Chapter
9
Chloe
One week later…
The front door of her aunts’ house slammed closed, followed by the sound of her sister Elena yelling out, “Is Delta here?”
Chloe and her aunts walked out of the living room where they had been watching television to meet Elena and Gage in the foyer where they were still standing.
Concerned now, Aunt Indigo answered, “No. Why?”
Elena shook her head. “She was supposed to meet me at the McPhee pack bar and never did. I thought I’d come by and check on her today. She was pretty upset over the guy.”
“What are you doing going to a bar! You’re pregnant, for Pete’s sake. You don’t need to be taking my unborn nieces or nephews into a freakin’ bar!” Chloe screeched at her. Then she shot Gage a dirty look for allowing her sister to go into a bar at all while she was pregnant.
She couldn’t believe her sister! Next thing Chloe knew, she would be popping out the babies and offering them rattlesnakes to play with. Someone had to protect her poor defenseless unborn future Aunt Chloe worshipers.
Elena frowned at her. “Are you fucking kidding me? I’ve been pregnant for, like, a week and you’re pulling this shit on me already? It’s not like I was going in there for shots and to get piss drunk! I went there in the hopes of getting Delta drunk so she’d finally tell us what happened with the douche nozzle who broke her heart. And you can’t tell me where I can take my unborn children. They’re my unborn children, you twat waffle!”
Chloe narrowed her eyes and growled, “You’re lucky you’re knocked up, bitch, or I’d lay the smackdown on you right now.” Not exactly something she would normally say, but when dealing with her tough as nails sister Elena, you had to speak in her language, which was semi-steroidal ballsy bitch. And really, Elena was the one who had gone from trying to get revenge on Gage to mated to the very man and knocked up by him within a week’s time. Clearly, Elena had no sense of Amazonian self-preservation anymore. Chloe was just trying to make sure her sister didn’t do anything else crazy before the babies were born.
Elena snorted. “The only thing you’re capable of laying the smackdown on is a credit card at some ridiculously expensive hooker’s clothing store, so don’t get all high and mighty with me, you overpriced piece of fluff.”
The two sisters lunged for each other. However, they were stopped by their two aunts stepping in between them and Gage grabbing Elena gently around the waist.
Chloe was less than gently yanked backward by her shirt, which she hoped like hell did not rip. It was an original!
“Can you two act reasonable for one damn day?” Aunt Thea gritted out at the two of them from between her teeth.
Chloe stood there in stubborn silence, refusing to answer. Why should she? It wasn’t like she had started this nonsense. Elena had with the “fluff” remark.
Chloe was not fluff. She was a precious, one of a kind woman. Why the world didn’t bow at her feet some days, she had no clue.
Thoughts of herself were pushed out by sudden worry for her little sister Delta. Poor, naive, defenseless Delta, who would rather read a fairy tale than go to the mall. What in the world had she gotten herself into that she was missing?
Chloe finally murmured to the group, “You think she went to see the guy? The one she thinks she’s in love with? I could never get her to tell me his name.”
Aunt Indigo ran a hand through her hair in frustration. “It’s possible. She wouldn’t tell any of us who it was. The fact that she has refused to give any of us his name makes me think we know him. Why else would she keep it a secret?”
Elena pulled her cell phone out of her pocket. “So, we start calling people. I don’t think it’s Alec, but we can start with him.”
“It’s not Alec,” Gage chimed in, defending his brother.
Elena rolled her eyes, then continued, “There are the guys on Gage’s unit, Jenna’s brother, and Jenna’s SWAT team partner.”
“Kent?” Chloe asked in surprise.
Elena’s brows furrowed at her sister’s question. “Yeah, Kent. Why?”
She gave Elena a blank mask and twirled a piece of her long hair around a finger. “I don’t think it’s Kent. We’ve been … spending time together,” Chloe tried to answer nonchalantly.
