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“Who the hell are you?And what are you doing with my sons?”The matching ties, all of the same flaming red color, seemed to mock her in some way, and she wanted to snatch them off of their throats and strangle each of them with their neckwear.“What the blue blazes is going on in here?I demand answers.”
“Well, I guess it sucks to be you.”The voice.It took her much too long to understand who the woman was and that she should have been dead.“We came to make sure that you had a merry sending off when they find you guilty of all the charges against you.Your father, too.If killing off your husband wasn’t bad enough, the two of you killed off your mother as well.For what reason?”
“I am not going to lower myself to speak to you.”She looked at the faces of the men she’d been training and disciplining since they’d been born.“I want to know why you’re here.The six of you should be doing what you’ve been told and staying within my reach when I need you.Where have you been hiding?”It was Nashville who laughed at her question and was the first to explain himself.
“Hiding?None of us have been hiding at all but have been walking around and making friends like a normal person does.Not that it’s any of your business.Also, I’ve been getting to know my lovely mate too.Why, it might surprise you to know that not only does the town open its doors for us—despite what you’ve told them, but we’re making a difference around the little burg, too.Donating things.Archie has taken out all the furniture from the house that you were living in before this and given it all away.”LouCinda tried once again to leap at her second son.“You’re going to have to learn that we’re not going to be your whipping posts anymore, LouCinda.That’s right, we’ve decided that you’re no longer going to be called any form of mother for the rest of our lives.You don’t deserve it any more than your father does being called grandfather.”
“I’m going to beat the shit out of you when I’m released.We’ll just see how long it takes you to heal up this time, Nashville.”She looked at the others and realized one thing that she’d not noticed when watching them.Not a one of them seemed to be afraid of her.In fact, they were holding their humor in a way that had her thinking that she’d been the butt of their jokes and barbs for a time now.And that wouldn’t do.“What else have the six of you been up to?No good, I’m betting.Well, that’s going to change too.I liked having you under my—”
“Were you going to say thumb, LouCinda?You did at that.And since you’ve asked—actually asked something of us, we’ve decided to tell you.”She watched Archie through a narrow slit in her eyes.“I’ve become an investor.Money, stocks, and other things.I’ve been doing it since I was eighteen and making pretty good money for myself and my future mate when she comes along.And she will now, knowing what I know about the law and how many you’ve broken.”The second person to speak without her permission was Wrangler.
“You’d not believe how good I’ve become at reading the market trends.Investors from all over the world call me up to ask my opinion on what I might think will make them some money.I have, too, made both them and myself a great deal, too, over the years since I turned eighteen.”He looked at his brothers, and she could see the smirks on their faces, too, and LouCinda was getting a head pain that was making her sick.“All of us, no thanks to you.We have been doing very well for ourselves.Or despite you.I’m not sure what you might call it.Dad gave us enough money and the land to—” Her dad, chained up as well, lunged at her sons.
“I will not allow you to sell even an inch of that land.That is going to me even if I have to kill each and every one of you to get—why the hell do you think my daughter married your father in the first place?She didn’t need him as her mate, and he made her life a living hell, so, in turn, mine as well.You will not do a thing to that land, or you’ll wish for death more than your father did when I was finished with him.”LouCinda turned back to her sons when her father spoke.“You six should have died before you were even big enough to have been spit on the sheets.”
“I’ve heard enough.”She knew that voice that spoke behind her.Just where she’d heard it from was something that she couldn’t put her finger on at the moment.Winning, because that was what it felt like when her father threatened them, was too heady of a feeling for her to concentrate on something as mundane as a voice right now.“You might not care to concentrate at all, LouCinda, but I would really like it if you were to turn around and see who is going to be the last man you ever see.”
She knew then.It was that fucking leader that she could never get a handle on.Turning slowly, trying her best to show her best side, she was startled to see how old he looked.How just ran down he was now.When he backed away from her touch, she smiled at him.No place like right now to get things going in her direction, she thought with a hardy laugh.
“My goodness, Josiha Crooksville.You’ve not aged one bit since I’ve seen you last.”He rolled his eyes at her, and she tried her best to ignore that for now.“What brings you here?Hopefully, my sons didn’t bother you with their troubles.The six of them need some discipline now and then, and it’s gotten away from me for a few days.I’ll take care that they never bother you again, and then we can get this, all this stuff put behind us.What do you think?”
“LouCinda, it is with great pleasure that I sentence you with pack laws and say that for the death of your mate and the twenty-nine others that we can contribute to your murdering hand that you’ll be dealt with by pack laws and not human laws.”She sputtered for a few seconds, trying her best to tell him that she didn’t know what he was speaking about when he continued.“Yes, I know all about your deeds.And I have proof of them as well.As of the moment that you leave this building, you’ll be dealt a hand of death by your kind.A death that I hope you suffer with greatly.”
“I have money.”Josiha said that she didn’t have anything anymore.“What do you mean?You mean what they’ve been saying about kicking me from the house?No, that’s not going to happen.You’ll see.I have complete control over them, and once I’m out of here—you must let me out of here to do this.They will do what I tell them when I tell them to do it.I swear to you.”
