Oh, what the hell, he’s passed out. He’s not going to know if I pet him.
Tentatively, Lily ran her hand down his side, fingers brushing over silken fur. She stroked lightly at first, then more assuredly, soothed by the feel of him as she began to turn over all that had happened and ponder what was to come. She let her hand travel over his flank, his face, pausing to rub velvety ears.
She smiled a little when a low vibration began to thrum beneath her touch. She didn’t know what he was like with other people, but he seemed to be a purrer with her.
Her smile faded when she thought back to what had happened in the street. She’d lost control. Why she’d ever thought she could grab her particular tiger by the tail and make it obey was beyond her now, though how could she have expected what felt like possession? She shouldn’t have cared, but the sheer terror on Ludo’s face was going to haunt her.
It was the look her adopted mother had had on her face when… when…
Lily pushed it from her mind. There was no point in revisiting something so far in the past. What was done was done. She needed to figure out what to do going forward. It was a complete mess. Anura had run to the leader of the Dracul. She still had Damien out there somewhere, hunting her. And Ty still seemed determined to take her to Arsinöe, who was probably going to be disappointed at best in her ability to produce the sort of vision she needed.
She stroked, unseeing, lost in thought.
And suddenly realized that she was no longer stroking fur but taut, silken flesh.
Lily sucked in a breath, jerking her hand away instinctively. It was now Ty lying alongside her in the form she was used to, wearing nothing but jeans and a sleepy, heavy-lidded look that made her want to press him back down on the bed and crawl on top of him. Immediately her troubled thoughts stilled, replaced by her need for his body and by a longing, one she couldn’t quite articulate, for more than just the physical.
“You should warn me before you do that,” she said, hearing the shaken sound in her voice and knowing that it had nothing to do with what had happened earlier. It had everything to do with him.
He rested on his side, up on one elbow, watching her with his steady silver gaze. The hazy expression had vanished almost as soon as she’d noticed it and was now as sharp as ever. He didn’t smile, only seemed to be searching her face for something.
“You’re all right,” he said. There was something strange in his voice, something she hadn’t heard before.
Lily slowly nodded. “Yeah. I guess ghostly possession is one of those things that doesn’t have any lingering effects.”
The crack appeared to fall on deaf ears.
“I wasn’t sure when you’d wake up. If you’d wake up,” he said. “Jaden and I carried you here. Fortunately it wasn’t far.”
Lily found it hard to tear her eyes away from Ty’s, but curiosity made her take another look at her surroundings. The room was small and simple, with an iron bed, a nightstand. The wooden floor was bare. There were two doors, both shut, and one of them was dead bolted.
“And where is ‘here’ exactly?”
“It’s a safe house. Every large city has them, and there are others scattered about. Good places to hide if you’re a lowblood in trouble. This is actually where we were headed when we ran into Ludo and… everything. It’s run by an old friend of mine. Another Cait Sith.” Ty looked away. “I’d thought he might know where Anura went, but we already have the answer to that question.”
Lily nodded, troubled as she remembered. “Why would she have run to the Dracul? I still don’t understand why she would have told this Vlad about me. She seemed so…” She trailed off, but a number of words came to mind. Warm and wise were two of them. Descriptions completely at odds with what she had done.
Ty looked less surprised than she felt. “She’s protecting her interests, no doubt. Vlad Dracul is a powerful vampire, if not the most beloved, and though the Empusae have a presence here, it’s really his dynasty that tolerates them being here and not the other way around. She smells war, Lily, and she’s probably not wrong. Anura is just shoring up her protection. I don’t like it, but it wasn’t personal. Even if she is on the wrong side.”
“And you’re on the right side?”
He sighed. “It’ll be the winning side. Makes it right enough, in my opinion. I don’t get to sit this one out, so I’d rather stand with the Ptolemy.” He shook his head. “Doesn’t matter right now. What matters is that we’re in some serious trouble.” He looked at her closely, hesitated, and then brushed a lock of hair out of her face with a tenderness that surprised her.“You’re sure you’re all right?”
“As all right as I’m going to be. I’m not exactly sure what happened.”
Ty’s brows drew together. “You were talking about the House of the Mother right before you passed out. Do you know what that is?” he asked.
