A quick glance at Declan’s narrowed eyes shows he doesn’t appreciate the situation. But he doesn’t argue with my father’s security. Though I know he’s jonesing to teach them some manners, all he does is step back, hands raised in the universal gesture of acquiescence.
“Go check on your father,” he tells me. “I’ll just head down to the kitchen for some of that coffee your sister was talking about.”
Love for him wells up inside me. How typical of Declan to put his own annoyance aside and focus on what I need. A part of me wants to tell the whole group of them to go to hell, but short of dragging my mother away from my dad’s sickbed and having her change her orders, there’s nothing I can do or say that is going to convince Jared and the others to let Declan through. In this house, in this town, the queen’s wishes are all but law.
Still, it’s just another annoyance, another insult, that I am determined to call her on when my dad is better. Much as I love her, she’s always making it more and more intolerable for me to be her daughter.
“I’ll only be a few minutes,” I say. “I just want to see him.”
“Take as long as you need.”
I nod, then turn to Jared. “You’re being deliberately awful,” I hiss at him. “There’s no reason for this and you know it.”
For once, his face doesn’t soften as he turns to walk me down the hall. “That man is dangerous, Xandra. To you and everyone else around him. I can’t believe you don’t see that.”
“Do you really think this is the time for us to get in a debate over my choice of lovers?” I don’t even try to keep the anger out of my voice.
“Maybe not, but even without your mother’s order, there was no way I was letting that man get within a hundred feet of your father when he can’t defend himself.”
“Prejudiced much?”
“It’s not prejudice if it’s justified. I’ve known Declan Chumomisto a long while, and if there’s one thing time has proven, it’s that he will use whoever he needs to get what he wants.”
It’s not the first time I’ve heard that accusation—Donovan threw it at me weeks ago when he was convinced Declan was the serial killer stalking Austin and me. It probably won’t be the last time, either.
But I’ll be damned if I sit by and take it, not when I spend most of our time together feeling like I’m using him. And not when he’s just told me that he loves me. “And you think he’s using me?”
“I didn’t say that, darlin’. But my philosophy is ‘forewarned is forearmed.’”
We’re at my parents’ door now, whispering furiously since neither one of us wants to give an inch on this. In the end, I have to because I know I’m not going to be able to change his mind today and I don’t have the time to stand around arguing. Not when my father might be slipping away with every moment that passes.
Shooting Jared a we’ll-finish-this-later look, I knock softly on the closed door, and then turn the knob without waiting for my mother or sister to answer. I don’t want to take them away from any healing they might be doing.
But when I walk in, my mom is sitting by the bed, her head in her hands. She turns to look when I come in, and I’m shocked by how terrible she appears. And how old. Usually, my mother is one of those witches who never leaves her room, let alone the house, with a hair out of place. All part and parcel of being queen, she tells me—usually as she’s encouraging me to change out of my jeans into a more tailored ensemble. Just one more reason I’m thrilled Donovan is the one who will inherit the throne instead of me.
“Xandra!” she exclaims, jumping up and rushing across the room to me. As she gets closer, I realize she’s crying, her eyes red-rimmed and puffy while tears slide silently down her cheeks.
Terror rips through me. It’s one thing for me to get a phone call telling me that my father is in bad shape. It’s another thing altogether to watch my indomitable mother shatter into a thousand pieces. For the first time, I allow myself to wonder not when my father will get better, but if he will.
“Thank the goddess you’re here!” my mother says as she all but throws herself into my arms.
I return her hug warily, looking around the room for anything that could be a trap. I know I sound heartless and overly suspicious, but my mother has a way of turning any situation to her advantage. And if she thinks my father’s illness can somehow be used to make me a better witch, I have no doubt that she’ll try to use it. That’s just how she’s wired.
But the pale, shaky woman currently holding on to me as if I’m the only thing keeping her from drowning doesn’t feel like she has a mercenary bone in her body. She feels fragile and on the edge of collapse.
I glance over at Rachael who hasn’t moved from where she’s standing by Dad’s bed, her hand resting over his heart as she pours into him as much healing energy as she can manage. I can feel it crackling in the air, the charge that always infuses with the world around her when she uses her gift.
She meets my eyes for a second and answers my unasked question with a small shake of her head. Damn. No improvement. But hopefully the head shake also means he’s not getting worse. I’ll take bad but stable over bad and worsening any day of the week.
Wrapping an arm around my mother’s waist, I guide her back to her chair at the head of my father’s bed. Once she’s seated, I lean in and give Rachael a one-armed hug. Then immediately wish I hadn’t.
She’s burning up, her attempt at healing our father taking every ounce of energy she has and then some. It’s a normal by-product of extreme magic usage and normally wouldn’t upset me at all. But the last person I was around whose body ran hot like that was Kyle. And even though I tell myself I’m being ridiculous, that I’m safe at home with Declan and my family, for a moment I’m thrust right back into those endless minutes when I was completely at his mercy.
I take a few deep breaths and do my best to ignore the part of me that wants to curl into a ball until the memories fade away. Lily swears that the only way I’ll learn to deal with them is to get to the point where I accept them, refuse to let them hurt me anymore. But I don’t have the time to deal with them right now and this isn’t the place anyway. It’s never been the place to deal with any of my problems.
“Have we figured out what’s wrong?” I finally ask, my throat husky with fear and pain and unshed tears.
“His body’s shutting down, one system at a time.” My mother’s voice breaks and she leans over until her head rests on my father’s leg.
“Why isn’t he in the hospital then?” I demand as visions rip through me of my father’s heart and lungs and kidneys failing. “He needs to be monitored, needs—”
“It’s magical, not biological.” Rachael speaks for the first time. “I am doing the same thing for him that the human machines could. Doing it better, actually.”
“Where is Aunt Tsura?” I ask. “I thought she’d be here by now.”
“She’s due in any minute,” my mother says. “Once she’s here, she’ll figure out what’s going on. She’ll find a way to stop it.”
I hope so. Because seeing my powerful, dynamic father like this—so still and gray and silent—has my stomach tying itself into knots.
Settling myself into the chair next to my mother’s, I reach for my father’s hand, squeeze it tightly. I feel a little like Alice down the rabbit hole, like everything I know, everything I understand about the world, has turned upside down overnight.
I’d planned to take my mother to task for her ridiculous decree about Declan—the sooner she understands that we’re together, really together, the better—but I can’t say a word to this silent, shaken woman sitting beside me. My indomitable mother looks as if one more thing, no matter how small, will break her into a million pieces.