Page 31 of Fighting for Her Heart
They’re acting like little boys. I love it.
Ryker folds a couple of pieces of bacon into a syrup soaked pancake and takes a huge bite, closing his eyes as he chews, and then turns back toward Zuben.
“I’m not fucking paranoid.” He points with his pancake sandwich and syrup drips onto the table. “Think about it. Octavia got her powers of persuasion from witches. The witches took that power away when we escaped—”
“What evidence do you have that Octavia lost her power?” Zuben interjects. “You are only basing this information on her word. And our only source isyourword.”
“Now who’s paranoid?” Ryker points his pancake toward Zuben and then stuffs the remaining huge bite into his mouth.
Axe piles food on his plate and slowly eats, listening quietly as the other two argue.
“If Tavi still had any powers,” Ryker says, “I’d have been able to tell. The things I did to her to get her to talk…” He shakes his head as he uses his fork to cut through the pile of pancakes. “The old Tavi wouldn’t have put up with it.”
My stomach flips. “What did you do to her?” Except that he got stuck in some club, we haven’t talked at all about what happened while he was in Philadelphia.
“Just gave her a taste of her own medicine.” Ryker’s eyes narrow as he takes another huge bite of his food, this time using a fork.
“But her persuasion spellneverworked on you.” Zuben lifts his chin. “Her powers to command did not extend to anyone she knew before it was cast.”
“True.” Ryker licks some bacon grease and syrup off his fingers. “But I got her to spill tons of info. Plus, her mates left her. All five of them. How do you explain that?”
Zuben wipes his lips with a cloth napkin. Mom only ever took those out on special occasions. “That proves nothing, and again, you only have Octavia’s word as proof that her mates abandoned her.”
Grunting, Ryker pushes his mostly eaten plate toward the center of the table and tips back his chair on two legs. “All I know, is I trust Octavia’s word a hell of a lot more than I trust Nora’s.” Turning to me, he lets his chair drop and then runs his hand over my lower arm. “Sorry babe. But Tavi’s always worn her motivations on her sleeve.”
I nod. I still have so many questions for Mom, but I innately trust her. I suppose it’s similar to Ryker trusting Octavia—although it shouldn’t be the same, after all Octavia has done to us.
“Tavi is crazy,” Ryker says. “But I get what motivates her—power and pleasure, that’s it—and I know how she looks when she’s lost those things.”
“And Ember knows Nora.” Axe’s voice is quiet but so deep that it draws everyone’s attention. “Nora is Ember’s mother—”
“Notreally,” Ryker interjects, and my breath catches.
“She is in every way that counts.” Axe slides his hand across the table to take mine. “What does your gut say, babe? Can we trust her?”
I look into Axe’s eyes, so expectant and trusting and full of love. I want to exclaim that of course we can trust my mother, that she raised and protected me, sacrificed her own freedom to hide me. But I realize that Ryker’s words have illuminated some doubts in my heart. I was fourteen when she was taken. Old enough to be told that she wasn’t my real mother. Why didn’t she ever tell me?
But I keep my lips shut. I hate seeing any conflict beyond playful jabs between these three men and don’t want to take sides. Not when I’m this uncertain.
The back door to the house opens, and we all glance toward the sliver of sunlight that stabs under the door, which divides the kitchen from the small mudroom in the back.
“Something smells good,” Nora calls out as she scrapes her shoes on the mat. Then she opens the door and walks into the room. “Yum. Pancakes. Any left for me?”
Chapter Eleven
Ember
Chasing after Ryker,I cross the wide field faster than I ever imagined possible, and he catches me in his arms on the other side, lifting me into the air and spinning me around.
Axe, Zuben and Nora push away from the trees they’ve been leaning against and come to join us. Ryker’s been back for two days, and the four of us living here, along with mom, already feels natural to me. Comfortable.
Nora, the only one of us wearing a coat against the cold night air, shakes her head in wonder. “Your speed, all three of you. It’s still shocking. It’s like magic.”
“Is it like magic?” I turn toward her. “Because other than seeing you cast some spells, I really don’t understand what magic is, never mind how it looks or feels.”
She steps forward and takes my hand. “You’re right. It’s high time we did something about that.”
“Really?” Excitement ripples through me. She’s been avoiding the subject, Mom and Zuben keep pushing their experiment about the men feeding from me, and seem more interested in that, plus my developing my strength as a vampire, than in the possibility of my learning to use magic.