Lily shook her head, pushing away memories of fire and smoke and screams. They had come upon her so quickly in the street, overwhelming her. “Not a clue. But I think the woman I see in my dreams, the one in my, well, I guess they’re visions, of a sort… I think she’s the head of it. She’s got red hair, same color as mine. And she’s always wearing this one-shouldered green dress that looks Greek or Roman or something. I always see her in a temple, and there’s a huge fight. Seems like an ambush, actually, with the other side in red.” Lily closed her eyes and saw it so clearly. “It’s a bloodbath, at least at first. The ones attacking are so fast.”
“Like lightning,” Ty murmured, but she barely heard him.
“But then things start to turn around. I’ve never seen people fight like that, throwing things with just a touch. Flashes of light. It’s pandemonium,” she said, swept up once again in the thought of it, the intensity of the scene that she’d stood in so many times. “I always think she might manage a victory, pull it off. But every time, she dies.”
“Dies?” His voice was soothing but far off. Lily could smell the smoke again, and the distant echoes of the cries of the doomed began to echo in her ears. She didn’t want it, but she felt herself slipping, falling down into the dark place again where she knew someone else was lurking—someone who had already risen up to use her body, her voice. Someone incredibly strong. Her mark tingled ominously.
“There’s a woman, beautiful and dark, with a knife,” Lily said, struggling back up from the encroaching darkness. She opened her eyes, banishing the vision that wanted to claim her again. “She comes up behind the woman in green, out of nowhere. Calls her terrible things. And after… you know… she wants to know where the baby is. That’s always the last thing I hear, this dark-haired woman demanding to know about the baby.”
Ty was watching her closely, his expression unreadable. She didn’t want to be telling him this, was afraid he’d think she was as crazy as her family once had. But she knew she had no choice. This time, it was important.
“Lily,” he said, “are these people you keep seeing vampires?”
She nodded. “Yes. I could see their teeth. And the abilities they had are definitely not normal.”
“Then I don’t see how there can be a child. Vampires can’t have children. And all things considered, that’s probably best.”
Lily shrugged and looked away, frustrated. “I know. Maybe she’d kidnapped it.” Except that wasn’t right, she knew. She’d seen the tenderness on the red-haired woman’s face, seen the way she’d held the baby. It was hers. Somehow, it was hers.
“In any case,” Lily finished, “the baby was important. But she handed her off to another woman before they could take her away.”
“Her. It was a female child?”
Lily frowned. “I… Yeah, it was.” She knew it was true. It felt true. Even though she realized at that moment that she’d never heard anyone in her dream refer to the baby as being a boy or a girl. Still. She knew.
She looked at Ty, an oasis of silent strength standing just outside of her own whirlwind, and tried to use his outward calm to center herself. “I don’t understand it, Ty. What happened out there… it’s like I wasn’t myself. There have been a couple of incidents over the years. But this time was worse. Or maybe not worse,” she qualified, remembering the thrill of the power that had rocketed through her like a drug, the seductive edge of what she had wielded. “More dangerous,” she decided. She could have killed Ludo. She’d felt his life in her hands, the pulse and beat of it. Why she’d stopped, she didn’t know. She could only be grateful that she had, because she’d also known as soon as she’d touched him that he was no match for her.
The sole heir to the House of the Mother. Whatever that was.
“This has happened to you before?” His voice was quiet, calm, but she could see the worry in his eyes. “Before Damien, even?”
Lily hesitated for a moment. If she was telling him everything else, then what was this one thing more? Ty wouldn’t think she was crazy, at least. Actually, she didn’t know what he would think.
She nodded. “Yeah. I was adopted. I think I mentioned that, or maybe you already knew. Anyway, they were very well-to-do, very impressed with themselves for having snagged an attractive baby to adopt. Bought, I should say. Everyone knows the adoption system in this country works a little differently for the wealthy. She—my mother, Elizabeth—told everyone she couldn’t get pregnant, but she really just didn’t want to lose her looks. She told me that when I was young. Who tells their kid that?”
Lily’s stomach clenched as she remembered what it had been like growing up in that house, where nothing was to be touched and no one ever let her forget that she was different, an outsider.
“Quinn,” Ty murmured, cocking his head at her, and she knew he’d made the connection. “You’re not Ellis Quinn’s daughter, are you? Big-time movie producer?”