Whoa.That brought her up short. Why assume her mother had outsmarted a vampire? Weren’t they invincible except for sunlight? Maybe he wanted to drink from the White Sea Witch. Stranger things had happened.
Oh boy. That puts a whole new twist on things.
Instinct said she should leave and get Macy and her new vampire mate to handle this. But she couldn’t always run to her sister when things got tough. Heck, she was twenty-four already. As Macy often joked, time to cut the cord.
Steeling her resolve and knowing that worst case, she could hide in her mother’s magic around the castle or lose the vampire in the water, Kaia trudged on. Before she closed in on the castle’s grand front entrance, she pushed more of her mother’s power through her, and as she watched, she grew. Her limbs stretched, and hands and feet grew larger, the nails longer and colored a pale pink. She imagined her face had aged as well, her hair no longer a dark black but a long white mane, while her mother’s eyes would shine with a preternatural blue.
To her surprise, looking and feeling like her mother felt almost natural. As if she had a similar magic inside her just waiting to be set free.
Focused on finishing this nightmare so she could get home and be done with dark magic, she hurried to the massive front door, made of some foreign wood not found in the mortal plane, surrounded by white stone so smooth it looked like marble.
The gargoyles and house snips, adorable fae air spirits known for zapping people just for fun, guarded the front door. Upon spotting her, they waved and smiled.
“Mistress.” One particularly thick gargoyle bowed. “We are glad to see you looking yourself again. Though Kaia’s face is lovely, there is none so wonderful as yours.”
So shehasbeen using my face to lure prey. Damn it, Mom!“Lord Ruin, you’re looking good, as always.”
He blushed in the way stone creatures do, his cheeks a lighter gray. “The lycans have been restless but tame. The vryko has also been quiet, though that one will most definitely cause trouble.”
Tame lycans meant Sabine had definitely whammied them. And a vryko? Hmm. Ruin must have been referring to the vampire. Vryko, short for vrykolakas, a tribe of vampires known for their brute strength and skill in water. What were the odds her mother would involve a vampire with ties to the water?
Great. Just what Kaia didn’t need.
But was he a prisoner or complicit in her mother’s plans?
Kaia hurried inside, past a white foyer into a white living space. Everything, from the wooden furniture to the stone tables and even the chairs and couches, was in some shade of cream or white. Bright pillows and throw rugs, with a few hand-selected art pieces, provided the only splashes of color in the place. Her mother loved a modern aesthetic.
Fortunately, Kaia felt no one nearby on this level, though the lycans dwelled below.
Descending the stairwell into the basement, she continued down a wide hallway toward her mother’s “zoo,” a large, walled-in playground filled with chains, beds, and a well appointed lavatory hidden in the back by yet another stone wall. The feel down here was medieval life meets cutesy torture chamber, with a decidedly BDSM kind of feel. She found the lycans imprisoned in silver, two chained to the wall and the other chained on the bed within reach of the bathroom. They were all groggy while snarling every few seconds but made no attempt to escape.
Annoyed with her mother more than she could say, Kaia released her glamour so she could unlock their chains. She only had enough power to use the glamour or free them, but not both.
They paused when they scented her, their expressions turning ugly.
“I’m here to release you, but only if you moon-swear to do me no harm.”
Bright moonlight streamed through a barred window high up on the far wall, and as she moved farther into the room, illuminated her presence. Upon seeing her, they did their best to stand up and threaten, but so woozy, they didn’t scare her.
The largest one sighed. “We swear not to harm you, By the Moon Our Mother.”
“Okay.” Kaia hurried to undo their chains that came apart under her mother’s magic and ignored their grumbled insults.
“I’m not her,” she said, though she knew they wouldn’t believe her. Even in their own forms, she and Sabine looked incredibly alike, though her mother had height, a bustier frame, and a head of snow-white hair. “But the White Sea Witch is coming back soon. If you know what’s good for you, you three will get out of here while you can.”
“Before the demon comes back,” the smallest of the three said. He leaned closer and sniffed her. “She’s right. She’s not the one who caught us. Different scent, but still a witch.”
The others grunted, grabbed him, and left without thanking her.
Part one, complete. Now she just had to execute part two and pray the vryko didn’t kill her for sport.
Too easily, she followed the trail of power throbbing inside the walls and took step after miserable step back upstairs and up again, toward her mother’s bedroom. Kaia hated stepping foot in the room, grossed out by the oppressive sexual hunger for pain and pleasure her mother—ew, hermom—felt deep under the skin.
Her mother might hide her real self from the world under spells, but here, where she dreamed, where she let her unconscious mind go free, Kaia could feel all the ugly covered by superficial beauty. In this one place that should have been her mother’s sanctuary.
She immediately felt guilty stepping foot inside.
To her relief, no one lay chained to the bed.
