Page 21 of Prince with a Chance of Darkness (Grimm Cove #7)

Chapter Twenty-One

Mina

We’d been living in Grimm Cove just two weeks. Temperance was enrolled at Grimm Cove High School and seemed to love everything about it, except how much I was there. I wasn’t a hundred percent sold on the town being safe, not that anyone listened to me. My daughter wasn’t helpless. She’d been born with my slayer traits as well as my other ones. That wasn’t all. She’d gotten a lot from her father.

A whole lot.

I’d only known him one night and didn’t even catch his real name, but I had a constant reminder of him with me daily. Temperance looked a great deal like her father. She had his hair color as well as his height. She could also turn into a cauldron of bats and travel short distances before reforming into human form without issue—something I’d seen him do eighteen years ago when everything had gone to hell at the Gallows Lane house.

Willa and I called that night Armageddon. Somehow, that name even fell short of what had gone on that night. Ghouls, werewolves, zombie-like creatures, vampires, and crazy dudes wearing robes who had one-track minds.

“It’s just a harmless get-together,” pleaded Temperance as she leaned against the kitchen counter, sipping her tea.

“The word you’re looking for is party.”

“Mom,” she groaned.

I wanted off the subject but she was like a broken record. I could hardly fault her. I’d been the same way at her age. “What do you say to pizza tonight? I’m starving.”

“Fine but can we please talk about tonight and the party?” she asked, progressing with finally calling it what it was.

“It’s on campus, Temperance. You’re in high school. You have no business hanging out on the university campus,” I stated clearly so she’d catch every word.

“I’m a senior. I’ll be attending that university in the fall,” she said, her voice whiny. “This is helping me meet people there now. You want me to have a good social life, don’t you?”

I snorted. “Nice try. No. There will be alcohol and grown men there. Men who would be breaking laws touching you.”

“Isn’t seventeen the age of consent here or something like that?” she asked, focusing on her nails.

I did my best to avoid squeezing my glass too hard and shattering it. “The fact I’m sure you looked that up says you have no business at a party on campus.”

“When you were my age, you dated who you wanted,” she said with a smirk as if that was going to win the argument for her.

“When I was your age, my aunt and her twisted boy-toy were plotting my death and carting me off to Romania to be a sacrifice for an ancient master vampire. Want to sit down and go through all the things I was doing at your age?”

She grunted, set her tea on the table, and shook her head. “Not especially.”

“Tempi, don’t be in a hurry to grow up. Adulting sucks,” I said with a wink.

“You can have cake for breakfast if you want,” she said, grinning as she did.

I laughed. “You had cake for breakfast this morning.”

“I know, and it was delicious,” she returned before schooling her face. “About the boosting of the car thing… Call Marcy and she’ll tell you that we didn’t steal the car. We borrowed it.”

“I’m not sure I’d use a woman who has a pet squirrel that she talks to and evidently can understand when it talks back, as a character witness,” I said.

“Mom, please. Everyone is going tonight. Don’t make me miss out,” she said, following behind me. “I’m the new kid at school. Help me fit in.”

I groaned. “You’re not alone in being the new kid. Hannah is new too. And you fit in just fine. Don’t think I didn’t notice that group of boys crowding around the two of you the other day when we were at Gobbs.”

The ice cream stand was still a popular hangout for teens. That hadn’t changed. My daughter, much like I was at her age, was boy crazy. And there was no shortage of boys in Grimm Cove. I swear most of them had the surname of Van Helsing or Harker. They’d instantly taken notice of the two new girls.

Willa wasn’t too worried about the number of boys taking an interest in our daughters, mostly because she had her mate, Jonathan Harker (yes, that one) and the entire pack of Harker wolf-shifters to help scare away would be suitors.

I didn’t have that.

Of course, Jonathan had offered more than once to handle the matter. One of the many Van Helsing boys had tried chatting up Temperance the other night when we’d been at a cookout hosted at the Van Helsing estate. Jonathan had growled at several of the young men who had tried to chat up the girls. He’d been quickly joined by Bram and another man. I think his name was Seward. Then Dwayne Harker had joined in, followed closely by Craig and Beau Van Helsing.

Before long, the boys at the cookout got the message to steer clear of the girls. At least while the men were around.

I really needed to look into seeing if any of them hired out. They’d make great keep-the-boys-away-bodyguards.

I still had a hard time wrapping my mind around the fact we were back in Grimm Cove at all, let alone calling it home once more. For years, Willa and I had tried to return, tried to get back to our friends—roommates who had become family to us when we weren’t looking. It never worked. Something always happened. One mishap after another kept us from setting foot within the confines of the town.

At some point, we simply stopped trying.

I couldn’t even remember when it was that we decided to move forward with our lives—not look back. The girls had been little still, and we’d found ourselves single mothers of children who were far more than human. That alone would have been enough to do in most people. After a bit, we made the decision to keep the girls far from the town, worried white light might come and whisk them away.

Since we’d been back, we’d reconnected with Astria. She and her husband Stratton had sat us down and explained the white light and the transporting of so many of us to other locations had occurred because Astria had wished for us all to be somewhere safe. And that her latent Fae gifts had combined with Stratton’s Fae power, which had been stored in a ring she’d been holding. The mixing of the two led to one hell of a powerful spell.

That was the working theory.

I had to hope it was true.

If not, it could happen again at any time.

As for Armageddon night and everything that had attacked us, converging on the Gallows Lane home, being out in the world hadn’t kept us safe from it all. Willa and I had to deal with robed monk dudes more than once over the years.

A ringing noise cut through the moment.

Temperance laughed. “That’s your phone. Mine is set to silent. I hate talking on it.”

“Oh, I’m aware,” I said with a laugh, heading for the dining room in search of my cell phone. When I found it, I saw the screen. Willa was calling. Strange, she’d mentioned she was joining Hannah and Jonathan on their nightly run while in wolf form. It was the first time for her, and she’d been excited and nervous about interfering with their father-daughter bonding time. From what she’d told me they’d be running for hours. She shouldn’t be calling.

“What’s shakin’?” I asked.

“You and Tempi need to come out to the Van Helsing estate,” she said, something off in her voice. “Now. Hurry. Bring overnight bags.”

Jonathan said something in the background, but it was mumbled.

“Jonathan says to pack for several days,” she said.

“Willa?” I asked, my throat tightening. “What is it?”

“He’s kind of freaking out. Can you hurry?” she asked.

“Yes. Of course.”

There was a pause. “Come armed. Be careful on the way. Maybe we should send people to you instead to get you here.”

I wasn’t sure what was happening, but I knew enough to know if Willa was freaking out, it wasn’t good. “We can be there in about twenty minutes. We’ll be fine.”

“Don’t get dead,” she said.

“Ditto.” I hung up and looked up to find Temperance close by.

“I heard.”

I wasn’t shocked. She had amazing hearing.