Point of No Return (22 page)

“How much?” my mom whispered.

“He may be an adult.”

My mother said nothing, just hugged Theoron
even tighter. But he was enjoying hugging her and didn’t mind.

“I know it is a lot to take in,” I said
gently. “That is why I never told you, Mom.”

“I do not have to come to your home, Tina,”
Danial said pointedly. “It means a lot that you would let my son
come.”

“Come, please,” my mother said, touching
Danial’s hand with hers. “I always wondered what my daughter saw in
you, from what I knew of you, from what you let us see. I didn’t
understand why she was with you or how she could trust you with
Elle, after you hurt her that time—”

Danial flinched. She squeezed his
shoulder.

“—
but this....what you’ve done was
hard, and you did it alone. I raised a child alone. I know how hard
it is, especially when they are babies—”

“I had help, Tina,” Danial said graciously.
“I was not alone.”

“A pair of hands is one thing, and it’s
another to know all the responsibility for a life you helped create
rests on your shoulders,” my mother shot back defiantly. “Every
decision you make you hope to God is the right one, because the
life you are trying so hard to protect and nurture is so fragile.
You made sure he was taken care of, every minute of every day, and
that means something to me, Danial. I misjudged you. I’m sorry for
that.”

Danial said nothing for some moments. When he
did speak, he was emotional. “You are as surprising to me as your
daughter was, when she first accepted what I was,” Danial said,
respect in his eyes. “I expected you to run screaming from me if
you ever found out the truth.”

“I’d like to think I’m calmer than that,” my
mother said, getting to her feet, still holding Theoron. “Besides,
it’s not like you are really biting my daughter—”

My mother stopped abruptly, taking in Danial,
who was giving her a small secretive smile, blinking his eyes at
her a lot. I flushed scarlet, from my toes to my hair.

“You...you really...um—” my mom floundered
again.

This time, my stepfather saved the day.
“Look, whatever is going on here, the night’s not getting any
younger. Let’s get ice cream, and we can talk about this at
home.”

“Ice cream!” Theoron shouted.

* * * *

Over our creamy desserts, we ditched our
serious discussion, instead talking of pleasantries, my stepfather
working in how he would like to take Theoron fishing in the spring
as he had taken Elle a few times last summer. “I don’t suppose you
can go?” he said, glancing at Danial out of the corner of his
eye.

“If you go at night, I will go with you,”
Danial said, with an apologetic look. “But days are out, I’m
afraid.”

“That’s fine,” my stepfather said. “You can
still have a scotch or two with me, right?”

Danial reluctantly nodded. “As long as it’s
just a taste.”

“Mom, Chris, you need to know something,” I
said abruptly.

Everyone looked at me, including Danial.

“Danial told me what he was from the first.
He never hid what he was from me. I chose to be with him, to have
his child. It matters to me that you know that. He and I were
together because I wanted to be with him, not because he seduced me
or anything like that.” I forced a smile. “Those stories in the
media are just stories.”

“We get it,” my stepfather said gruffly. “We
didn’t think that anyway, but it’s good hearing you say that.”

From the tone of his voice, that was exactly
what he had been thinking. Glad I’d spoken up, I got to my feet.
“We should get home,” I said firmly, looking pointedly at Danial.
“Theoron needs to get to bed.”

When we reached the parking lot, my mother
dropped a bombshell. “Bring Theoron to our house next week. I want
to see more of him, especially if he’s going to not be a child much
longer.”

“Sarelle can bring him to you during the
day—” Danial began.

“No, come at night,” she interrupted. “I
would like to talk to you both about Theoron.”

“As you wish,” Danial said heavily, obviously
worried about what my mother meant to say or ask.

“You don’t have to talk about anything you
don’t want to,” my mother said quickly, seeing his expression. “I
just want to make up for lost time.” She turned to me, tears on her
face. “It hurts me to know you wouldn’t have said anything to me,
if I and your stepfather hadn’t been here tonight, and run into you
at the restaurant. You’d have let me go on thinking that you had no
children. How could you have a child and not tell me?”

“I was going to tell you this year,” I said
weakly, hugging her. “I was trying to find a way to do it, that
didn’t ‘out’ Danial or make you feel bad for not knowing.”

