“No. Pop died when we were attacked when I was forty-seven human years, about nine wolf. But he gave Ma and me time to run. We got away. She was killed fifty-two years ago. She died protecting me. They took her head, but she succeeded in her goal. I got away.”
His words were terse and he didn’t hide the burn in his eyes.
Abel got that.
The first, their father, with Cain that young, he’d had no choice but to run.
The second had to kill.
“I’m sorry,” Abel murmured and felt Delilah put her hand, light and soothing, on his abs.
Cain lifted his chin. “Pop was wolf. Ma was vampire.”
“They found Hui for me, didn’t they?” Abel guessed and got a short nod.
“Ma told me she was always feeding stray dogs and cats. Giving them scraps,” Cain confirmed. “A puppy, she’d take in. She took you in. Ma told me Pop watched and waited. Made sure she looked after you. They stayed close as long as they could. Then they were after us so we couldn’t.”
Somehow, from somewhere he didn’t get, Abel understood.
And he whispered, not bothering to hide his shock, “They used you as a decoy.”
Cain’s mouth tightened. “The immortals after us didn’t know there was another.”
“Oh my God,” Delilah breathed even as he felt the spike of tension hit the room.
“Ma found Teona for me,” Cain went on. “Teona masked me so you’d never scent me. That way, I could get close, keep watch, you wouldn’t know. She also cloaked me so no one else could find me. Took Teona and me about a minute after we met to realize we were lifemates. She’s been at my side for decades.”
“You were always close,” Abel said. “To me,” he finished.
Cain nodded again. “So was Ma, as close as she could get without you feeling her when you were old enough to understand what you might be sensing. Best day of her life was when I could go out on my own. Look after you. And by then, cameras had been invented. Made me take any shot I could get. In the end, she must have had thousands of pictures of you.”
Delilah’s hand pressed deep as everything about Abel strung tight to fight the feelings his brother’s words caused.
His mother had had pictures of him. His family stuck close. They’d had to let him go to keep him safe, but they’d stuck close.
For centuries.
He knew that had to kill too.
It was almost too much to fight, but in an effort to do that, he said, “You saved me in Dallas.”
Cain’s eyes slid to Jian-Li before looking back to Abel. “That witch located you. Don’t know how. Only one who did until you hit Serpentine Bay. With the Bay, my guess is, you and I were so far off the grid, they’d had no shot at finding either of us. So they somehow sniffed out Delilah. Followed her. Put her in danger to draw you out. Figure this since the witches did that before.”
Abel’s body got tighter at the glance to Jian-Li, which kept happening as his brother spoke.
But he knew that glance meant they’d also taken out Jian-Li’s husband, his brothers’ father, Ming. He also knew when Cain said the witches had done that before, they’d made the attack on Ming in a failed effort to do the same thing.
Ming had died for Abel. Senselessly.
He fought the burn as he fought looking at Jian-Li, at Xun or Wei or Chen. He wasn’t going to explain about Ming to them. Not now.
“Any clue why the witches got mixed up in this?” Abel asked.
Cain shook his head. “No, just know they weren’t working with immortals. Their activities in Texas were theirs alone. You took off after what happened to you, they lost you. But whatever they were up to, that witch wasn’t going to kill you. It was about capture, not kill. Witches have a hybrid at their command, they got power. At least that’s what Teona believes. History bears this to be true. Not the first time witches tried to leash immortals. But if they got one of the three immortals who are noted in The Prophesies, it’d put them at the upper hand with all immortals. Something they’d want after all they went through. Especially that coven. They’d been harboring ill will for a very long time.”
This made sense. It was clear that the witches held great amounts of anger. Vengeance wasn’t a far path to stray when you held that kind of anger for that long. Witches with one of The Three at their command would have both sides of the immortals at their mercy.
Since that made sense, Abel let it go and pointed out, “It was vampires and wolves who went after Delilah in Serpentine Bay.”
“Yes.” Cain nodded.
“Any idea about that?” Abel pressed.
“No clue, except it was clear the other two of The Sacred Triumvirate had been identified,” Cain told him. “Which meant The Prophesies were unfolding and the Noble War almost upon us. The existence of magic has been hidden for centuries, but obviously, it’s out there. Witches. Seers. These rebels, they’ll do anything, as they’ve proved, including finding someone to force into guiding their way.”
That made sense too.
“So you, our mother, and our father lived your lives hunted because they thought you were me, but at the same time you stuck close to make certain they couldn’t actually find me,” Abel summed it up.
Cain nodded and confirmed, “Yep.”
It sucked, but Delilah was right.
He should have waited to get pissed until after he got his brother’s story.
“And you’re here now…?” Abel asked.
“I’m here now for the same reason I’ve been anywhere since almost the time I started breathing. Because Teona and I have been staying close to make sure no threat can get to you. But I’m here now”—he pointed at the floor when he said here—“because you seem to be finding any threat before we do and you either neutralize it or it’s neutralized for you.”