“It seems we have more than one situation,” Demon Bran began in his demonic, guttural tone as they took their seats and the others settled down, for the most part. “Whatever happens or is said in this room stays right the fuck here. If anything is leaked out I will not kill you, but I promise I will make you wish for death. That includes the other demon in the room who was hiding in the shadows with none of you the wiser.”
He settled back some more in his throne as the incubus came fully out, grumbling something under his breath, and took a seat with the other families. “Most of the realm is by now privy to the fact of the Queen’s true biology, but none other than those residing within the walls of this castle knew of mine. Sorry, there were others, but they are dead, very, very dead.” He put a ton of emphasis on that last to get the picture implanted in their heads, in case they got any ideas after all was said and done. “Chandler is a rare full-blood decomposing vampire, which the nimrod still sprawled out on the floor could testify to. Grimm, he’s just a damn wolf. And there is one more among your missing children: our daughter.”
Bran watched each and every one of them as they listened with rapt attention while he explained Jelissa’s origins, and could see that Tia was doing the same, gauging which of them they could possibly trust in an attempt at rescue, and who they might need to figure out a way to keep on the sidelines, or detain until all was said and done.
It was a task he knew wouldn’t be easy because keeping a parent from their child was something he didn’t even want to begin figuring out how to do. But, as he watched each of them, all he saw was shock and confusion morph into understanding and then comprehension. Bran felt the exact moment Tia became sick to her stomach as realization of the factions each of these families belonged to hit her like a bulldozer on steroids.
As their bond forced her to feel any extreme emotion that her sister did, Anya must have felt the second it truly hit Tia too, because suddenly she was right there by Tia’s side, placing a reassuring hand on her shoulder. Of course, Kierra wasn’t too far behind, flashing in right after Anya.
Kierra had never been one for standing in the spotlight, so until that point she stayed right by the doorway off to the side, but in a position where she could be ready without hesitation if anything popped off. Well, anything else. Bran looked at her as she caught sight of the incubus among the rest of the rabble, then him in his true form, and saw her eyes bug out of her head for a moment. She quickly gathered her wits and shot him a look that said, Do you, bruh, but one word about me, and I’ll gut you like a fish. He gave her a dramatic eye roll in response.
And as though the room wasn’t already crowded enough, in flashed the triplets with their special package, which they dropped promptly at their aunt’s feet. “We think you may need to see this.”
13
Divided They Fall
“Gigi, Jenna, Laina, who the Hel is this, and where the fuck did he come from? Laina, why is your eye twitching like that, and what in Sekhmet’s name do you have on?” Tia asked her nieces in an exasperated tone, as Laina’s left eye twitched and she kept rubbing at her bare arms. “I see him, but who, or what, exactly am I looking at?”
See, the triple threat didn’t quite come to their aunt straight away like they knew damned well they should have. Nope, not those three. As mostly usual with them, they made the wrong decision instead of the right one slapping them in the face so hard their heads should have been spinning like that human Linda Blair woman.
Instead, they stopped by their living quarters, which was more like the party wing of the castle. Even though the girls were now twenty-six, their mentalities were still those of teenagers. Since they were pure-blood vampires they aged much slower into adulthood. The same wouldn’t apply to Jelissa, just as it hadn’t with Tia and Anya. So, they now had a wing all to themselves and a few of the guards’ children to do with as they damn well pleased, to a certain extent. They could blast their music, binge on humans (as long as it was only the pond scum and none of the loyalists). They even had their very own gaming room, complete with arcade games, pool table, billiard boards, the whole nine yards. They did whatever they wanted so long as they didn’t slaughter either one another or any of their guests. There were also no worries about them becoming pregnant either. Pure-blooded vampires didn’t become fertile until the age of eighty-five, unless they found their mate before then, which very rarely happened.
Gigi and Jenna had decided it would be a good idea to play around with their captive before presenting him to their aunt as they should have, Laina had another more constructive reason. While they did intermingle with all the other species now that all were united thanks to their family, none of the other species took very kindly to being fed upon. Especially not by
