Titan growled, not wanting to hear those words. “Don’t remind me.”
She pretended she hadn’t heard a damn thing. “But she lived with him for eighteen years. I’m sure she endured more than I even want to consider.”
“Oh yeah, she did.” Roxy crossed her arms. “A weaker person would’ve broken and cowered, but not Sadie.”
I felt like everyone’s attention was on me, and I hated it. “How do we injure the fae?”
“Injuring them is our best bet.” Cassius looked at me tenderly and steered the conversation back on track. “Only fae magic, ripping their hearts out, or a special knife no one knows where to find can kill them.
“A special knife?” My heart sank, and my eyes flashed to Winter’s. Could that be what he had been referring to? “Is that what Tyler has?”
Something crossed her face, but I wasn’t sure what. “Yeah, I’m thinking that’s what he used to kill Rook.”
“Who’s Rook?” Axel asked.
“My biological father.” I quickly filled them in on the highlights of my conversation with Winter.
“Wow, okay,” Katherine said softly. “Is that why they’re after you? You’re a hybrid?”
“Yes, they feel the magic inside her.” Winter looked at me. “And they know she’s not one of them. They’re trying to eliminate the threat.”
I didn’t even know how to use my magic, yet they viewed me as something worth eliminating. That was nice and proved people feared what they didn’t understand.
“So we hide her,” Donovan suggested.
“No, they can feel her power.” Egan frowned. “No matter where she goes, they’ll find her.”
“There’s nothing we can do to hide my magic?” That sounded weird, but there had to be something.
“A fae would have to hide it.” Egan pursed his lips. “A powerful one. And by hiding you, they’d be going against their race.”
This got better and better.
“Then we have to protect ourselves.” Lillith fidgeted. “Tyler used the knife to kill Rook. How did he get it, though?”
“Tyler’s family built almost all the supernatuals’ houses and learned a lot of trade secrets in the process.” It was stupid how easily people shared what they had with them. “From what I’ve gathered, the supernaturals would tell Tyler’s family every object that needed extra protection. Tyler’s family would then help build all the controls and secret storage places along with how to reset the passcodes for entry if something got lost.”
“And people believed them.” Titan shook his head in disgust. “My pack refused to use them to build our homes. We slid under the radar. Even though our pack could’ve gone up against them, we didn’t want to kill our own kind, and they had so many supporters even back then. We just faded into the background, enjoyed the privacy, and untangled ourselves from any political agendas.”
“That’s one reason we’ve been able to hide here without issue.” Winter paced in her corner. “At first, Tyler was wary of Titan, but when his pack disappeared, he didn’t look for them. Mom knew their location because one of her best friends was part of this pack. We were able to escape here. Tyler had no clue where Titan and his pack landed, and Tyler won’t chance finding Titan in case Titan challenges him.”
“You could take him?” Athan asked as he straightened his shoulders. “Then why don’t you end this mess now?”
“Because he’s gotten much bigger and has more followers than before.” Titan blew out a breath. “I don’t stand a chance now. We don’t have the backing.”
“And Tyler is ruthless.” We couldn’t forget that. “He’d send a vampire here to kill you without a second thought.”
“That’s comforting.” Julie laughed nervously. “What do we do?”
Egan lifted his hands. “When the fae attack, we strike hard.”
Lillith’s brows furrowed. “I thought the longer they stayed in our dimension, the weaker they got. They wouldn’t want to draw out a fight.”
“That’s true.” Winter nodded. “But it would take weeks for them to weaken. Their magic won’t deplete within minutes unless they use a whole lot of power.”
“It sounds like we need them to go all out.” It was the only thing that made sense. “Make them channel all their magic somehow.”
Winter sighed. “Easier said than done.”
“Not if we go at them with everything we have.” The problem was knowing when they’d show. I was the only one who could sense them. “Egan, dragons were originally from the fae realm. Can you tell when they appear?”
“Yes, but it’s like you can.” Egan rubbed the back of his neck. “It was very faint, but I picked up on it the last time you got dizzy. So between the two of us, we should have some warning even if it’s small.”
“Let’s settle on a high-pitched whistle.” Titan rubbed his chin. “Something we’ll all recognize.”
“The problem is, I’ve only shifted into wolf form once.” Donovan sheepishly glanced at Luther. “And I stumbled a little, and I don’t know how to fight in that form.”
“Same here,” Axel added.
Titan focused on the two boys. “We’ll train you. We all could stand it. When they come back, we need to go all in. Every hand will be critical.”
Those words turned cold inside me. It sounded like he was hinting at killing them. I didn’t know or trust the man, not yet. But there was no way in hell I’d let him hurt the fae. I didn’t care what I had to do to stop him.
Chapter Fourteen
Nervous energy buzzed around the room as everyone in the mansion sat at the large rectangular breakfast table. Cassius sat at one end, sipping blood from a glass, with Egan directly across from him. Dawn and Paul sat next to the older man and across from each other with Julie beside her husband.
The four younger vampires sat on the bar stools since there weren’t enough seats at the table. .
“How does it feel to sit at the kids’ table?” Roxy asked and took a large bite of her eggs. She winked at Dawn, who sat right next to her.
“You can kiss my ass.” Lillith turned in her seat and glared at the shifter. “Axel, get your mate in line before I hurt her.”
“Hey now.” Axel glanced across the table at Donovan and back at Roxy, who he happened to be sitting right beside. “I couldn’t control her even if I wanted to.”
“Damn straight.” Roxy pointed at me. “Even her dad couldn’t get me to behave.”
She was right. Even though he’d made it clear he didn’t approve, she stayed my friend. It infuriated him.
Donovan stiffened beside me. “He isn’t her dad.”
I hadn’t thought twice about it until he’d pointed it out. He was protecting me, knowing I was still struggling with it. The fact that Donovan and Egan sat on either side of me spoke volumes. They protected the ones they cared about.
“Oh, you’re right.” She grimaced and clenched her teeth. “I’m sorry, girl.”
“No, it’s fine.” Them feeling like they had to watch what they said around me would only make things worse. I needed them to treat me like they normally did. “It’s going to take time for us to adjust.” I forced myself to take a bite of food so she would know she hadn’t upset me.
“Why are we all up and eating breakfast together this morning?” Egan asked, clearly thinking the same thing as me and diverting the conversation away from my parentage.
I’d found it odd when Lillith had asked us to join them for breakfast. I’d quickly packed a bag with extra clothes for the shifters before coming down. I hadn’t pushed since we needed to get moving on the day. Our priority was to get our surroundings down in animal form.
“Titan called me this morning and suggested we should come over.” Cassius avoided my gaze. “I told him it was a good idea.”
“Why?” The last thing I wanted was to go there and face not only Winter but potentially my grandparents. “We all talked yesterday.”
“First off, let’s figure out how to get the fae to use up their magic,” Cassius said sternly, not liking being challenged. “And two, if his pack is going to fight beside us, it’d be nice if you got to know them.”