Demons Undone: The Sons of Gulielmus Series (57 page)

He’d have to use his mother’s magic to suppress one side once and for all. He’d already started.

“Ross is being taken care of,” he said. He shoved his hands into his jeans pockets and matched his father’s unblinking stare.

Pop’s nostrils flared. “In what way?”

“In the way fathers take care of their sons sometimes. I’m preventing the brat from hurting himself and others.”

“What care do you have about
hurting
people?” Pop asked, and he eased in so close his nose was inches from Charles’s. “Don’t forget what you are.”

“A pawn?” Hands free from his pockets, he gave Pop a shove backward. The demon had to be close to four hundred pounds, but Charles had just enough strength to push him away from him a couple of feet.

“Good little soldier?” He scoffed. “No way. You came to me at the worst possible time in my life. I was already doubting everything, and you just swooped in and helped my corruption along. I guess I can’t even fault you for it, because that’s what you do. You prey on weaknesses and search out vulnerabilities.”

“What is this change in you?” Pop bellowed. “I offered you unbelievable power for continuing to do what you were capably doing for a hundred years, and this is how you repay me?”

“Repay you?” That made Charles chuckle. “That’s a wildly hilarious consideration. Fathers are supposed to give things to their children because they want to, and not because they’re looking for a future payout. But you’re not a father. You’re a supernatural sperm donor. Goddamned shame, too. I should ask what broke in
you
all those millennia ago that made you turn from being so pure, and so good, to what you are now. I think you have some daddy issues of your own.”

Pop lunged at him, teeth bared, and Charles stepped aside with a sigh. “You’re not really trying that hard, and I guess I don’t blame you. Even when my head’s in a bad place, I wouldn’t do anything to intentionally harm my daughter, or Ross, even being what he is.”

“Your
daughter
?” Pop spat.

“Yep.” Charles eased his phone out of his back pocket and queued up the photo slideshow. He held the device out to Pop, who snatched it.

“Isn’t she a beauty? She looks like Mother and Marion.” He added in a whisper, “And she’s a null, Pop. Not a lick of power. Claude saw to it.”

Pop flinched, but said nothing for a long while. He just kept scrolling as if he couldn’t believe what his eyes were telling him—this surely was some sort of joke.

“Not a joke,” Charles said, and he made no motion to take the phone back. “That name is familiar to you, isn’t it? Marion? There’s an APB out on her and the rest of the Mortons and Thomases, one which I’m sure your bosses could withdraw if you put your weight against it. Maybe you should withdraw it anyway. You haven’t noticed yet that some of the children you’ve had waiting in the wings to train up have gone missing. I know you’ve been busy.” He grinned and hoped it was sufficiently predatory. “I’m going to keep pulling them away from you, one by one until you have no one left to recruit. It’s in your best interest to call your peers off.”

“I’ll do no such thing.” Pop tossed the phone back, and Charles caught it handily.

“I didn’t think you would. But let me tell you something. I may be a softer, gentler Charles, but if you go near my family with even a hint of malice in that black heart of yours, I
will
let Clarissa kill you. You know how badly she wants to.”

“Maybe I’ll kill
you
.”

Charles shrugged. “I know you’re capable. You killed my mother for lesser reasons, right? Wasn’t it funny how that worked? She was your one great love, but you weren’t hers.”

The ground shook beneath them and Charles took a step back, laughing.

“Demons can’t have true loves, can they? Not when they’re not willing to give things up. Well, unlike you, I’m
so
willing.” He took two big steps back as a huge glowing sword formed in Pop’s grip.

Charles knew what it was even without having seen it before. That was the sword that had ended his mother’s life.

“You were an angel,” Charles said as Pop’s grip tightened around the scabbard and his aura flashed blood red.

“Ego made you fall from grace, and fuck if I’m going to let you drag me down with you.”

Right as Pop lifted his blade and lunged, John appeared at Charles’s side and grabbed his brother’s arm.

