Page 47 of Blood Ties (City of Blood #1)

Bash

My family fears for me—for my sanity and for the safety of those around me—with every passing minute that stretches between Elina and myself.

Talia, despite Lucian’s best efforts, yielded nothing other than a first name and a description.

Claudel. The same man, based on how Talia described him, that called Elina ‘crepulsculien’ in the bar a few weeks ago.

With only that to go on, we have hit dead end after dead end.

We have searched and inquired of everyone we can think of, who may know something, and we haven’t so much as found a single clue or piece of evidence that leads us to anything.

I refuse to believe that the woman I love does not exist in the world any longer. Talia could also not expand on what the Frenchman wanted with Elina, just that he was willing to do whatever was necessary to get his hands on her.

Sarah and Ethan wander around, despondent and sad. Jack is always trying to come up with a plan. My other allies are combing the streets, night after night. I don’t wander too far from the cathedral in case something happens and I need to be found.

It’s been almost a week and we are no closer to finding her than we were when she first went missing. I feel in my heart, in my mind, in my body, that if my sun were gone, the world would dim.

As fearful as I may be for what I must do tonight, I can not avoid it any longer.

Throwing on pants of black denim, and a black cotton t-shirt, I check myself in the mirror, steeling myself for tonight.

I run my fingers through my hair and lean close, trying to identify some evidence of the last week, some physical toll on my body.

I look the same as I have since I was 29.

I wish there were dark circles under my eyes, or creases in my brow to belie my concern, my stress.

“Sarah?” I call out as I exit my bedroom.

“Yeah, Bash, what’s up?” She walks into the room wearing the same sadness I have seen everyday since her and Ethan began staying here.

I rub a hand over my face. “We have to go to Little Woods tonight. It’s time to talk to Celeste.

” She has no way to reach me, but I know she must be sick with worry.

I was hoping we would find Elina quickly and I wouldn’t have to return to her place – not after telling her on Friday that her only granddaughter was missing. .

Sarah’s eyes widen with concern and apprehension, but she nods her head in understanding all the same. “Ok. Let me get my stuff and we can head over.”

A short trip later, we pull up to the curb in front of the house—Ethan and Sarah tumbling out of the backseat, and me climbing out of the passenger seat, the driver settles in to wait.

Marching up the front steps, ahead of Ethan and I, Sarah raises her hand to knock.

Before she can make contact, Celeste rips the door open.

This trip is long overdue, evidenced by the deep lines of worry Celeste wears on her face and her hunched shoulders.

The same signs I studied my own reflection for.

“Sarah? Where’s Elina? What is going on?” I watch Sarah and she opens her mouth to speak and no words come out.

“Mrs. Girard, Elina is missing. She has been since Friday, when I asked if you'd seen her.” Tears immediately begin streaking down her face, her breath coming out in short gasps. “I would have come back sooner, but I was hoping we would have news before we did. But unfortunately, we don’t. We don’t know anything.

We have done everything we can. We aren’t giving up, I will never give up.

But right now, we don’t have anything to go on. ”

Clutching her apron tightly, fear and concern written in her very bones, she beckons us forward. “You had better come inside and tell me what’s going on. Maybe I can—I don’t know what I can do but…” she trails off, turning to go into the house.

Sarah looks at me, mouth hanging open. “Bash, Celeste just invited us in. I mean, she’s known me my entire life and may not realize what happened yet, but she knows you and Ethan are vamps.”

“Well, we better not keep her waiting then.”

A few minutes later, we are sitting in the parlor with Celeste, her clutching a teacup that is more whiskey than tea, and the rest of us sipping whiskey from tumbler glasses. Ethan is looking around, studying the house while he tries to appear more comfortable than he feels.

“You have a lovely home, Mrs. Girard,” He tells her and she smiles at him.

She watches me, uneasily, as I also take-in her home.

The older house is soaked in all things Elina.

The smell of Elina’s skin is so concentrated here that, although it’s been a week since she was in this place, the scent almost brings me to my knees with need.

The wooden fireplace that hasn’t burned wood in so long it no longer smells of fire and ash.

The mantle is covered in evidence of a childhood steeped in summers in the sprinkler and snaggle-toothed smiles in school pictures.

A lifetime of laughter and sadness exists within these walls.

It’s humbling to me and makes me miss the castle I grew up in, more than that though, it makes me miss the home I am creating within Elina.

Her heart, her light, have been sucked from my life.

“Sebastien, tell me what happened to my granddaughter,” she asks of me, imploringly, wanting comfort or information.

I'm not certain, but what I do know is she deserves our honesty. So, I recant everything that has happened in the last 6 nights and where we are now. I try to keep emotion from taking over my story, I don’t want her to know how absolutely destroyed I am by Elina's absence, nor do I want her to think I have abandoned hope.

I have not. I refuse to let them win. I refuse to allow doubt to seep into me, I will not let anyone take her from me, forever.

Celeste stands from her perch in the flowered armchair she occupies. She sets her teacup on the table and walks out of the room, wordlessly. I make eye contact with Sarah, tilting my head in question. She shrugs, confused like me.

Celeste re-enters the room, a large envelope—the kind that holds legal documents—in her hand.

“I’ve never shared this with anyone, not even Elina.

If she finds out I knew all this time, I doubt she will ever forgive me.

” She pulls a folder from the envelope, and across the front, in bold letters, are the words ‘Baby Girl Devereaux’.

Laying it on the table and flipping it open, I look down at the contents and freeze momentarily. Sarah inhales audibly next to me. Ethan leans over, muttering, “Wha-what is it?” None of us replies.

“So, you see, I couldn’t tell her,” Celeste whispers into the silence of the room.

“Celeste, are you serious? You’ve known who her father was all this time?” Sarah almost yells at the older woman, stunned by this revelation.

“He was dead! He died before even Elina’s mother.

She was destroyed when she found out her husband was dead, then she died within days of him.

Both lost in the Guerra de Sang. Elina didn’t remember him after a few months.

There was no reason to bring it all up and open the wound left by her mother’s death.

” She sucks in breath, trying to figure out how to say what she means without seeming to make excuses. “He was dead—there was no point.”

Does she know what happens to half-vampire, hybrid babies? She can’t know. “She just turned 29, do you know what will happen soon, Celeste? Did Ezekiel ever tell you what would happen to his vampire-hybrid daughter?” I stare her down.

“Nothing happens, she never knew him, so she doesn’t have to know he was a vampire. She will live her life, as a human,” she answers, tilting her chin up in defiance.

“Of course something happens!” I explode at her. “She’s a vampire, Celeste, and you’ve not told her. I guess you didn’t know the implications but this is insane. She will be a vampire within the next year. It will happen, her vampire genes don’t disappear because her father isn’t here to help her.”

“She won’t be a vampire unless you turn her into one! I was trying to keep her away from you so this wouldn’t happen. Now they have her and she loves you.” She takes a broken breath, her fisted hands trembling in her lap. “I was trying to protect her.”

“Celeste, you don’t understand. She’s a hybrid.

Her father was the King and a bloodline vampire.

She would have become a vampire even if she never met me,” I try to explain.

“When bloodline children are around 30, they mature into vampires. All on their own. Not telling her means she’s completely unprepared for what is going to happen, and soon. ”