“Don’t be so defeatist,” Auntie Jane told her grimly. “As long as his son’s alive, anyone can find him.”
“Blood magic.” Auntie Meredith spat the words on the pile of dust that had been a bookcase.
“I didn’t say we’d use blood magic to find him,” Auntie Jane snapped. “But he won’t go far as long as anyone else can. He’ll remove the threat first.”
“So Jack’s in danger?” Allie asked.
Auntie Jane turned dark eyes on her. “How much of that blast did you absorb, Alysha? Of course the boy is in danger.” Muttering under her breath, she stalked out through the newsroom.
“I was expecting someone… taller,” the very scary old woman with the dark eyes sniffed as the dozen aunties circled Graham like cats moving in on a mourning dove, shifting him away from the counter and out into the store without touching him.
Graham sought out Allie, bringing up the rear of the pack, and didn’t feel particularly reassured by her reassuring nod or her mouthed: Auntie Jane. It had been her idea he meet the aunties downstairs and get it over with before they were distracted by the complications of a half-Human/half-Dragon Lord sorcerer. When Auntie Jane ignored his outstretched hand, he let it fall back to his side. “I get that a lot.”
“We’ll have to see what we can do about having those hex marks removed while we’re here.”
“Thank you, ma’am. I’d appreciate that.” Allie’d suspected one of the glyphs had something to do with his blocked memories.
“You and I being together, that’s likely what’s helping you to remember.” She stroked her fingertips down the center of his chest. “But if you want these off, we’re going to need a little help.”
A slightly taller woman, steel-gray hair cropped short, eyes as dark, frowned at him over the top of her glasses. “So you used to work for a sorcerer?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And you knew he was a sorcerer? From the beginning?”
“When I met him, I’d just saved him from being killed by a basilisk.”
“How?” His confusion must’ve shown because she sighed and said, “How did you save him, boy?”
All things considered, he decided to let her form of address stand. “I had my hunting rifle with me, and I blew its head off.”
“Quite the shot,” the shortest of the aunties said thoughtfully. “Blowing the head off a moving basilisk.” Shortest, Graham realized, was a relative term since at least two of the old women were Allie’s height and none of them were less than five four.
“He could have taken that memory right out of your head,” another auntie declared, dark eyes wide, her knitting unraveling slightly with the force of the gesture. “Left you with a big blank space you probably wouldn’t have even noticed, boys being boys and all. You were what, thirteen?” She stuffed a few meters of loose yarn back into the bulging bag hanging off her shoulder. “Can’t think why he didn’t.”
“He didn’t because he saw young Graham would be useful to him,” Auntie Jane snapped. “Grace is right. It was a phenomenal shot, and you know what sorts of things his kind attract. For pity’s sake, Muriel, use what’s left of your brains before they atrophy entirely.”
One of the first lessons he’d learned was not to look the Fey in the eyes—most of them would take advantage; some of them took souls. As far as he knew, the Gales were Human. Although, as he stared as fearlessly as he was able into Jane Gale’s eyes, he had to admit he wasn’t one hundred percent convinced of that. Ninety percent, tops. He suspected that final ten percent would be chewing at him.
After a long moment, she snorted and allowed him to look away. “I don’t actually care why you went to work for him,” she said. “You were a child, so I doubt it was your idea anyway. He very likely set himself up so that he was there when you needed him, so that he was the only one there, in all likelihood. What I’m more interested in is why, after serving a power-hungry bastard with delusions of grandeur so faithfully for so long, you decided to jump ship and throw in with a family determined to destroy him and everyone like him. It can’t possibly have been because of Alysha’s physical attractions.”
“It could have been,” Allie muttered.
“Because if that’s all it was,” a round, apple-cheeked auntie continued, cheerfully ignoring Allie’s protest. “We wouldn’t want you. First time there was a crisis, you’d be just as likely to run off with young Katie here. Her breasts are larger.”
“Very subtle, Auntie Kay!”
“Well, they are, dear.”
Without the extremes of Charlie’s hair color, it was easier to see the family resemblance between Allie and her cousin Katie. Given that Katie was currently beating her head against Allie’s shoulder, it was a little hard to pick out specific details, but she didn’t seem to have Allie’s golden sprinkle of freckles.
“Well, boy?”
It took Graham a moment to figure out what they were waiting for.
Right.
Why had he walked away from thirteen years with Stanley Kalynchuk? He hadn’t known the emerging Dragon Lord was Kalynchuk’s son when he’d refused to pull the trigger, so he hadn’t exactly been struck by a sudden ethical objection. That had come later. He’d decided not to pull the trigger when Allie’d made it clear she didn’t want him to. She hadn’t asked him not to, hadn’t said anything more than his name, but he’d chosen…
Son of bitch.
He’d chosen.
“So it’s like that, is it?” Auntie Jane’s voice pulled him out of his head, and he realized none of the old women—aunties, he amended silently as the youngest of them narrowed dark eyes and glared in his direction as though she was aware of his group designation—stood between him and Allie. He didn’t remember any of them moving.
“As Mr. Spock said, in what was undeniably the best of the movies…”
“Kay has a Ricardo Montalban fixation,” one of the older aunties interrupted.
“Lovely man,” Auntie Kay agreed. “Amazing pecs. May his soul be at peace.” She frowned. “Where was I?”
Graham wanted to kiss the corner of Allie’s mouth where it curved up, fighting a smile.
“The needs of the many…” Auntie Muriel sighed, waving a knitting needle.
“… outweigh the needs of the one. Of course. Had you killed the boy, we wouldn’t have needed to come to Calgary to save the world.”
“Knowing what you know now…” Auntie Jane said with a glance around the circle and in a tone that suggested interrupting would prove fatal. “… given the choice again, would you choose differently?”
Graham was certain she hadn’t been using choose like that before his realization. And there was that ten percent uncertainty again. The store was so quiet he could hear the soft whisper of Allie breathing. He could see the faint dusting of freckles across her nose and cheeks, and the mole on her right earlobe. He could smell the shampoo, shower gel, Allie mix that made him think of her moving under him, legs wrapped around his hips…
And given that there were twelve older women in the store wearing at least thirty-six separate scents between them, that should have been impossible.
“If I had to do it again,” he said, “I wouldn’t do anything differently.”
Allie raised a brow.
“She was talking specifically about last night,” he reminded her.
“She is the cat’s mother, Graham Buchanan,” Auntie Jane snorted. “Remember it. Christie, Grace, Ellen—go talk to David. Do not wear him out,” she snapped as they surged toward the back door. “Until we know exactly when the Queen is emerging, he could have to lock us down at any moment. Just get him to the point where he can be in the same room as his sister. Vera, Meredith, and Faith, take Michael, find a grocery store, get supplies. I very much doubt we’ll be able to put together decent meals from whatever Catherine has left behind. Oh, and you’d best find a hardware store as well, there’s no point in leaving it to the last minute.” If Michael’d had any objections, he had no chance to voice them as he was tugged back toward the bus. “Gwen get out from behind that counter. This is not the time for that sort of thing. The rest of you, upstairs, let’s get that Dragon Princeling sorted before we have to start supper.”