Page 88 of Wedlock

“What does she care?” Mother cries, pulling herself from me and wiping her eyes angrily. “She left you, she left her only child. She has no place beside his deathbed.”

I stand still and wait for her to finish, saying nothing. She knows why Angie left. She knows everything my wife suffered. What she doesn’t know is that I have another son. Nobody in my world but Wolf, Jag, and I, are privy to this information. And I want it to stay that way, so I can’t disabuse my mother of her view that Angie is a terrible mother. A view I shared too, until I learned the truth of her sacrifice.

I may not know my wife well, as Wolf said, but I know she’ll be absolutely devastated to learn the child she left behind is dying. At the very least I owe her the opportunity to hold him one last time.

Eventually, as Mother stops weeping and she can look at me once again, she nods.

“Find her.”

69

“Mother-fucker!” I gasp, seeing him walking up the hillside driveway towards our house, the guard dogs trotting along beside him as though they’d known him their whole lives.

I wait until he’s a few feet away before asking the obvious question.

“How did you find us?”

Jag smiles and opens his arms.

“It’s good to see you too, Angie.”

I shake my head as I reluctantly return his smile and step into his embrace. I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t missed him.

When I feel like the hug has gone on long enough, I pull back and look into his eyes. All I see in them is admiration and longing.

Sighing, I step away.

“You haven’t changed,” he murmurs. “Still as beautiful today as you were three years ago.”

I snort.

“Is this going to be a regular thing? You just stop by every few years to see if I’m ugly and old yet?”

“Is that something you’d like?”

I frown and turn towards the house, indicating he should follow me and thanking God for small mercies that Yin and the twins were out for the night, playing down by the lake. The twins, like human children, enjoy hunting moths, frogs and anything else with a pulse, although not always for the same reason a human child might. Normally I would have gone with them, but Yin and I are arguing about something, and at loggerheads. We could both use some time apart since we’d come to a stalemate. Yin wants to use Free Men resources to search the Vatican libraries, and others, to find out everything she can about flying vampires, and I don’t want her indebted to them any more than she already is. Not to mention the fact that I don’t trust Phil or the Free Men since I’ve learned Eleanor is working with them. I sure as hell don’t want to go poking around in archives that might tip off her or anyone else that my babies are special if they stumble upon what we’ve been researching.

Naturally, Yin’s concerned that what we don’t know might come back to bite us in the ass, literally, because if flying vampires are rare, ours will come to light at some point and we won’t be able to protect them. She claims she can trust Phil now, that he’ll help us discreetly because he’ll do anything to win back her affection.

I’ll never trust him.

“What about when they become teenage vampires?” She’d hissed to me last night as we whispered our argument so the kids wouldn’t hear. “Fueled by hormones and wanting to break free, they could just fly themselves to a nightclub, and then what?”

“Yin,” I’d groaned. “That’s why we’ve set so many rules for them. I mean, let’s be real and, excuse the pun, but the sky’s the limit for what they’re truly capable of. They could drain us tomorrow and take over the world. We just have to hope we’ve instilled the right values and taught them enough to navigate their future safely.”

“Spoken like a true teacher,” she’d snapped.

We’d left the discussion there for the time being, but I’m sure it’s going to start again the moment she gets home.

Jag’s visit is an unwelcome, but timely, change of scenery.

“Can I get you a drink?” I ask him now as he follows me into the living room.

“Whisky.”

I pour us both a drink, my hands shaking. I have so many secrets to keep from my ‘secret keeper,’ and as usual I have no idea what he already knows, and what he wants.

“So, are you here to tell me I have to run again?”