Wrath

“She spent almost the entire night with Rina,” Mom said silently to me. I lifted a brow. “You can talk to Rina about it later.”

Vanessa only stayed long enough for Ophelia to bring her a glass of what might have looked like tomato or vegetable juice to a Norman—it even had a celery stalk and a parsley sprig for flourish—but I knew better. The vampire took her breakfast and disappeared. Mom shook her head after Vanessa left.

“It’s still hard to believe, but can’t be denied,” she said quietly.

“Her conversion or that she’s my sister? Because I’m not sure I totally believe either yet.”

“Oh, I sensed the truth about her being Lucas’s daughter decades ago, but he would never confirm it, even when we were together.”

“Seriously?” I demanded. “You knew, and you didn’t bother to say anything to me? To anyone?”

“I said I sensed it, but I didn’t know for certain.” Mom reached across the table and placed her hand over mine. “Until she decided to come to us, there were too many risks and no benefit in spreading possible rumors. She didn’t know for certain until the other day, right? I feared what she might do to you if she knew, and also how it would affect you if I told you, especially if my sense happened to be wrong. She was Daemoni. Our enemy. Things might have been different if I’d known what she really wanted back when I took Tristan.”

“She told you about that?” I asked, somewhat surprised Vanessa disclosed so much. “How she’d wanted to convert when he did?”

“She told us many things. She didn’t think herself ready then, but I might have been able to help her.” She sighed sadly, but then her voice lifted. “But it all happened the way it was supposed to, and she’s here with us now. As I said, Rina will tell you more when you see her.”

I finished chewing my bite of croissant as I watched Mom. “I know it’s how we’re supposed to be, but you sure did forgive easily. Vanessa hasn’t exactly been your biggest fan for the last thirty years.”

“That is how we are, Alexis,” Mom said. “We forgive. But we may not forget. I won’t forget what she’s done to you and me, to other Amadis, and to innocents, but it’s all in the past. She’s not the same person anymore.”

“Hmm . . . ” came my only response.

Mom pushed her chair away from the table and stood. “I need to get some work done before Rina wakes up.”

“How’s she doing, anyway?”

Mom grabbed the back of her seat to push it under the table, and the corners of her mouth twitched, but I didn’t know if she was trying to force a smile or fight a frown. “Not well, to be honest. Not as well as I’d hoped she’d be by now.”

My brow puckered. “I thought maybe since she stayed up all night, she was doing better.”

“She took a long nap yesterday afternoon to be ready for you and your guests.”

“Oh.” Not the news I’d wanted to hear.

“She did warn us that she’d never fully recover, but I’d hoped she’d been wrong. She tires easily. She has me doing a lot on her behalf for official business and Julia taking care of other tasks.” Mom’s eyes darted around the room as she inhaled an unsteady breath. “I honestly don’t know how much longer we have with her, honey. Although . . . she can be quite stubborn, so who really knows?”

She gave me a quick smile and a hug before hurrying out of the room, as though trying to escape the subject. Mom and Rina had never been very close. Mom had resented Rina and the Council after my birth because of the control they tried to exert over both of our lives, but I thought there were lots of hurt feelings between them that went back further. In fact, I suspected their relationship began to deteriorate when they were both Normans, before Rina had left Mom to go through her Ang’dora. Now, however, it seemed as though Mom wanted to make up for all of their history. Maybe she wanted to close the gap in their relationship because hers and mine wasn’t as close anymore now that we had separate lives. Or maybe she simply knew time with her mother would be short, as she’d just said.

I pushed my plate away and stood, not wanting to be here alone. Not wanting to think about losing Rina.

I considered releasing some stress by working out with Tristan, but I had the feeling he wanted time alone, and I really didn’t want to spend my energy on beating up a sandbag. I didn’t want that kind of release. I wanted answers, direction, guidance. Since I was stuck here, I figured I might as well make the best use of my time. And I knew the place that might hold the secrets I needed to know. With the house so quiet, it was a perfect time to check out the Sacred Archives.

Apparently I wasn’t the only one who thought so.

Chapter 8

When I rounded the corner between Rina’s office and the hallway to the Sacred Archives, I found the door ajar and my grandmother inside. The room glowed around her in that luminous way it does, and she looked as majestic as the day I first met her, wearing a pale pink ball gown, her chestnut-brown hair tumbling in curls down her back, her skin healthy and beautiful. Although she was over a hundred years older than me, she didn’t look a day over twenty-seven. She, Mom, and I could practically pass for triplets. Until you looked into Rina’s eyes and saw the wisdom of time, or into Mom’s and saw the strength one could only gain from decades of living with heartache. Me—you still saw youth and inexperience. In fact, I did look a few years younger than them, more like early twenties or younger. I often felt like a child compared to them, and nowhere near ready to serve as matriarch. Good thing I had a long time. Even if Mom was right about Rina, hopefully we had a few decades or longer of Mom holding the seat of matriarch before anyone had to rely on me.

“Alexis?”

I came out of my thought-trance at the sound of Rina’s voice. She stood outside the door of the Sacred Archives now, and something about her had changed. Without the Otherworldly glow of the room, I could now see the tightness in her brow, the tug downwards at the corners of her lips, the exhaustion in her eyes. Her skin and hair seemed less bright, the coloring in both more sallow. She held her arms out for me, and when I hugged her, her embrace didn’t feel as strong as it had in the past. I couldn’t help but think the Sacred Archives had given her Otherworldly strength, but the Earthly realm drained her of it.

“Shouldn’t you be in bed?” I asked, the concern obvious in my voice. “Mom said you were up all night.”

Rina tsked. “Your mother exaggerates. I had four hours of regeneration, much of it in the Sacred Archives. That is plenty, considering.”

“Mom worries about you.” Rightly so, it seemed.

Rina let go of me with one arm, holding her other around my waist as she began to walk toward her office. I kept an arm around her, too, and I’d say she pulled me with her, but it was more like I held her up, giving me no choice but to go with her because I was afraid she’d fall.

“A little too much,” Rina said. “There is much else for us to worry about.”

We paused for her to open the door, and although her breaths seemed to come evenly, I could feel the tightness of her muscles under my fingers as she struggled for air.

“Please stop,” she said, her voice sounding firmer than I’d expected with her condition. “Do not worry about me. I am strong enough to do what needs to be done, which is all that matters. When it is my time, it is my time. Only God knows when it will be, and there is no use in wasting our energy worrying about what we cannot change. Your mother is strong, and she will be ready to be matriarch when the time comes. As will you, dear Alexis.”

I stifled a snort, but she must have seen the doubt on my face as I helped her sit in the throne-like chair behind her huge mahogany desk. She smiled.

“I know you do not believe it now, but you will be ready when your time comes, darling. For now, however, you are our warrior.”

I let out a small chuckle. Ten years ago I would have never thought such a thing. Actually, three years ago I wouldn’t have believed it. But now I knew