Page 84 of Old Secrets

“Rosalie. I’ll have someone bring her around at eleven. That should be long enough for her to be questioned and briefed on her responsibilities. I’ll warn you now. She’s a former member of Greenwich, and she was one of the better ops from my understanding of it. She’s been heavily damaged. The witches I’ve had placed with her agree she is generally a gentle soul who was forced into atrocities. Karma wanted to save her, so I’m bringing her into the Inquisition. It was the only way I could get her out of China. Or keep her alive, for that matter.”

I winced, as China had taken a rather brutal stance regarding the former members of Greenwich. Some would live, but most had faced their death not long after we’d cut the head off the serpent.

My father had requested that each of those facing execution have the option of doing so in the heart of Mount Everest, where their remains might be laid to rest in the familial graveyard as a show of gratitude for ending my family’s nightmare.

China had granted the request, and all of those condemned to die had done so in the place where I had been born and the rest of my litter had died.

I’d witnessed every last suicide, and I’d made the painful decision to absolve them of their deeds so that they could go to the next life in peace. One day, I might forgive myself for what I hadn’t been able to prevent.

“Ah. I’ll ask Richard if he can smooth things over in China sometime soon. I’m sure he can. He’s got them wrapped around his finger. And the other operatives?”

“Dead. China gave them the option of suicide, which they accepted. You’ll have trouble with the fox and wolf over it, I’m sure. They viewed her as a goddess, and he was getting a hefty dose of worship, too. I tried to convince China to pick a different punishment, but there have been too many deaths of children. China could not let it stand, and if they had lived, the remainder of their life would have been bad—bad enough I backed off upon hearing the details. China allowed for mercy, and we’re going to have to accept that.”

“Are you going to be staying around?”

“For a few days. I want to see how they settle for myself, and you’ll need the help getting so many on the road to recovery. All I can tell you is this: the ones on our turf are already dead, so there’s nobody left for you to kill this time. And, according to Mellisa, they were run by a group of sorcerers. They killed off twelve, but have your witches be on guard for any. I’m confident China will eradicate any that may have survived—and that includes any who might carry the genes and were in on the cult. The only promise they granted me is that they will not kill any innocents.”

“With China, that’s concession enough,” Desmond conceded. “All right, pups. Let’s get you all settled. Wendy, show Karma and Jake their room, and I’ll show the rest which rooms are for our kids, set them loose to take up whatever other space they want, and check on the brat. Judging from the lack of screaming, he somehow stayed asleep through the fuss.”

Wendy laughed, gave me a kiss on the head, and waved for me to follow her. “He’s awake, but I told him not to worry. He’s old enough now he does comprehend English. He can even talk some, using the words you taught him, which includes fuck.”

I whipped my tail harder, as I loved when the little ones learned something their parents wished they hadn’t. I trotted after Wendy, dancing in place while she engaged her mate in a staring contest, the faintest of smiles on her lips.

“Maybe if you were game for another one, we wouldn’t have a boy who likes using language I probably shouldn’t have slipped on around him at an impressionable age,” Desmond replied, grinning at his wife. “Are you sure we can’t have another one?”

“Not with a full house we can’t, but maybe if you’re nice to me once Richard is done with the project he’s working on.”

“I’m going to hold you to that,” Desmond warned before going to work herding everybody upstairs. “Tomorrow comes early, so let’s get into bed.”

The woman and man with golden hair and skin came to the Desmond home, and their presence broke my family. The man took the entire lot of them in hand, reassuring them in the language I’d heard them speak in Tibet, leaving me and Jake with the woman. The memory of the woman teaching me how to kill human prey resurfaced, and I marveled that she had not changed over the years.

I had no recollection of the man.

“Imagine my surprise when I discovered you, a little baby, one of my people from another clan,” she said, prowling around me. “I regret I was unable to arrive in time to save your…”

“Parents,” I replied. “Adoptive parents. The first set of them.”

“Parents, then. We would have, if we could have. Then to find you unwell, malnourished, and barely clinging to life? No fault of theirs, mind you—they hadn’t had you long, and they had no idea what you were. My name is Viola. My husband is Jaden. We had thought your family had perished when the seas had risen and the lands had split. I suppose we had gone one way, and they had gone the other, leaving us in the Americas while they remained in China.”

Ah. That explained the extreme reaction.

To my family, the dead had risen from their graves, and it wasn’t a matter of meeting someone of the same species, but it was of meeting old friends after a long and painful separation. As Viola and Jaden had already met me, they had known other members of my family had survived, thus preparing them for the reunion. “I remember you, a little. You taught me how to kill.”

“Yes. I normally wouldn’t have taught a kit that young, but you needed to learn because you would one day be hunted. We couldn’t keep you. We got away with it for longer than I thought, but it was difficult. You were skilled at shifting for an infant, and we couldn’t afford to keep you with us—you would have been exposed far too soon. It happens sometimes with our young. Some just take to our shapeshifting rather than being nudged to human form and staying there. The fox in you was awake from your birth. I’ll confess, I worked a little magic on you at first, to help you forget about your power. Then I found a fanatic who wanted nothing more than a healthy baby. I loathed that woman, but she could do what I could not. She did not do it in a manner I tolerate, but she accomplished the job. I thank her for that.”

“She’s dead now,” I confessed.

“Nothing more than she deserves. I warned her she would reach the end of her rope if she raised a hand against you, because one day, you would retaliate. And I warned her if she hurt you, I would be coming for her. She toed the line sufficiently. How did she die?”

“She killed my pa, and she tried to kill me.” To my astonishment, the admission no longer hurt. Startled, I stared at Jake with wide eyes.

As always, he winced at the mention of what my ma had done to me and my pa.

“I had warned her. I had warned her you would turn on her if she overstepped. I had warned her that I would have the grave of the baby she murdered found. You were blind to it then, but I had marked that one’s soul so others might know of her sins, although I’d limited the mark to our kin. Still, I’m sorry, especially for your pa. The woman was deplorable, but the man was everything she was not. We will set up a shrine for him and wish his spirit well in his next life, that he may find nothing but joy.”

One day, time might lessen the grief of losing my pa. “Thank you. I wasn’t imagining it, then? That you taught me how to kill using dolls?”

“It’s true. I knew, one day, that you would need your fangs and claws, so I taught you how to use them. And then I erased as much of the memories as I could, encouraged you to take up the form of a human infant. You had been slow to grow, another sign you were strongly aligned with your fox. I warned that woman you would be developmentally delayed, but that you would grow strong, healthy, and long-lived. I told her that I could not care for you, and that you were the child of a family member, and that you would be of truly pale skin, like a bright moon, and that your hair would be dark and that your eyes, still blue then, would become a bright golden amber. I promised her beauty and grace, of which you are both. I warned her of your affinity with animals, and that you would always be closest to the fox. I, perhaps, should not have trusted her as much as I did, but I felt my threats would get you to adulthood—and they had. We secured your adoption, and we did our best to keep an eye on you. From a distance, you were alive and healthy, always a little underweight, but that’s how our children often are. You’re filling out, so it seems your male has done that part of his duties correctly.”