Page 14 of Little Mate

“Will you be there for that ceremony? To say goodbye and send them off with peace and love?”

“I don’t know yet.” But it’s not grief I sense in him. It’s guilt. Why?

“What are you hiding, Uncle? Speak now; please don’t force my hand.” The tingle starts at the tips of my fingers, traveling up my arm to my shoulder, and then spreads. It’s an awakening in my senses, everything becoming clearer, and I no longer see the man in front of me as family.

He’s an essence I can manipulate.

And I do. A red haze fills my sight as I stretch out my fingers. The movement calls to his soul, that part of him that keeps him alive. Because an organ can fail, can be healed by the right person or doctor, but without your spirit, you are nothing.

A shell. Empty.

My uncle’s face becomes ashen when I draw out a little of his being, just a smidge, and that small tendril salutes its master with a warm caress of my fingertips. Then more. Enough that he sways, hand clutching at his chest while the word no slips past chapped lips.

It would be so easy to end him.

“Please.”

“Veritas.” One word. A command, and he stumbles back a bit. I’m tempted to force him to his knees, but Isabella opens my hand and intertwines our fingers. My hold on him is still there, but not as choking, and had anyone else touched me, I’d kill them. But not her. Never my siblings. “The truth, Uncle. Why do you feel so much guilt?”

“I’ve made mistakes I can’t take back, Gabriella.” He rubs his throat, coughing a bit. “Nothing I will do or say will fix it.”

“What things?” Isa speaks from beside me, and I look over. She’s a bit more relaxed now, and I’ll ask her why later. Her reaction before and the still half-gloss effect in her eyes tell me she saw something important. “Who did you hurt?”

That catches my attention, and I flick my eyes back to our uncle. Immediately they narrow at his fidgeting. “Answer her.”

“Your father asked me not to get involved. Not until it was time.”

“Time for what?” Our uncle opens his mouth to answer but pauses with his sight set on something behind us. For a minute or two, no one speaks, but my patience is thin, and I snap my fingers together, causing him to grimace. I still hold a small part of him within my grasp. “Pay attention and answer the question. No more of that vague—”

“Enough of the heavy, my family,” Aunt Silla speaks from behind me and I loosen up, yet my glare remains in place. Everything about this conversation is making me suspicious of a man my father loved dearly. “Please come and eat. Let’s save the hard conversations until we’ve all cooled off a bit and you’ve seen the horses.”

“They deserve to know—”

“You have them?” Isa and I say in unison, but it’s the surprise in her tone that I focus on. She didn’t see this. “Since when?”

“Your uncle picked them up a week ago. We’ll explain after lunch.”

“Now, amore. They need to—"

“I said after, Roberto.” She’s talking to all of us, yet when I look back, her eyes are on her husband. Warning him to defy her request. “We are all hurting right now. We need each other.”

He nods, and so do we.

We’ll let it rest for now, but I’m not leaving without answers.

Why would my father ask him to abandon us?

Why so much secrecy?

5

THEODORE ASTOR

VAMPIRE KING

“She isn’t here, my lord,” Brodej says, his foot kicking the back of the knees of this coven’s supposed leader. Those same kneecaps hit the ground hard, and his grunts of pain make me smile. “Though the horses out in a small stable wear the royal Wiccan crest. They’re meant to appear as such, at least, and yet these are not the ones used by the late king. They’re not his.”

“Interesting.” My eyes survey the scum. His demeanor is proud and he has a false sense of entitlement in his stare, and yet he reeks of fear. He’s also young and impertinent, killing his father for the rights to the family home a little over four months ago. A dispute the royal house didn’t get involved in, even if the old witch was someone Moore trusted.

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