B. Donna - Blood Pool

“Now what do we do? Your father still has Raven, and he’ll know you’re not quite the same daughter,” Bo worried aloud.

“Yes, that will only increase his hatred. He has no idea what really went on? For all his power as a bokur? ” Tobias asked.

“Did you know?” Jade countered. “My father taught me everything he knows pertaining to magick. Plus I think the only way he was able to survive my mother’s death initially was to immerse himself in finding me, then in training and raising me. Remember, Frank told my father I was your daughter, Tobias.”

“I never took Nicki’s blood. I should have. I would have known she was in trouble in spite of Frank’s shields if I had.”

Bo went into the kitchen and poured a cup of coffee. “So how did he find out? That you were his, I mean. You wouldn’t have shown signs of being a Lamai until you were around twelve or thirteen.”

Jade rolled up the sleeves of her black cable knit sweater. “The old fashioned way. He had a paternity test done.”

“Of course. He has all those connections in the medical field, so it makes sense he would have a test performed,” Tobias said as he gazed out the window, no doubt wondering where his daughter was. No longer a Lamai, Raven didn’t have the same bond to her father as before.

Jade was lost in thought. “Frank’s magick was strong, but I think that, deep down, my father knew something wasn’t right, which is why he had the paternity test done. He always said to me, ‘You can’t trust anyone.’”

“Speaking of paternity, how is Emerald?” Bo asked Tobias.

“She’s fine, at home resting. I was with her all last night.” Tobias half-heartedly smiled. “She tried working some of her fae magick to see if she could locate Raven, but came up empty.”

Bo got up and dumped his remaining coffee into the sink. He turned and leaned against the counter, eyeing the two Lamai in the living room. “How do we even find Laroque?” Bo asked.

“I’m sure he’s not anywhere we would think to look. He won’t be on Hannah’s Vineyard or Mirabelle. I can’t sense his whereabouts or Raven’s,” Jade confessed.

“I don’t understand why your father put up with Frank after he found out he lied about you,” Bo said, puttering around the kitchen.

Jade wanted to help Bo with the breakfast dishes, taking the sponge from him. “My father never let on to Frank that he knew the truth that he was my real father. Only he and I knew…and of course you, Tobias. He knew he couldn’t trust Frank, so he used him, but he made Frank feel that they were in an alliance.” She rinsed the sponge and placed it back in the soap dish.

Bo asked another question. “How did Frank explain the situation when you never lost your incisors and grew Lamai teeth?”

“I was an anomaly, at first, and then he blamed my mother. Frank said she swore to him I was Tobias’s child. The only use my father had for Frank was that he orchestrated my abduction so my father could raise me. Then Frank played dumb for everyone else’s benefit and sobbed crocodile tears at my disappearance,” Jade said.

“Shit, that still leaves us with the problem of finding Raven,” Bo swore.

Philippe Laroque stood in the corner of his study, opening the windows to let the trade winds inside the room. He held a letter, yellowed from age. Raven Strigoi was in an upstairs bedroom guarded by two Lamai and three shifters. His mind raced as he thought about what had transpired over the past week. He worried incessantly about Jade. Was she all right? Was she safe? Had Tobias hurt her?

He used his magick in search of answers, but wasn’t happy with the outcome. She was safe, but somehow changed. The events that had taken place left an indelible mark on her. To what extent, he wasn’t certain.

And that useless mayor wasn’t answering his calls anymore. Had they turned Jade against him? Filled her head with lies so she would never want to see him again? Perhaps she finally felt a sense of belonging with the sister she’d lost so many years ago and now she hated him for taking her away from the only other family she had.

But Jade was smarter than that.

She had to realize everything he did was for her-wasn’t it? Or, more to the point, it was out of his hatred for Tobias. And his jealousy. That, he was certain, Jade knew.

Jade saw through her father’s motives and called him on it repeatedly. She’d asked him to give up this sick game of revenge, and he constantly told her no. Other than Jade, it was his only connection to Nicolette-this vendetta against Tobias. If he let it go, that meant he had to let Nicki go. He couldn’t, not this time.

In every other lifetime Philippe had visited through spiritual journeying, he witnessed Nicki choosing Tobias again and again. He’d been in love with other women, but if Nicki’s spirit was incarnated at the same time as Philippe’s, he was drawn to her, like the typical moth to the flame.

When the price became too high for him to pay and he realized his own daughter was in jeopardy, for the first time in his adult life he entertained the idea of letting go of this war. Nicolette was gone, and nothing he could do, even with all his power, could bring her back.

Perhaps Jade was right after all.

He’d fully intended to make a trade, one daughter for the other. He knew Tobias would agree to that, but what he hadn’t planned on, what no one was able to foretell, was the evil that lurked inside Frank Dubois. Like a festering boil, it became rancid inside the once-genteel man. The sins of envy and lust overtook him-the lust for another man’s wife, and the lust for power.

Frank fooled Laroque.

And Tobias. Philippe reflected on that time.

Frank was merely puffing up Laroque’s ego, asking endless questions about magick and contacting spirits, only to turn around and use everything he’d taught in good faith against him. He’d used the same technique with Laroque as he had to cover his feelings for Nicolette.

Poor Deidre.

She loved Frank, and he took her for granted. She wanted to raise a family with him, but Frank told Philippe he wasn’t cut out to be a father. He told Deidre his career came first. The timing wasn’t right. The years passed, and no children were born.

Deidre became distant. Though she still loved her husband, she knew that in his heart, Nicki would always come first. Deidre wrote to Philippe, pouring her heart out about her suspicions that her husband was keeping something from her. She asked whether he knew what it was.

He was so entrenched in his work in the lab-so focused on getting back at Tobias-that he hardly gave Deidre’s letters a second thought.

He should have. He would have had a better insight into the monster that dwelled inside Frank.

He opened one of the letters and read.

Dear Philippe,

I hope you are well. We received the photos of Jade, and I cannot get over how big she’s gotten-how much she looks like Nicki. I wish you would reconsider bringing her back to us. She would have a stable life here. I know how you feel about Tobias, but he agreed to let us raise her.

Frank misses her so much. That’s where the ink became streaky, and Philippe knew instinctively that Deidre had cried when she wrote this part.

He’s not the same, Philippe. I don’t know why I’m telling you this, except that maybe you can get through to him. He looks at Jade’s picture and cries for hours. He locks himself in his study and won’t let me in, won’t let me touch him.

I have tried to comfort him, but he gets so angry sometimes. I swear he called out Nicki’s name the other night in his sleep.

He claims he dreamt of Jade and must have called out her mother’s name, asking for help to get Jade back.