Okay, so maybe they hadn’t been spending a whole lot of time together, but it had been enough time to know that Kent was not interested in Delta. Chloe knew when a man wanted her, and that man wanted her like he was on death row and Chloe was his last meal. There was no way he would play Delta like that. She had learned enough about Kent to know that he didn’t do clingy, and Delta had clingy practically tattooed on her forehead.
Of course, it took her sister approximately five seconds to come up with some god-awful conclusion, and then Elena was yelling at her.
“God, you are such a whore!”
Insulted that her sister would once again think the worst of her, Chloe tried to lunge for Elena’s hair to start a catfight. Somehow, though, small Aunt Indigo held her off.
All four of them were yelling now. Aunt Thea at Elena for calling her sister a whore. Elena at Chloe for being a whore. Chloe at Elena for being such a judgmental stick-up-the-ass. And Aunt Indigo at Chloe for trying to start a fight with her pregnant sister.
There was no telling how long the four of them would have stood around, yelling at each other like only family could do while Gage silently watched, because suddenly, a loud banging on the door got their attention, effectively shutting them up.
“You think it’s Delta?” Chloe whispered.
With Gage prowling behind them, the four women ran for the door, shoving each other out of the way to be the one to answer it in the hopes it was the youngest Demos sister.
Aunt Thea was the first one to get there, so she grabbed the doorknob and flung the door open in haste, without looking through the security peephole to see who it was.
What they found on the other side of the door wasn’t Delta, though, which caused all of them to deflate a little in disappointment. No, standing there were two men Chloe didn’t know. Both tall, trim, fit, and incredibly good-looking. Both sporting red hair, green eyes, and pale, creamy white skin that would stand out in a crowd. And both of them looked so similar in appearance you would have thought they were brothers, if one of the men didn’t look old enough to be the other man’s father. Of course, on the younger man, all that handsomeness was marred by the thunderous scowl on his face, which was currently directed at Elena.
“Can we help you?” Aunt Thea’s voice filled the confused silence.
The younger man turned his scowl from Elena to Aunt Thea. “Yeah, you can make sure that crazy bitch”—he thrust an angry finger in Elena’s direction—“never gets near another flamethrower or pistol again! She almost killed us!”
Everyone turned their heads to stare at Elena in silent accusation.
Chloe wasn’t surprised that someone was accusing Elena of being crazy. She had known that for years. Add weapons into the mix, and it was downright horrifying at times.
Elena held her hands up in the air. “I don’t know what the hell he’s talking about, guys. Honest. I’ve never seen him a day in my life, and Gage took all the weapons away from me and hid them after he told me that I was preggers.”
Her aunts and sister turned their glares back to the guy who was still glaring at Elena, but not before Chloe saw Gage shoot the two men a murderous look as if he wanted to tear their heads off.
When the stranger took a small step forward, the older man put a hand on his shoulder to stop him.
“Calm down. This is not why we came here.”
“Then why are you here? And who are you?” Aunt Indigo asked.
The older man’s shoulders stiffened. “My name is Manus Campbell, and this is my son Deo. We came here because we know what happened to Delta, and we’re worried about her. Will you please let us come inside so we can discuss things with you?”
Chloe pushed her way to the front of the pack and pointed a finger in Manus’s face. “You tell me what happened to my sister this very second or I castrate you where you stand.” She had a nail file in the back pocket of her designer jeans that was sharp enough to do the trick.
Manus sighed in frustration. “I see Aggie passed on her temper to you girls.”
After dropping that little verbal bomb, they all went deathly quiet … until Chloe’s temper kicked back in.
“Who the hell are you, buddy? And why are you talking about our mom!”
Weirdly, Manus looked at Thea and Indigo, hoping for some recognition, or perhaps help. Nonetheless, there was no help coming from her aunts.
His shoulders slumped a little as he muttered, “I see she took it to her grave, then.” Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a piece of paper and handed it to Chloe.
Elena stepped up beside her as Chloe started to unfold the document. The words were faded and the paper was a wrinkly mess, as if it had been crumpled and uncrumpled many times, but the words at the top were still bold and legible.
STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA
BUNCOMBE COUNTY
OFFICE OF REGISTER OF DEEDS
Application, License, and Certification of Marriage
Chloe couldn’t believe it! Her mom had been married? Never in a million years would she have seen this coming.
The air left her lungs. She was suddenly having a hard time breathing.
“I’m yours and Chloe’s stepfather … and Delta’s biological father.” Putting his hand back on his son’s shoulder, he continued, “And Deo is Delta’s twin brother.”
Elena suddenly started swaying a little beside her, and Aunt Thea shouted, “Someone grab her! She’s going to pass out!”
Chloe found the ability to breathe again as she helped Gage take Elena to the couch in the living room to sit her down while her sister took long, deep breaths. Her aunts sat down on either side of her while Chloe, Manus, and their newly discovered half-brother, Deo, stood in front of Elena on the other side of the coffee table to stare at her like the freak show Chloe often thought she was.
“Why?” Elena whispered.
Manus’s eyebrows shot up to his hairline at her question. “Are you asking why she married me?”
Chloe and her sister both nodded.
Manus shrugged. “It was the only way I would give her a child.”
Elena scowled at him. “Are you trying to tell us that our mother married you for some whacked-out, baby-making business arrangement?”
Manus’s features softened, and he gave her a small smile. “It wasn’t just a business arrangement. I loved your mother very much. I simply refused to give her a child without some kind of permanent attachment to her. So, she agreed to marry me if I would help her produce a child. But, instead of one baby, we made two.”
Chloe didn’t know what to say. Yeah, her mom was an Amazon and prone to use men for things such as conceiving a baby, but to marry one of them? The Aggie Demos? It was unbelievable.
Elena blew out a frustrated breath. “I don’t understand this. Why would she marry you, but not stay with you? And why would she leave our brother behind when she kept the three of us?”
Manus opened his mouth to answer her, but Chloe beat him to the punch.
“Because she still considered herself an Amazon. Amazonian women do not keep their lovers, remember? Nor do they keep any boy children. If they birthed a son, they either killed them or gave them back to the child’s father. I guess we should be grateful Mom wasn’t a cold-blooded bitch and killed him.” Seriously, they were freakin’ Amazons. How could Elena not know this?
“Chloe!” her two aunts yelled at the same time.
Chloe shrugged. “What? I’m just being real. Don’t act like it’s not the truth.”
Aunt Thea scowled at her. “There hasn’t been an Amazon in the last four hundred years who’s killed a boy child that we know of. The practice disappeared a long time ago.”
“Don’t get your panties in a wad. We need to skip all this crap and get back to the important part of the conversation,” she deflected.
Elena gave Chloe a look that said she thought her sister was nuts. “What’s more important than finding out Mom was married and we have a brother?”
Throwing her hands up in the air, Chloe shouted, “How about the part where they said they know what happened to Delta and they are worried about her?”
Deo shook his head. “I’m not worried about her; she’ll be fine.” Pointing to his father, he said, “He’s the one who’s worried about her.”
Chloe could see her sister was losing her patience when she yelled back, “Well, why the fuck is he worried about her?”
Deo glowered at her. “Don’t yell at me, you crazy woman. I’m still mad at you for trying to kill me!”
“Why do you keep saying that? I’ve never seen you before, you nutcase!” Elena wailed.
When Deo smirked in an evil way, his father saw it.
“Don’t.”
“Pft. Keep dreaming, old man. I’m showing her right now.” Deo put his hand in his coat pocket while he spoke to her. “One of the reasons dear old Mom wanted to have children with Dad is because he’s a powerful warlock of some repute. She hoped to have a child with some magical abilities. From what I understand, Delta never developed abilities, but I did.”
Pulling his balled-up hand out of his pocket, he held it out in front of him.
That devious grin on his face caused all the hairs on the back of Elena’s neck to stand up in warning.
“One of my specialties is connecting to a familiar. I have one creature that bonds to me, and I can see life through his eyes. But when we’re connected, we share a life force. So, if he dies, I die, too. You tried to kill my familiar.”