“I understand why,” she said heavily, hugging
me back. “I haven’t been welcoming to Danial since you started
living with Theo. I was worried you might leave Theo and go back to
him.”

Danial’s eyes sought mine, surprised.

“I was honest about Theo, mom. He knows I’m
here with Danial.”

“I believe you,” my mother replied. “About
everything, as fantastic as it sounds. It explains a lot,
actually.” She drew back from me, and turned to Danial. “Do I have
to ask for a hug?” she prompted.

Danial hugged her hard, drawing a little gasp
from her. “Only this once, My Lady. Only this once.”

* * * *

Danial and I didn’t speak for most of the
trip home. Finally, I said, “I’m sorry, for telling them your
secret. I had no right. I didn’t mean—”

“It’s fine,” he replied. “Your parents
handled it well, far better than I hoped they would. I’m grateful
that they accept Theoron. I’m astonished that they would accept
me.”

“I told you my family is strange, Danial,” I
said, giving him a smile. “We accept a lot of things normal people
probably wouldn’t.”

Danial reached over and held my hand
“Something I’m glad for, Love.”

* * * *

After we’d put Theoron to bed, Danial and I
retired to his room, where he lit us a fire in the woodstove. “What
do you want to do the rest of the night?” he said teasingly. “This
was the extent of my planning.”

“I’m sure we can find something,” I said,
drawing him down to the floor. He responded immediately to my
touch, his hand reaching into my hair to pull my lips down on his.
I kissed him gently, but he was already wanting more than gentle
kissing. Eagerly, I lay back on the floor, letting him coax my body
into readiness with his deft hands.

“You remember the first night we were like
this?” I said, running my hands up his chest. “I was so
nervous.”

“So was I,” he said huskily. “I wanted you,
but I expected you to stop me. When you didn’t, I was worried that
you wanted me just because you were hoping for a fantasy to come
true.”

“I was,” I said, tugging him down to kiss me.
“And you made it come true, Danial. Being with you in that dream,
then later in the flesh was incredible.” I gave him a tender look.
“But you were always more to me than just a fantasy,” I continued,
stroking his cheek. “You told me at Christmas that I changed you,
just by being myself. You’ve done the same to me, Love.”

Danial gave me an amused look. “Really? How
so?”

“That day I held Theoron for the first time,
when you hugged us both, I felt complete. I wanted to stay with you
then, but I knew it would screw up everything again. I didn’t want
to hurt you. It was the same later, in the fall, when we made love.
I knew I shouldn’t have done it, that it had nothing to do with
fighting The Lust.” I swallowed hard. “But I loved you, and I
missed being with you like that—”

“Why are you telling me this, Sar?” Danial
asked abruptly, drawing back. “What are you telling me you want
from me, or asking me for, that you are bringing this up now?”

I wiped at my rapidly filling eyes. “Tell me
how I go on,” I said brokenly. “How can I love you all equally? I
feel so guilty—”

“Sar—”

“I’m in love with all three of you, and it
terrifies me.”

“Don’t let it,” he said, moving to hug me.
“We are going to be happy, Sar. Trust me.”

“I do,” I answered. “It’s not that. It’s that
I’m scared Titus’s warning will come true, that I’ll lose myself in
that bond I share with Theo.” I hugged him tightly. “I don’t want
to lose us.”

“You won’t,” Danial said firmly. “We are
Oathed, Love. My death is the only thing that could break
that.”

Or mine
. Chilled at the thought, I
slipped my hands under his shirt. “Come here then and show me,” I
said huskily.

Danial smiled down at me, then covered my
lips with his.

* * * *

After, we lay together. I caressed him
tenderly, his body that I knew better than anyone else’s. “It never
gets old, being with you like this,” he whispered.

“I love you.”

“And I, you,” he said, giving me a long
gentle kiss. “I want us to go away together.”

Shocked, I sat up and looked at him. “What?
Where?”

“Just us, for a long weekend, maybe a week,
if I can get Theo to agree,” Danial said, his tone implying he
wasn’t sure how I was going to take it. “It’s been years since we
traveled together, Sar.”