Before he could whisk him home to Clarissa’s, Charles said to Pop, “It’s only going to get harder for you from here on out. We
will
fight you, and we’re not human. You know it won’t be an easy fight.”

Pop’s sword sluiced the air beside Charles’s ear, but John had already started pulling them out.

Pop had showed his hand. He’d missed.

He wasn’t the kind of demon who’d miss.

• • •

Momma stepped through the back door into the kitchen carrying two bulky canvas totes. Groceries again.

She paused, looked from Marion, nursing Ruby, to Julia, who bounced a second baby bundle in her arms.

“Where’d that baby come from?”

Ariel giggled behind her coffee mug. “Sometimes, when two people love each other very much—”

Momma groaned and thrust the bags onto the counter. “Oh, you know what I meant! Whose child is it?”

Julia and Ariel shared a look.

She propped her fists on her hips and narrowed her eyes. “Whose
child
is it?”

Julia sighed. “I just popped into the hospital to take a look, and I couldn’t just
leave
him there.”

“You stole a baby?” Momma shrieked, striding toward the table with panic written all over her face.

“Big Daddy G’s baby,” Ariel said with a snicker. “Apparently he freed his baby momma of her trance, and she high-tailed it out there as soon as she could put a pair a pants on.”

“She abandoned him. He’s just like a little birdie who fell from his nest,” Julia said, pouting. “He’s my brother. I couldn’t leave him.”

“Nuh-uh,” Momma said, and she shook her head. “We can’t keep that child. I got enough Hell raining down on me as it is.”

“But look at him. He’s so defenseless.” Julia extended the baby toward Momma and Momma planted her fists on her hips, staring at her sort-of granddaughter-in-law.

“You may not have thought this through, because your wolf husband is really going to be howling if you take that kid home with you.”

Julia shrugged. “Probably.”

Marion chuckled, and then jolted when a hand alighted on her shoulder. She turned to see a tired-looking Charles peering down at her, and John striding across the kitchen toward the coffee maker.

She registered his touch, heard his mental whisper of
sweetheart
, and then remembered what Irene and Claude had said. Irene had said
trust
him, and to help him be good. Claude had said to stop discounting her gut.

Her gut said Charles was doing the best he could under the circumstances.

Weren’t they all?

Charles moved away, following John toward the coffee.

“Where have you two been?” Ariel asked.

Julia was still engaging Momma to take the baby, who apparently didn’t even have a name.

Good luck
.

John handed Charles a full mug and rolled tense shoulders back in circles. “Dealing with Gulielmus. He’s in a righteous rage, but I think he’ll steer clear for a while.”

“He needs to come get this baby!” Momma said, pointing as if they all didn’t know what baby she was referring to.

John walked over to the child and stared down at him. “Is he juiced?”

“Don’t know,” Julia said. “We’ll have to ask Claude.”

“Haven’t seen Claude since the night Irene was here. I think he went to go recover from the ordeal, though I don’t know where. Maybe he’s at his cabin. I’ll pop over there later and see if he needs anything.”

John, Julia, Momma, and Ariel continued their chatter in the background while Charles walked toward Marion.

Instinctively, she held out Ruby.

He set down his mug and took her, nuzzling his nose against her downy hair. He murmured something to her and carried her toward the back door.

Marion followed.

They walked in a companionable silence past the Thomases’ temporary mobile home and down the path to Marion’s cozy bungalow. She’d barely moved in, and it still had the new-house smell. She’d had the keys for less than a week.

He stepped up onto the porch and waited as she pulled the screen door open.

He sat on the comfortable sofa he’d picked out himself, and suddenly, Marion realized that all the items he’d purchased for her little house had actual personalities in a way his Coeur d’Alene house did not. At first, she’d thought he’d bought items that he thought she’d like, but now it seemed more likely that he picked what
he
liked—and she just happened to like it, too.

He settled Ruby in the crease between his legs and patted the unoccupied sofa cushion beside him.

She sat.

“It’s been a crazy year, huh?” she said when he didn’t seem to be forthcoming with words. He just jiggled his knees slightly, and Ruby’s heavy eyelids drifted downward.