Elena shook her head in denial, but stopped when Deo opened his hand.
Holy shit! Elena hadn’t been lying about the spider that she said was stalking her! Right there, in the middle of their brother’s palm, was the biggest, hairiest freakin’ spider Chloe had ever seen.
Chloe saw Elena’s eyes go to her beloved gossip rag magazine on the coffee table before she snatched it up, rolling it in her hand as she leapt with a homicidal war cry toward her brother and her enemy. Only, Elena never made it near her target, because her aunt Thea was holding her back as Deo laughed his fool head off at her.
“Let me go! LetmegorightnowsoIcankillthatcreepyabomination!” Elena shrieked.
Deo stopped laughing, and his tone became severe. “You can’t kill Rufus.”
Elena stared at him in horror. “You named that disgusting thing Rufus?”
He nodded. “Yes, I did, and you can’t kill him for two reasons. One, he’s my familiar, so he’s very important to me. And you wouldn’t want to break my heart now, would you, big sister?”
“You slimy, little turd!”
“And two,” he continued as if she hadn’t spoken, “he’s going to help us get Delta out of her mess.”
Hearing Delta’s name brought Elena’s rage back down, which was good because Chloe was getting tired of this three-ring circus. It was time to figure out where their youngest sister was, pronto.
“You still haven’t told us what trouble she’s in or where she’s at,” Chloe snapped.
“Delta is at the den of Bash Yasin. A very old, scheming, and deceptive vampire.”
Chloe, Elena, and her aunts all started talking at once, asking different variations of the same question, which was, “Why?”
Manus held his hands up in the air and shouted, “QUIET!”
The Demos women promptly quieted down to wait for an explanation.
Impatient, Elena snapped out, “Well, give us some answers already.”
Deo pet his spider, causing Elena to shudder in revulsion again.
Chloe had to hold in her laughter at the sight. It looked as if she wasn’t the only one in the family who liked to torture Elena with her irrational fear of spiders. Family get togethers from here on out just might be fun … with some plotting.
“Rufus here was hitching a ride in Delta’s purse yesterday to spy on her for me. I’ve been watching you all since we were informed of Mom’s death, trying to decide on whether I should make contact with you or not.”
When Chloe started to say something, he held his hand up to stop her. “Last night, Rufus was there with Delta when she took the meeting with Bash Yasin. Apparently, they’ve met briefly before through a mutual acquaintance. Some guy named Rhett Baines. Bash had heard about Delta asking Rhett to turn her, and how Rhett had denied her … rather harshly from the sound of it. Bash offered to turn her himself. However, there was a catch.” Their brother gave them a stern look and said, “There’s always a catch with those vamps; don’t forget that. Nothing is ever free with those stingy bastards. Anyway, if Bash turned Delta, she would be indentured to him for the next one hundred years.”
Chloe snorted. “There’s no way Delta took a deal like that. She’s naive, sure. But stupid? Not hardly. So, where is she now? Crying into her tea cup about not getting what she wanted?”
Deo shook his head. “How quickly you’ve forgotten that I’ve already told you Delta is at Bash’s den. And you forget all of Delta’s admirable traits, like her romanticism of fairy tales and epic love stories. This Rhett may have turned her down and broken her heart, but do you really think Delta would walk away from the opportunity to live forever? Did you forget how much she likes her ‘research’? Think of all the things she could research with an infinite lifespan. Yeah, I see by the panic on your face that you’re figuring it out. You’re wrong, Chloe; she took the deal. Delta’s not here because … she’s a vampire now.”
“Holy shit,” Elena whispered in shock.
After gathering her wits, Chloe asked, “What do we do now?”
Manus shrugged. “Wait for Bash to let her come home.”
Gage added, “And finish clearing Lulu’s name in the meantime.”
For a few moments, Chloe had forgotten about Gage’s sister still being under investigation. Problems seemed to be piling up all around them, and Chloe didn’t like it one bit. Now the question was: what was she going to do to get rid of their problems?