There was another moment of frozen silence, as if everyone assembled had been put on pause. But then Anthony cleared his throat and took a seat at the table.
That was it? She’d expected that he would never accept Noah as her mate. She’d expected him to try to drive them apart or keep her under lock and key, that it might even come to bloodshed, that she might have to go far away and never speak to him again.
“Well?” he said pointedly at Noah, “Don’t we have important things to discuss?”
Noah was as weirded out as Sydney, but in an odd way it felt as if the vampire king had actually just given his blessing. Or as close to it as they were going to get.
Cole, was another matter. Now that the vampire king’s threat had been neutralized, it only drew more attention to the werewolf alpha who still seemed unhappy with the situation. He growled quietly from his seat, his eyes golden and deadly.
“Look on the bright side,” Anthony said, “We’re permanent allies now.”
Did her dad just smile? Like smile? It might be time to look for alien pods.
Cole growled in response.
Sydney turned to Noah. She knew he must see the questions and hurt in her eyes. Did the werewolf alpha not like her? She’d been so worried about her dad’s reaction, the thought that the wolves wouldn’t want her around, stung. Especially in light of the pack she was already half running with Noah. It wasn’t like she couldn’t fit in with wolves. She’d already proven that she could.
“He’ll get over it,” Noah whispered, pressing a kiss to her forehead.
Jane got up from her seat next to Cole and wrapped Sydney in a hug. “Welcome to the family, dear,” she said.
The alpha werewolf growled again.
“That’s it,” Jane said. “What’s done is done. You’re hurting Sydney.”
“You know I have nothing against her, personally. It’s the vampire thing,” he spat, his arms crossed over his chest now like a petulant toddler demanding a cookie.
Right, because hating Sydney’s race had nothing to do with her or anything.
Anthony had shifted from psychopathic rage, to acceptance, to near beaming and giddy in the space of about five minutes. “We should have a party for them,” he said.
Everyone just stared.
“What? We’ve been hiding out and barely talking for years, let’s throw a party for once, to celebrate the joining of our two mini-kingdoms, so to speak.”
And now he was back to strategizing, calculating, and controlling. The vampire king simply couldn’t help himself, but at least he didn’t seem to have goals of world domination in mind this time.
When Sydney had been told the stories, her mother kept saying that it was because he wanted to protect them. Charlee’s explanation was starting to sound true, rather than the lies a woman told herself to excuse her husband’s crimes. Not that her parents had ever married in the human way.
A throat cleared at the end of the table. Uncle Cain. He stood. “Why don’t we secure our borders, and then we can talk about parties?”
Anthony growled, and Noah didn’t look thrilled. It didn’t matter who got together, Cain always ran things one way or another. Maybe he simply had more focus than the rest of them.
Aunt Greta slid into the seat next to Sydney and gave her a hug. “I’ve missed you,” She said. “I wish the circumstances of this reunion were different.”
Sydney couldn’t imagine a happy set of circumstances in which they’d all hang out together again. For years they’d lived a few miles from one another but mostly avoided each other, various feuds and spats getting in the way.
“Hey kid,” Dayne said. The sorcerer smiled and joined Greta.
“Hey Uncle Dayne.”
She’d spent many weekends as a child in his cottage basement watching him concoct potions and testing some of them for him. Though her dad didn’t know about that part. Anthony might have murdered the sorcerer if he’d known she’d been helping him perfect potions that turned people into stink bugs.
On the other side of the table was Hadrian, a vampire who used to work for her father. She’d only heard of him. She’d never met him. He’d been a priest once and now lived in the basement of the local abandoned church. There was a rumor that he could go out in the sun for short periods without burning, but it was probably just a rumor.
Sydney knew it was him because she’d met his mate, Angeline, a few times over the years. Hadrian and her father hadn’t spoken since Sydney was a baby from what she’d heard. He’d betrayed them all and helped line up the events that had brought on the war. So this fantastic existence she’d had? Probably Hadrian’s fault.
He squirmed in his seat, clearly uncomfortable facing everyone again. But Angeline was a guardian, and as a fallen angel she was strong and could help in the fight. They both were. It was the least he owed them.
“Hey, missed you.”
Sydney looked up, startled. Anna stood in the middle of the table. Not on the table, in the middle of it. She was Luc’s mate and also a witch. But her ability to permeate solid objects like a ghost came from her demon mate—Uncle Cain’s brother.
“Anna, will you please stop doing that?” Luc said.
“No, Sweetie, but thank you for asking. I’m about over this not being able to hold a solid form unless you’re touching me, thing. It’s been like thirty years of this!”
“I told you it would last a century or so. Then once all your other demon powers have developed, you’ll be able to go solid on your own. It’s for your protection.”
“No, you said a couple of decades, not a century!”
“Did I? I forget,” Luc said. “Time runs together for me. Maybe I meant a few decades.”
“Luc! It better not be a century!”
Anna had always been difficult. Sydney hadn’t seen her in over ten years, but she remembered that much. Nobody complained about banal shit quite like Anna did.
“Oh just grab her,” Cain said, annoyed.
“I can’t without her getting stuck in the table,” Luc said.
“Yes, it would hurt. And then she wouldn’t do it anymore.”
Anna rolled her eyes and got out of the table. Luc held her hand so she could sit down.
Only one person at the meeting hadn’t spoken to anyone, a guy in a black leather jacket. He sat next to a strange blonde woman who’d been making small talk with a squirrel. They were the two that weren’t on the guest list. He looked like a hit man, and Sydney wasn’t entirely sure he wasn’t there to eliminate them.
“Okay, that’s enough!” Cain said, growing tired of the meet and greet and wacky antics.
When everyone settled, the demon leader continued. “When Jane came to us a few hours ago about the meeting, we weren’t as surprised as you might expect. Tam, why don’t you take this? You explain the magic stuff better.”
Tam stood as Cain sat down. “Some of you may know that I had a very dear friend decades ago who was my familiar for a long time. He was a raven therian and traveled with me extensively. Henry is in the angelic realm now. Though we closed the portals to physically come here, communication is still possible in dreams and vision states. I asked Henry to do reconnaissance and bring some information back to me.”