“It’ll certainly be one I won’t forget. I guess that’s not saying much, though, given most of my life was wasted in a drunken stupor.”

She gave his resting left hand a dismissive flick. “Momma says you’ve been holding out on me again.”

His body tensed next to hers and his brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”

“She said you bought me a ring.”

He closed his eyes and breathed out a sigh of relief. “Oh, that. I did, and she said it was white-trashy, whatever that means. She told me to take it back and try again. I … haven’t yet. I guess I’m not good with jewelry.”

“Well, what was wrong with it? Did it have an adjustable band and diamond chips or something?”

“No, it was a real diamond. It was big. I guess she thought it looked fake.”

“Giveittome,” she said in a quick, jumbled blur.

His expression was so startled, she couldn’t help but laugh. “I mean, if you want. You let me decide if it’s white-trashy.”

“Okay. I’ll dig it out later. Hey.” He gave her a nudge with his right arm, and she leaned her head against his shoulder.

“Hmm?”

“How do you feel about the surname
Thanos
?”

“It’s all right, I guess. Why?”

“It was my original surname. I changed it in 1978 after I staged my death.”

“You’re reverting?”

“I think it’s time.”

“I like it. Charles Thanos. Ruby Thanos. Has a certain quality. Like, a certain yacht-owning quality.”

“You want a yacht?”

“Maybe. Do I get to register it under the name Marion Thanos?”

A low chuckle rumbled in his chest. “I thought you were attached to Wilder.”

“I was waiting for something better to come along.” He lifted his gaze from the now-slumbering Ruby and turned it toward Marion. She picked her head up from his shoulder. “What?” she asked.

“You really want to keep me?” He blew out a breath, turned her hand over, and laced his fingers through it. “I’m a mess,” he said. “I don’t know what normal means anymore. I haven’t been living normal. I’ve been a hobo for too long.”

“Me too, remember? Foster homes? Truck?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Do you miss it?”

She had to think about it. Initially, she’d griped about being so constrained on her grandmother’s property, but then it’d burgeoned into a little community, and a lot of people kept sticking their necks out for her just so she’d get a taste of the freedom she’d enjoyed for so many years.

This was her lot in life.

Charles squeezed her fingers and brought her hand up to his lips for a kiss. Such a small gesture, but it sent tingles through her arm and down her spine.

That wasn’t demonic magic, just plain old mutual attraction.

Maybe her lot in life wasn’t so bad.

“No, I guess I don’t,” she said on a whisper.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen next with your parents being here and Pop being in his funk.”

“We’ll keep watching each other’s backs.”

“Good. I thought we could take your truck out for a spin. I haven’t been in one for a year.” He grinned as she leaned in and brushed her lips across his.

“Really? But what about—”

“Like I said. The boys and I made a mess for Pop. I think he and his friends will back off for a little while to regroup. I think they’re afraid of us, and they should be.”

“Hot.”

He laughed. “I love how adaptable you are.”

“It’s in my DNA, I guess. Love anything else about me?”

“I love everything about you, and you in general.”

“Try harder, Cupid.”

“Fair enough. I love you, Marion.”

“Good.”

“Aren’t you going to say it back?”

“You made me wait a year. I can’t make you wait five seconds when we have forever?”

“Who told you about that?”

“Claude. You boys and your goddamned secrets.”

“Forever, then.” He counted softly against her cheek.

He only got to three before she said it back.

Holley Trent is a Carolina girl gone west. Raised in rural coastal North Carolina, she currently resides on the Colorado Front Range with her family. She writes sassy contemporary and quirky paranormal romances set in her home state.

She’s hard at work writing other stories set in the Sons of Gulielmus world, including one for the mysterious Creole cambion Chaude (and maybe even a shorter work about a certain excitable werewolf).

See Holley’s complete backlist of paranormal and contemporary romances at her website,
www.holleytrent.com
. When she’s not on deadline, she boldly tweets under the handle @holleytrent.