“No.”She hated that word, and when he turned his back on her, she did the most incredibly stupid thing she’d ever done: she jerked him around so that he was facing her.“You dare to touch me?”His voice roared through her head and around the room like a rotunda she’d been in once.
She felt the slight breath of air.Her anger making its way out of her body felt good.It was pure, like a summer day with all the flowers in full bloom.Closing her eyes, dragging in as much as she could, LouCinda knew that she’d won this battle and that the idiot in front of her would never touch her again.
~*~
Sunny didn’t mind the sunshine shining on her face.It was a habit, sitting out in the afternoon sun, she thought she could get used to.Even the slight breeze was a nice change from being inside of a restaurant all morning, too.Opening her eyes when she heard a slight sound, she closed them again when she realized who had come to visit her.
“You wished to speak to me, Sunny?I thought that the family would be out getting things ready for the funerals.They’re tomorrow, correct?”Sunny explained to Lily that they were indeed tomorrow, but the food was being catered, and she was just relaxing for a bit.“I heard about what happened to William after his daughter was killed.How did he think that he could win against the shadow is beyond me.But perhaps he knew that he’d not win, and that was how he decided to end his own life.By—”
“I remember you now.”Lily didn’t say anything when Sunny spoke.Nodding once, she continued with her memories.“It was you, wasn’t it?The day that we looked for the jar that you told me you lost.Actually, I thought that you called it your jar, but since I was only a child, four or so at the time, I misheard you.I was helping you look but not for the shard you were looking for but an actual jar.”
“It’s been gone to me all these years later.Your memories of it should have faded as well.”Sunny told her that they had faded to almost no memory at all until recently.“What have you done to bring the memories back, Child?Surely, they didn’t come to you again after all this time.Something trigger it?”
“Yes.”She waited to see if Lily would ask her.When she didn’t, Sunny smiled.“I found myself there yesterday.In the deep woods, sitting next to a tree without any identifying marks on it, thinking about all the deaths that LouCinda and her father caused over their lifetimes.The same tree that you were next to when my memories started to fade out that day.”
“It was all I could do to keep you safe.However, losing a small piece of the crystal made it so that I could never go there and retrieve you so that you’d know who I was and why I had to do what I did.No matter how badly I wished it.”Lily looked at her then, like something had only just occurred to her.“You said you found yourself there again yesterday.How did you know where to go?”
“I didn’t.As I said, I was just walking around thinking.You only meant for me to stay there until such time I was old enough to realize what my role was.You meant for me to be safe, but something else happened that day that broke one of the blue crystals on your crown, and all was, as you thought, lost to you.Which in turn meant that I was as well.Correct, mother?”Lily said nothing but sat up straighter in her chair.“I’ve spoken to Grandma.She will forever be that to me, no matter what circumstances brought us together.I think she was glad for her role in my life for you.”
“She loved you.Still does.I do as…what do you think you know, Sunshine?Tell me so that I can try and calm my heart and mind.”Instead of answering her, she put out her hand and held it there.“You’ve found it.Haven’t you?After all these years, you’ve finally found the piece that was missing.”
“I did.It’s yours now.”The small piece of a crystal, no bigger than a sewing needle in width and smaller than the steel notion by half, dropped into her hand.“I was wandering around when it occurred to me that the shard had to still be there.And that it would have to be found by someone who would notice its worth.Not in monetary worth but worth more than that.”
“I was holding you.You were just a child then, and I held you to me once more so that Antebellum would take you away and raise you as her own for a time.But I tripped and fell into a stone wall, and my crown, the blue stone for memory, was chipped.I found all but this piece to put it back together.”The crown appeared out of nowhere, and Lily laid it across her lap.Taking the tiniest piece of matter into her hand, as if it knew what its importance was, floated down to the heart-shaped stone and slid into the smallest of crevices to complete it.
Sunny felt it fill her mind.The memories of before and since the stone had been shaped.Things that she’d missed living among the humans that her mother had dealt with and the things that would hold her future.It was gentle in its giving her the information and she was nearly asleep when it finished.The power of the completed stone filled her mind, body, and soul.Making her whole for the first time in longer than she could remember.
“I couldn’t protect you after that.Not from LouCinda or her father.Not on my own, anyway.But Antebellum could and did for me, keeping me informed of your life daily.It was important that you were saved for Nash.The two of you, there were such plans for the two of you, and I worried daily because I’d been clumsy and—”
“LouCinda tried to kill you that day.You didn’t trip.You were knocked away from holding me as LouCinda wanted you to fail.I don’t know that she knew what was in the future for myself and her son, but she wanted me dead, and that was all she could think about at the time.My connection to magic and to you, it was the only thing that saved the two of us.”Lily—Mother nodded but looked away.Sunny could feel her grief.“I’ve spoken to Nash.However, there wasn’t a great deal that I understood at the time.Now that you’ve completed the gem, I know so much more than I did before.About not just his mother but also you and what your plans were in doing what you did.”
“I only meant to keep you safe.”Sunny told her that she had.“Yes, at the cost of missing all of your life.I should have kept you at the castle.Where I could watch you grow and become the woman that you are.”
