Brady groaned and rolled over in bed to avoid the stream of sunlight smacking him in the face through the balcony doors. Smiling like an idiot at the rosemary scent clinging to his pillow and recalling the previous evening's events, he reached for Kaida. Except the sheets were cool. Frowning, he pried his eyes open and found a folded piece of paper on her side of the mattress.Stole one of your t-shirts. I'm downstairs.She'd put a smiley face at the end of her note, which was entirely too adorable. And it didn't make him grin. Much. He rose and relieved himself in the adjoining bathroom, then threw on a pair of sweats and his glasses to go in search of her.Best damn night of his life. Would've been the best morning of his life if she were still in his bed.The sound of muttering voices and the scent of coffee led him to the kitchen. He propped a shoulder against the frame, mostly out of sight, and grinned wider at finding Kaida on a stool by the island next to Riley, bare feet on
Once he finished a shower, he threw on a pair of gray slacks and a white button-down, then stared at the bed. Kept staring. The sheets were rumpled from their love-making, her scent lingered in the room, and recollection of their passion flooded him until suffocation loomed.All he wanted was more. More memories, more time together, more...everything. Interesting, because he'd never thought himself a sadist.The sisters had arrived by the time he'd made it back downstairs and were helping his brothers set out the food in the formal dining room. They hadn't dined in or used this space since their uncle had left the island nine years ago. Brady had almost forgotten what it looked like.Walnut wainscot paneling would've made the interior dim or moody if not for the elaborate chandelier over the massive ten-seater Palais Royale and the bay window facing the eastern side of the grounds. The space was still as ostentatious as he remembered. Monet on the walls, a Copenhagen china set too
Kaida, mouth agape, stared at the leather-bound journals Brady had placed on the table in the library. Wearing white gloves, he'd retrieved them from a high glass-encased shelf and had lined them in order. Fifty-two in all. Some bindings were cracked, the pages yellow with age. Others looked new and barely touched.Amazing. So was the room. While Brady had been busy, she'd strolled around, fighting a bookgasm. They had first editions of most of her favorite classics and newer titles. Volumes and volumes of fiction, non-fiction, encyclopedias... Heaven. And those were just the books. Vaulted ceiling with a mural of angels. A fireplace she and her sisters could walk inside. Intricate accent carvings and a bar in the corner.Heck, all she'd need was a bathroom and she could move in, never to see daylight again."Okay, we have two problems." Brady held up his gloved hands. "First, these are delicate. We're not going to be able to touch most of them without protection and the pages are b
If she were to dissect her choices, her experiences up to this point, she'd have to face the unsettling fact that she'd been directionless. Forget detours or destinations. All she'd been doing was putting one foot in front of the other. A blind work of autopilot and managing nothing more consequential than existing. "I have been in stasis," she numbly said, her voice hollow. Admitting such and realizing her life had been worth squat seemed a trivial insight, considering. It changed nothing and only shined a spotlight on the hulled-out person occupying space. "I don't belong anywhere. I've never had a...connection or bond to anyone or anything or anyplace." Actually, the few exceptions were encountering Brady in dreams, the instinct to study and teach Paganism, and boarding the ferry to Six Fates. Maybe she'd been looking at her destiny all wrong. It was entirely possible her life hadn't begun until two weeks ago."You always have a place here with us. You know that, right?""I do
"Any news about Captain Asshole?" Fiona tossed pizza crust on her plate and leaned back in her seat at the dining room table.Tristan grunted. "He left the hotel room late last night, but no one's seen him come back. It's possible he slipped past my watchdog. I might have his room searched despite the Do Not Disturb sign. We'll see."Brady rolled his head to stretch his neck, exhausted from the workout routine. He jogged two miles three times a week, but he wasn't accustomed to vigorous exercise. Not on this level, anyhow. They'd gone at it hard in their home gym with weights, equipment, and defensive techniques. Usually, Riley preferred swimming laps and Tristan did martial arts to keep in shape, yet they appeared just as sluggish as Brady. Stress, no doubt."He could be anywhere on the island." He frowned, concern and uncertainty making concrete of his muscles all over again. "What if he catches one of you off guard?""We can handle ourselves," Fiona assured. "Even taking magick
Finally, she looked away and resettled. "Fiona showed me a photo album earlier today. They kept tabs on me growing up. School pictures and stuff. There were some shots of me and my sisters when I was an infant before the adoption. Mara and my mother, too. I look like her," she added quietly.He cinched his arms tighter, unsure how to respond. Like her, he'd been pissed off at what they'd done to her and how easily they'd cast her aside. But the more intel he gained on the circumstances, the harder it was to dispute their intentions. The Venatores had been hunting her kind for centuries, and had they been aware of her existence, she might not be here today. She was the final link in this fated chain. Erase her, and it wiped out any chance for breaking it.Still, he couldn't imagine what it had been like for her growing up. Thinking she was unwanted. Unloved. A freak, as she'd claimed. He hadn't had the best upbringing, but he'd always had his brothers. No matter what, he could and wou
In the Meath library, Kaida closed the last journal and stared at it on the table. All week she'd been reading through the passages, and it had been harder than she'd anticipated. She'd attempted to look at them with a professional, objective eye, tried to distance herself from the human element and view them as research, but that was impossible.Her family's past and the Meaths were intertwined in ways that read like a darker, more horrid version of Grimm's Fairy Tales. From the first entry a week after Celeste Galloway's death to pivotal moments spanning three-hundred years, it was heart-breaking and gutting to receive first-hand accounts, especially considering the point-of-view. Righteous indignation. Bloodbaths. Hatred at its very core.If not for Brady erecting a pillar of strength, she probably wouldn't have been able to continue. He'd held her every night, soothed her tears, and never once showed the anger he had to have built inside over learning details about the entries.
Her pulse kicked rhythm. "The first four journals are from Minister Meath and were penned in quill ink. The succession goes on down your family tree. When a different member takes over the dagger, about every fifty years, the name gets entered at the beginning of the passage. There's dates to confirm, and I matched them to your line. Now, the newer ones use both sides of the paper and change to ballpoint, acclimating to modernization. The verbiage adapts for the times, too, as do descriptions. Yet there are a lot of similarities."He straightened and crossed his arms. "What are you getting at?""For starters, there's two Bible verses that are repeated throughout all the books. Coincidence? Probably. However, certain words like "heathen" and "sorcery" are frequented. Pretty outdated terms. So are specific insults. Could also be a coincidence.""But when you compare them with the handwriting, it adds up to more." He nodded, his gaze distant. "What's the connection?""I don't know. Ob