I didn’t think I could endure reading anymore of the letters. I didn’t enjoy crying and knew without a doubt that the remaining stack of letters would make me cry more tears.
I picked up the picture closest to me and held it up for examination. It had been folded in half for a good long while and had a white line down the middle of the picture as a result.
A young, teenage Vivian Kimber stood next to a slightly older looking man. He had his arm around her shoulders and their heads were pressed together. Neither were smiling, but they didn’t look upset, either. Just two people who were clearly close and comfortable with each other and not interested in smiling pretty for the camera.
The man was slightly taller than my mother and his frame was thinner. Their ash blonde hair looked to be identical in color and shade, marking them as siblings. Their eyes were the only major differences between the two of them. Where my mother’s eyes were blue, this man had lovely green eyes. Eyes that matched mine perfectly in color.
My breath caught in my throat and my entire body stilled. The man in the photo had my eyes. Or, did I have that backwards? Did I have his eyes? I think I did.
I think I was staring at a photograph of my father, my biological father.
And, I didn’t even know his name.
I looked at picture after picture of the two of them together. Christmas, Halloween, birthday parties, at the beach. They looked close, always with their arms around the other, posing for the camera and neither of them smiling.
I fell asleep with a heavy heart and a photograph of the man who was more than likely my father clutched to my chest.
I had never hated my mother more than I did in that moment and I desperately wanted to know his name.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Marcus Cole
The man I had been waiting for sat down in the empty seat beside me. The entire theater was empty except for two teenagers sitting in the way far back row whose only concern seemed to be learning how far down each other’s throats they could manage to get their tongues. I wasn’t very impressed with their effort, they should have been in school.
Then again, so should Ariel, and she hadn’t been to school in well over a month. I felt like the absolute worst parental figure in the known universe at the moment because I hadn’t even mentioned her going back to school yet. Her magic made her special and she didn’t belong in a school with normal children. She’d be better off being home schooled when she could learn at her own pace and a lot of that learning would have to do with magic. It wouldn’t hurt that she would be safe and protected better if she were home schooled.
I knew the James twins hadn’t gone to school before they moved in with Quint. Why they were going now was a mystery to me. Tyson hadn’t started going to school until a few years ago and I never understood that either.
“What happened to Vivian?” The man beside me spoke in a deep, guttural voice.
I had never been a man prone to violence, but I had a strong urge to turn in my seat and punch this piece of garbage in the throat.
Of course, I did no such thing.
“Vivian is gone,” I murmured, answering his question.
“Where?” He demanded to know.
Here was the problem, I had no idea where Vivian’s physical body had gone, but I thought she was no longer a member of the living. I had broken one of my own sacred rules and had used magic to scry for her. She was nowhere. Gone. Only the dead could not be found with scrying. And I had a feeling Vivian was good and dead.
“I do not know,” I answered honestly.
Rain Kimber turned his head to the side, looking at me.
His cold, dead green eyes, eyes the same color as Ariel’s, bored into me, making a chill slither down my spine. The man was empty on the inside and it showed in his eyes.
“Explain yourself, Marcus. And, I suggest you choose your words carefully.”
The man was tall, rail thin and had hair the same ash blonde color as Ariel’s and it hung down past his ears. He looked too young to have a daughter Ariel’s age, he looked more like his older brother.
Hatred churned in my belly, like a filthy disease, eating away at me. I absolutely loathed this man and I cursed the day he had come into my life. If not for him, I would simply take Ariel and run. My father had had the right of it, women should not be forced into certain things.
Ariel would not be subjected to anything she did not want. Quint was the only reason I felt comfortable leaving her. The young man was capable, ruthless and would have no problem standing by and watching as your body lit on fire and burned down to ash if you so much as breathed wrong in Ariel’s direction. I wouldn’t leave her otherwise. Quint was as fierce as a person could get, he had to be wi
th the way his father had raised him.
When I had told Ariel I planned on moving to be closer to my brothers family, I had expected her to say she would come with me. At the time, I hadn’t known she’d grown close to the members of the coven. If I had known, I still would have offered to bring her with me. It was her choice to make, not theirs. When Quint had told me she would be staying with them I pulled a hundred grand out of my safe and given it to him on her behalf. I would have given it to her but after everything I had seen in the few short months I’d been blessed to have her in my life, I knew she would not accept money from me.