“We can’t,” I answered. “Dev and Theo won’t
go for it.”

“We’ll schedule around them,” Danial said
right back. “We never got a real honeymoon. Even that time we went
to Switzerland, I was working. I was always working. The few times
I wasn’t, you were either pregnant or unavailable to me.”

Whose fault was that?
“Um, I’m
pregnant now, remember?”

“Maybe,” he said. “It’s too soon to tell. In
any case, you are no longer unavailable to me, something I’m poised
to take advantage of.”

“We’d have to bring guards,” I said slowly.
“We wouldn’t be alone.”

“We don’t have to, actually,” he said, giving
me an uncharacteristic grin. “You can teleport, Sar. If we are in
any danger, you can just warp us home.”

“Warp?” I said, laughing. “I can’t believe
you said warp!”

His response was to tickle me. Soon I was
shrieking, pleading for him to stop. He relented, and I lay gasping
in his arms.

“Well, where did you want to go?” I said,
glancing at him.

“Where had you dreamed of going, back when
you first met me?” Danial answered. “Rome? Paris? Jamaica?
Acapulco?”

I thought about it for a few moments. “I
would want to go and stay in a little house somewhere,” I said
finally. “Maybe near water. Somewhere where we could walk together,
and not worry about a lot of people, maybe see some wildlife. I
don’t really want to go to a big city, or be in crowds.” I looked
at him hard. “Could you go somewhere where there wasn’t Internet
service?” I said teasingly.

Danial grinned back. “My cell is satellite. I
can go anywhere, except maybe underground. I’ll tell Terian our
plans, and check in with him daily. He can also come and get us, if
there is any trouble—”

Danial went on detailing out his plan. By the
breadth of it, he had planned this as soon as he’d known I’d taken
another Oath to him.

“—
Theo can stay here with Elle and
Theoron,” Danial continued. “It will be safer that way. Janice and
Ivan can watch your dogs at your place; they are practically mated
already—”

“Theo is going to be upset, no matter what,”
I interrupted. “He doesn’t like me coming to you now.”

“He is lucky I don’t press my rights more,”
Danial said, his eyes pricked with red tints. “Truly, I should get
you at least two days a week, more if we went by the actual
law—”

What about time to myself? Argh!
“Enough,” I said sharply. “I don’t need another lecture about all
the rights you have over me. It just reminds me of all the rights
I’ve lost.”

“I did not mean it that way,” Danial said,
giving me a pained look. “If you don’t wish to be with me, you have
every right to refuse. I would never make you do something against
your will.”

Yeah, you’re the only one
. I didn’t
reply, upset.

“Do you not want to go?” he said,
crestfallen.

This wasn’t his fault. It wasn’t anyone’s,
but it especially wasn’t his. “I’d like to go,” I said tiredly. “It
sounds relaxing.”

“Let me check into places,” Danial mused.
“There must be someplace that we can rent relatively close by,
where we can be alone.”

His eagerness was hard to resist, hard enough
I found my lips curving into a smile. “I can’t imagine you not
working for days on end.”

Danial’s eyes slid away from mine at my words
guiltily.

“Have you been working without me?” I
accused. “You told me we were closed.”

“There is always someone who needs calling,
some loose end—” Danial began.

I cut him off. “You said that you were
shutting down the business for all of January, Danial. You have
another two weeks, at least!”

“Yes, I’m overbooked for February. March
isn’t much better. I’ve been trying to ease the workload by
finishing more pressing cases, and the ones that only take a
night’s work to complete. Terian’s been teleporting me, watching me
when it’s overseas—”

“Theo said nothing to me—”

“I haven’t been taking him with me, I’ve been
taking Brian.” Danial’s eyes caught mine meaningfully.

“You must know where his loyalties lie.
Aren’t you upset with him?”

“No, I suspected right from the first. Devlin
never lets anyone go who has been with him long, because by then
they know the lay of Hayden. Even if he’d only worked outside the
house, Brian should have had a scar or two from ending his contract
with Dev early. What matters is he fanatically watches out for
you.”

“Does he know you know?”

“No, but he suspects. He is afraid to broach
the subject with me, afraid I’ll fire him.”