moment to click, before Sky’s jaw dropped. “They’re half witch?”
The twins looked up at Sky’s exclamation, waving their meaty little fists in excitement.
“Yes.” I breathed deeply. “The witch I tracked was Alberich’s lover. The twins’ mother. Most likely the spilled blood had been hers, from going into labor in the middle of the woods.”
Sky’s hand flew to her mouth. “So what does it all mean? If the witch didn’t kill Alberich then who did? And where did she disappear to?”
“I don’t know.” I pinched the bridge of my nose. I had asked these same questions a thousand times over and still I had no answers. “Nobody knows. But with the hatred between witches and vampires more intense than ever, I had no choice but to keep the twins’ existence a secret. The Leyore coven would not accept them, nor would the remaining witches. The twins exist between the two worlds, they would be resented by both sides.”
Sky sat upright, rubbing at her temple with the palm of her hand. “Well, that was way more complicated than I expected it to be.”
I gave her a watery smile. “Haven’t you learnt by now? Nothing that goes on in the supernatural world is ever simple.”
“No kidding.” Sky was dumbfounded, looking at the twins in a new light. “So you’re telling me that one day those two are going to be able to use magic?”
“I’m not sure. I’ve never raised children before, let alone halflings like these two.”
A new thought occurred to me and I sat up too. “Does this change things? I wouldn’t want you to feel afraid of them–”
“Shush.” Sky cut me off with a kiss. “I love them just as much as I did yesterday. I couldn’t care less about the origin of their birth. It’s how we raise them that counts.”
I leaned into the kiss when she pulled away, bringing my hand up to cup her face. “What did I do to land someone as perfect as you?”
“You broke into my apartment and coerced me into ‘fake dating’ you.”
