Page 71 of Vipers and Vendettas

‘Fuck, baby, I know what you thought.’ He draws back. ‘When you left three months ago, it wasn’t to steal from us at all.’ He swears under his breath.

I shake my head. ‘Well, I mean, the diamonds were a nice perk, but I made sure Maddox would be able to get them back.’ I look up into his eyes. ‘Tabitha told me the night of the party. I was shocked … and scared, and I remembered what you said in the Mountain.’

Tears come to my eyes. ‘I was so afraid you were going to take her! So I left, and I made it look like the diamonds were what I was there for all along.’

‘And we fell for it,’ Iron mutters.

He puts his head to mine. ‘I’m so sorry, Jules. Fuck, I’m so sorry. When we get back. I’ll sign whatever you want. We all will. Your baby is yours! We won’t try to take it. I promise for myself … and the others.’

‘But the on-call contract,’ I say, ‘Three years. With a little kid running around the estate …’

Iron lets out a small laugh. ‘We’ll work around it; hire a nanny if you want. Your baby is yours, but he’s also clan. When he reaches maturity, he’ll be an incubus, sweetheart.’

‘She,’ I correct again.

‘Come on. Gigi wants to look at you. Turns out the old bitch’s mind is right as fucking rain.’

He puts an arm around me and leads me back into the room.

I don’t know if I trust any of them completely, but Iron just vowed to me that he and the others won’t take Jellybean from me. A vow like that is never made lightly in Supeland.

Inside, Gigi doesn’t say anything about my running off, but when she asks me to stand in the circle, I stop in my tracks.

‘What’s wrong?’ Iron asks.

‘I can’t stand in that thing. I’m sorry.’

Gigi comes to stand in front of me, eyeing me with a look that’s getting more and more shrewd as the minutes pass.

‘You have a conjure on you that makes you actually senile, don’t you?’ I mutter.

She nods. ‘Twenty-two hours of every day.’

‘Why would you do that?’ Iron asks. ‘Mom and the rest of the family are worried sick about you, Gigi. Why would you pretend that you’re losing your mind?’

‘Because they’re always watching,’ she hisses. ‘Why do you think I cut you loose, boy?’

She growls as she takes him by the shoulders. ‘You have more magick than I do. I can feel it in you. I always could, but they take magick users like you. And no one ever sees them again!’

‘Who do?’

‘Those fucking eternal, High Lord cunts.’

‘The Ten? But you …’ Iron stutters, ‘you told me I was useless … You said I’d never amount to anything. That I was a failure, a halfling mistake, that’s what you said, Gigi.’

His eyes are glassy, and he wipes them, looking suddenly angry.

‘Oh, my boy,’ Gigi says, reaching up to cup his cheek. ‘They’d have taken you, nabbed you one day, and we would never have seen or heard from you again, so I taught you how to control the power when it came, but I made sure everyone, even your mam, thought you were a dud. And,’ she sighs, ‘the rules where halflings with no magick are concerned are clear. They can’t stay.’ She smiles. ‘So, you were safe, and you joined the forces, and then you found your clan. And, now you have that power that was always there waiting for you to discover it.’

She hugs him tightly. ‘I didn’t want to do it, boy. If there had been any other way, I would have let you stay, but they know. They always know which ones are the strongest, and they disappear.’

‘What happens to them?’

‘There are theories, but I don’t know. No one does. None of them have ever returned to tell their tale.’

She pats him on the arm. ‘You have a think about it all, boy. I’ll answer any questions you have over the next,’ she checks her watch, ‘ninety minutes, but after that, you’ll have to wait for tomorrow because I’ll probably get it into my head that you’re the handyman or something, dear.’

He nods, looking a little dazed.