Page 32 of Last Hope
The images faded as soon as they had flashed into Ezzy’s mind. She rubbed her fingers against her temples and turned to Antonio, knowing he had been the one to put the memories there, sharing with his Soul Mate memories of his past.
“This is where they met.” Esmeralda’s voice echoed in the darkness around her.
Antonio nodded. “I was with him when he met her. Katheryn nearly tore my arm off for calling her fat—even though I really didn’t call her fat,” he added when he saw the look of scorn Ezzy tossed his way. “Is there anything else you want to know about them?” he whispered, almost reluctantly to her.
They sat by the bridge the next hour talking about her parents. In that hour she had learned so much that Antonio had never told her before.
She had learned that her mother had been engaged before she had met Ignacio. She had caught the two-timing no good sack cheating, and left for Spain on a vacation where she met Ignacio and fell in love instantly.
When she found out he was a vampire, it had frightened her but eventually she had come to her senses and allowed herself to open up to him, though their relationship wasn’t without complications.
Esmeralda thought about this the whole ride to her grandmother’s home. Her parents’ had been through an ordeal before their relationship could work, apparently. And so had she and Antonio.
Death had nearly separated them and Esmeralda recalled feeling the emptiness at the pit of her soul when she had thought Antonio was dead and she didn’t want to go through that again. They couldn’t risk themselves or their family for Isis. No matter how much they loved her.
Arriving at last at her grandmother’s home, Esmeralda felt great relief when she stepped through the small door, instantly washed away by Viktor’s screams. It was as if he was being tortured, the screams loud and almost deafening and heartbreaking. Esmeralda ran to him, feeling in her gut that something was terribly wrong.
They were in the living room, her grandmother juggling Viktor around, making comforting noises that did nothing to soothe him. A look of immense relief flooded her face when she saw Esmeralda and Antonio. She couldn’t get Viktor into her arms fast enough and even when he was, he wouldn’t settle down as he usually did once his mother held him.
His big blue eyes were wide with horror and pain, rimmed with red and tear streaked, as if he had been crying for hours. Ezzy rocked him and walked the small space with him, bouncing Viktor up and down in her arms but he wouldn’t calm down. Antonio was at her side, stroking Viktor’s hair but nothing seemed to be helping the situation. The feeling in Esmeralda’s gut grew stronger, though she couldn’t quite place what it was. Something was cosmically wrong and she knew Viktor probably sensed it as well.
“Phone for you.” Her grandmother had to scream over Viktor at Antonio, pointing at her home phone. When it had rung, Ezzy had no idea but she wondered who it could have been.
Probably Antonio’s father, considering his family was the only ones who knew where they had gone off to. She juggled Viktor some more and watched as Antonio picked up the phone, covering one ear with his hand as if that could block out the screaming. But he was a vampire, and vampires had enhanced hearing so it wouldn’t matter if Viktor was screaming or not, he would hear what they were saying on the other line.
Esmeralda watched as her Soul Mate’s face went from impassive to horrified within seconds. The impact of his rage and worry hit her like a train, causing her heart to contract and then skip rapidly. She had to steady her stance so she might not topple over with the baby in her arms. Her breathing accelerated, her face flushed with anger and her heart broke slowly. She stared at Antonio, his face mirroring everything she felt. They werehisemotions overtaking her. And she wondered what could it possibly be, wondered if it had something to do with her gut feeling as soon as she walked through the door of the house.
Antonio hung up the phone, placing it back in its rightful place. As soon as he did, Viktor stopped squirming in her arms, stopped screaming. Now, he only emanated soft sobbing and hiccupping as he buried his small face into his mother’s bosom.
“What’s wrong?” Ezzy asked with worry, the rage and heartbreak nearly overpowering her senses.
Antonio was quiet for a mere moment. His eyebrows were pulled tightly together, his lips formed a thin white line of anger and his face was red with hot rage. His posture was stiff, fists balled at his sides as if he might reach out and punch the walls down. A long moment passed and Ezzy was going to repeat the question one more time before Antonio looked up, his dark curls falling over his eyebrows, just above the tips of his eyelashes and he said, “Santiago mansion has been burned to the ground. Our people have been killed.”
19
Isis had nicknamed them “The Whacky Family” for everything about them was strange. First, she couldn’t begin to fathom her astonishment at how opposite Ami and Riordan were and what could have possessed him to love her in the first place.
It wasn’t as if Isis hated Ami, they just seemed to clash. Isis tried avoiding the witch, but she felt as though wherever she went or whatever she did, Ami was around the corner, glaring at her,spyingand it made Isis feel worse than when Caesareon had done so.
Riordan was kind and gentle, despite his bulkiness, she had noticed. He would always be playing with his children, running around, filling the cabin with laughter, sincere laughter that Isis hadn’t heard in a long time that filled her heart with inexplicable joy.
His happiness was contagious and he had done everything he could to make Anya and Isis feel welcome in their home. He had offered them parts in the plays he put on with his children, included them in conversations and always offered heartfelt smiles when he saw them.
His children, Othello and Lucinda, were both spitting images of their mother. Although Othello held the same shape eyes of his father, he was as quiet and serious as Ami. His hair was as white as snow, his eyes the frosty blue of a frozen lake with skin so pale it was almost translucent. She found his coloring rather odd but just as fascinating. Of course, she put it down to the fact he was a shifter and had adopted the coloring of his metamorphosis.
Sometimes, Isis would catch him running around outside with his father, both changed into their animal forms, bunny and dragon, chasing each other until Ami went out and with her death-like stare sending them both to bed. But when Othello wasn’t with his father, his face was an unreadable porcelain mask that couldn’t be cracked into a smile or even a twitch of happiness.
Lucinda was older than Othello, about twelve years old or so, with incredibly long straight hair that hung over her shoulders like metal sheets in colors of black and red. Her skin was as dark as her mother’s, and her face almost identical. Chin, pointed with a heart shaped face and dark eyes mixed with those strange colors that marked her as a witch. She had the same stubborn, angry gaze and although she spoke more than her brother, she kept to herself, usually in the library or outside of the cabin always engrossed in a new book every day.
The family, all in all was a whacky bunch. Sometimes they roamed the halls of the cabin screaming, running, making noises that nearly woke Isis from her day sleep and at night they sat around the fire in their home, putting on plays or reading books before bed.
After they all turned in for the night, Ami would set Isis free, as if she were a dog on a leash, past their property to climb the highest tree and watch Isis with her bewitched bow and arrow in her hands, ready to let it fly at any given moment towards Isis, were she to try anything she shouldn’t. Once she had gotten blood in her system, Ami would lead her back to the cabin without a word and then retire to her room for the rest of the night.
Isis found she was rather bored without anyone to talk to in the nights. Of course, Anya stayed awake with her for a while until she could hold her eyes open no longer and passed from exhaustion. She tried claiming she was used to staying on vampire time although they both knew that it wasn’t true. Not that Isis held it against her. It was difficult to keep up with the vampire schedule, but she would get used to it, eventually.
So, that night after everyone had turned their lights out, Isis found herself wandering the cabin corridors towards the library where she lit candles that lay atop a sturdy wooden table, the wax dry and glued to it.
The library was a normal sized room with row upon row of thin bookshelves that held hundreds of books that were leather bound, most with no titles. The ceiling was low and from it hung dream catchers of many shapes, sizes and colors, each woven through with different string and different material. Other adornments drifted from the ceiling as well, held up by intricate strings were smudge sticks, some wrapped in ribbon giving off a calming scent of sage, lavender and jasmine. Isis was tall enough that the ornaments nearly swiped by her head but she was careful to avoid all of them, lest she anger her host.
