He pursed his lips with displeasure at her unhappiness. He added in a lowered voice, “They aren't the same regardless of their scent. Whatever type of Were hybrid they may be, they're different to us.
“If we piece together everything that Lora could do, we can see that. We don't know for sure that she Changed, we never saw it for ourselves. We both know Nik would have protected her; she was bearing his child after all.”
Maria didn't meet Arik's scrutinizing gaze as he said this.
“Because of Lora's rich bloodline, she may have had such a strong connection to her pureblood sister that she could have passed as a pureblood too and we would never have suspected her-”
“What does it matter? Lora was still family. This changes nothing.”
“It changes everything, especially for the twin. And if I'm right, and she exists and we can confirm she's pureblood, then we have to accept Thorpe and Eliza lied to us. You know what that'll mean, don't you?”
“Of course I do!” she barked back.
She wasn't a foolish woman, quite the opposite. The idea had occurred to her but she had always ignored it, pushing it into a small corner of her mind. She didn't want to believe her son could have lied to her all these years. He would be severely punished for it once the Elders knew of it. Arik had no choice but to tell them; there was no escaping it.
Arik fixed his sky-blue eyes on her. “Though I don’t like the backlash this will cause for your son and his mate, if it is true, they have to face the consequences. And we must do our duty and follow this up. If this child is still out there, we need to find her. And soon. She’ll be twenty soon and you know the risks if we’re too late.”
Maria could only nod in response. “I’ll send my daughter out if she is found,” she said sombrely.
“I’ll get Kerk on the search.”
Maria’s face aged ten years in that moment. She knew this wouldn’t turn out well. So much was at stake and it could all go horribly wrong.
~Chapter 3 - Escape~
Three days after therapy session...
Friday May 6th, 2011, 9:12 a.m.
Barker residence
It was a lazy morning at number 63. Inside the red brick house that stood slap-bang in the middle of the suburban, tree-filled street, Jaz was sprawled on the lilac sofa in the cosy, wood-overloaded living room.
Still in her dressing gown, she smiled politely, removing her bare feet from the dark wood coffee table as her aunt strolled into the room. Jaz hadn't moved from that spot on the sofa since she'd come down the stairs at half-six that morning.
She wasn’t an early bird but ever since her horrifying, real-life nightmare, she’d found it almost impossible to sleep well. She had even resorted to sleeping pills though she hated anything like that; pills for sleeping, pills for depression (which she refused to take). Pills, pills, pills. She despised it. But when you haven’t had a good night’s sleep for so long you get desperate.
She’d taken them the night before and had been mighty pissed off that they hadn’t worked. She’d had less than three hours' sleep- probably less than two. She gave up counting months ago.
Shadows were heavily set under her eyes as she gazed up at her aunt. This was not her therapist Aunt Ruth, but her father’s sister Aunt Erica. She was a kind and bubbly woman with a feistiness Jaz admired. There was something wild and free about her that Jaz couldn’t explain. Her aunt was a well-dressed woman, nearly always in trouser suits and expensive shoes, but Jaz could still picture her camping high up in a mountain, eating freshly caught fish for breakfast. Even though she’d only known Erica for about a year, she was close to her.
Aunt Erica had appeared on their doorstep at the end of April last year, three months after Jaz's nightmare. Erica had introduced herself when Jaz had come back home from a day out with her best friends Ellie and Lisa. It had been the back end of the Easter holidays.
Jaz was surprised and puzzled that her dad had never mentioned he had a sister. She always thought he had just two brothers. She’d never seen pictures of her aunt either.
He'd said, “Erica has been living abroad for a long time. It upset me to mention her because I never got to see her.” But Jaz didn’t buy it.
She suspected (especially after observing her parents' reactions) that there was some unsaid tension between them. She didn’t know why and didn’t want to get in the middle of it, but whatever it was, it caused her dad to watch Aunt Erica as if he suspected her of something. Jaz swore her mum looked almost afraid whenever Erica was present, but her mum's expression was always swept away by a forced smile in Jaz’s direction whenever she realized she was being watched.
Jaz had long since accepted that this was the way things were and didn’t think it was her place to bring up whatever was in the past between them. They seemed to have reconciled now and that was all that mattered. Time heals all wounds, she thought. She hoped that belief would work for her too.
“This is an unexpected pleasure, Erica,” Jaz’s father began.