I stood without thinking, the motherless little girl in me rejoicing as I let free a word I’d barely used in the last two and a half decades. “Mama?” My instincts warred inside me. I wanted to run to her yet didn’t quite trust her sudden appearance after so long away.
“Hi, honey. I guess you probably want an explanation.”
My mind stumbled clumsily over all these new details. Had I just heard Dad correctly? “You’ve been here all this time, haven’t you? But how …?” I turned to Dad, who had risen and come to us. “Were you with her? Did you know where she was all along?”
He twisted the ring on his finger with the same nervous habit as always, yet this time it caught my eye. The stone set in it had turned a pale milky white instead of the brilliant jade green it had once been. “I hated not being able to tell you. I’m so sorry, April.”
Mom took a step closer to Dad and reached out to take his hand. “To answer your question, yes, at least I’ve been here for the last few years anyway. Ever since the monster I was bound to was killed and I was free to come home. But I couldn’t really stay here without risking running into you when you finally came home too. So I created a temporal bubble to live in until I was sure my presence here wasn’t going to interfere with your life. I gave Drew a key to come and go, but it had a limited number of uses.”
Dad lifted his hand, holding up the finger with the ring on it. “It was my last chance so I had to be sure it was worth it.”
“All those so-called girlfriends you stayed with?” I asked, darting a look between him and my mother.
“There was never anyone but her, April. Even before she deeded the place to you, we would meet here whenever it was safe. The temporal bubble was only a recent thing though.”
“You’re the reason my pieces are all everywhere here, aren’t you? And the studio?”
Dad nodded and smiled, giving Mom a tender look. “We renovated it together.”
“You’re the caretakers, aren’t you? And you’ve been here? In this house? How have you stayed hidden the last few weeks? This temporal bubble thing... I hope that doesn’t mean you were spying on us.”
Mom’s eyebrows rose and she directed a wry smile at the six men behind me. “Ah, no. I didn’t create the bubble until Drew showed up and informed me he was being chased. Since then, we’ve existed about a month in the past. Near enough to the present that we could help without giving away our presence. But we were getting too close to the moment you arrived that we’d be in danger of being noticed.”
“All the food … and the materials in the studio …” My throat tightened and hot tears pricked my eyes, blurring my vision. My mother took a hesitant step toward me, her expression both tender and anguished. “You knew what I needed all along, didn’t you?”
“Yes, honey. I’ve known what an amazing creature you are ever since you were born. I wish I could have been here for you so, so much.” She reached for me and with a choked cry and a sniffle I surrendered to her fierce embrace.
She held me so tight my ribs protested, but I didn’t care. I held her just as tight until the hot clench of my throat eased and I could breathe again. Mom let out a sigh when she finally released me.
“There’s not much time. From the inside of a temporal bubble we sometimes get glimpses of the future. There is going to be a fight soon, but we don’t know the exact timing of it. The creatures who were chasing you are almost here. We need to prepare to make sure they don’t take you. But first, I think you need to tell your mates to back down.”
The growling behind me had risen in volume, and for the first time in several minutes, I redirected my attention to my mates. All six of them glared at my mother, their auras a deep orange-red that was nothing like the crimson displayed when we made love.
“Guys, what the fuck? You know who she is. We talked about this days ago.”
“She should be dead,” Stuart said. “Along with all of Meri’s other foot soldiers we destroyed when they invaded the Haven. Why are you here, Ultiori whore?”
“Stuart! That’s my mom!”
His jaw spasmed, and he tore his gaze from her to look at me. His eyebrows twitched, and he crossed his arms. “We exterminated all the Ultiori on Spring Equinox two years ago. Unless she’s a ghost, she shouldn’t be standing here today.”
Mom let out a humorless laugh. “Do you really think Meri would be dumb enough to sacrifice her entire army on a single fight? She had no idea how it would end. There were several underground cells she kept in reserve, in case she needed to retreat and regroup, or call for reinforcements. I was the leader of those cells. I guess she underestimated her opponents though, because we never got that call. We never heard from her again, in fact. By the end of that day, every last one of us was mysteriously free from her spell.”
I darted looks between my mother and my mates, finally catching on to their conflict.
“This is about the war you guys fought in, isn’t it?” I asked my mates. Then turned to face Mom. “And you were a soldier in the enemy’s army. Was that why you left us when I was little?”
Her expression turned tender, and she nodded. “I wasn’t just a soldier, honey. I was one of Meri’s Elites. Unlike the other hunters in her service, she couldn’t control my mind all the time, so I had some freedom, but I couldn’t disobey her because she’d possessed my own mother. I didn’t know why she’d targeted us at first, but when I learned her intentions, I had to leave you. Your father had to take you away from here and make sure you were safely camouflaged among the humans.”
She smiled warmly and reached out to touch my cheek as if reassuring herself that I was real. Then her voice softened.
“You’re a very special girl, you know. Your overzealous mates are evidence enough of how special. Meri wanted a child born of humans but infused with higher races blood. She needed that combination to create herself a perfect vessel. That might have been you if I hadn’t taken steps to protect you. I had no choice.”
Her speech seemed to have sunk in, and the guys all looked at each other in surprise. “You knew what April was?” Gray asked, leaving his spot next to the fireplace to come toward us.
Mom nodded. “As an Elite, I had the honor and the burden of being infused with immortal dragon blood. There weren’t many of us created because Meri’s supply of immortal blood was limited, and it takes a special human to survive being infused with immortal blood. One of the immortal dragons—the one you know as the Void—gave more than his brothers. It’s his blood that powers me now.”
A trio of curses sounded from my dragon mates. I didn’t know exactly what it meant, but I guessed this Void was someone to be reckoned with.
“You were a Blessed from birth,” Gray said, nodding. “We know a Blessed human is later infused with immortal dragon blood, they become an Elite. I thought there were only three of them left.”
“There were others. Once Meri understood why certain humans survived the infusions of immortal blood, she tried to create her own. My mother was her first victim. Before Mother became a host for Meri, she was a scientific subject. When she was pregnant with me, Meri coerced a dragon to give his blessing to the unborn baby—to me. And when I was born, I immediately began treatments to turn me into an Elite.