“Do you know who my mother is?” I ask Lachlan, feeling more and more empty as the seconds tick by.
“No.”
“Are you sure Beth was a non?” Silva asks me.
“What the hell is a non?”
“It’s what we call humans or anyone who’s not supernatural,” Silva clarifies.
“Yeah, I’d say about ninety-eight percent sure. So, where is...uh...Vaughn?” There’s no way I can call him mydadorfather.It feels too fucking weird.
“None of us knows," Keegan answers. “Another coven of paladin requested help with a nest of lamia they were assigned to purge. The other coven required more protective magic, so the elders assigned Vaughn. No one ever returned from that mission. The entire coven of paladin, and the lamia they were supposed to exterminate vanished.
“It’s been over twenty-three years, and we’ve never stopped looking. We’ve done everything possible to try and find them, but at every turn, we’ve hit nothing but dead-ends and walls.” Keegan looks to Lachlan with sadness in his eyes.
“And now, here you are Vinna, another piece in a seemingly impossible puzzle to solve," Silva adds, and he sounds surprisingly hostile.
I can connect most of the dots now. What happened to the people they love, it makes it easier to understand the frustration and sadness that’s palpable and suffocating in this room. What I don’t get, is the anger and hostility that’s directed at me. Why am I being attacked over something I wasn’t even alive for?
“What is a lamia?”
“They’re basically vampires,” Aydin tells me.
“So the fanged fuckers are lamia,” I mumble to myself.
Five heads snap to me.
“What did you say?” Lachlan asks me.
“I always called them the fanged fuckers. I could never make one of them tell me what they called themselves.”
10
“You’ve come in contact with lamia?” Aydin asks, his look of shock matching the expression on everyone else’s faces.
“Um...yeah,” I answer cautiously, not sure why this seems to be an issue.
“By the moon, how have you survived this long on your own?”
Evrin’s question seems rhetorical, so I don’t bother to reply. Instead, I focus on the soreness weighing down my limbs and the scratchiness of my eyelids. Every blink feels like sandpaper roughly smoothing and reshaping my eyeballs.
“Well, that ends now. We pack up what we can of her things tonight and arrange to have the rest shipped. Silva, stop and get some boxes, the rest of us will take Vinna to start packing,” Lachlan orders.
“Whoa, what the fuck are you on about? I’m not moving in here with you,” I gesture from the house to the paladin with one of the short swords in my hand.
“That’s correct because we don’t live here. We’re only here on assignment. You’ll be moving with us to Maine. The town of Solace to be exact,” Lachlan arrogantly informs me.
What an asshole.
“Yeah, thanks but no thanks. That’s going to be a hard pass for me.” I tell him as I push off from the wall next to the door frame so I can leave.
“Lachlan is your family, and he’s claiming you; youhaveto go with him,” Keegan tells me.
“I’m not some sweater in the lost and found or a dog at thepound; you cannotclaimme.”
“Vinna, you’re a caster, and as a caster, you’re considered underage and claimed by your parents or a guardian until your awakening,” Evrin explains to me with soft, sympathetic brown eyes.
“You can run, but we will find you. If you don’t come willingly, we’ll get the elders involved. If you fight them, they will bind your magic until you learn to listen. You can make this easy on yourself, or you can make this difficult, but either way, the outcome will remain the same,” Lachlan threatens.
