They were surrounded by people watching them, but Angelique didn’t care. She pulled back, kissed both of Isabelle’s cheeks. “I missed you. I’ve been so worried about you. Where have you been?”
Izzy’s face was streaked with tears, too. “Busy, and here and there. Getting into trouble, of course.”
Angelique let out a laugh. “Of course. Come, let’s have something to drink.” She slid an arm around Isabelle’s waist, pausing only to introduce her sister to everyone before leading her into the kitchen.
“Wine?” Angelique asked.
Isabelle nodded. “I need it. I’m still shaking over what happened.”
Ryder’s gaze shot to Dalton’s. “What?”
“Demon attack in an alley in the Catania business district. Isabelle and I. . got separated and one tried to lure her. I got to her before she followed it into the alley.”
Angelique turned to her sister. Isabelle shrugged. “I didn’t know. It looked human. It had sunglasses on. It said it was sent by you, that you had been looking for me. I even heard your voice calling me.”
Angelique hugged her sister again. Too close. Too damn close. “Damn Sons of Darkness.” She turned to Michael. “How do they know where we are all the time?”
Michael poured a glass of Chianti and leaned against the kitchen counter. “My guess is that you and your sister are connected to them, allowing them to track your whereabouts.”
“I wondered about that. I touched the black diamond in the caves in Australia. I had contact with them and with that object-I remember feeling strange when I was connected to it. I figured it somehow bonded me to them.”
“Perhaps,” Michael said, his expression benign.
“But that doesn’t explain Isabelle. She’s never been exposed to demons. How would they have any knowledge of her whereabouts?”
“It doesn’t have anything to do with what happened to you in Australia, Angie.”
Angelique turned to her sister. “What do you mean?”
Isabelle slid into the chair and wrapped her fingers around the stem of the wineglass, lifting it to her lips and taking a long swallow. “We’re connected to the demons because we’re like them.”
“What? How can we be like them?”
“We have demon blood.”
Angelique’s heart stuttered. “No. You’re wrong.”
“I’m not wrong.” Isabelle tilted her head back toward Dalton, who handed her bag to her. She pulled out an old book with a red cover and slid the book across the table toward Angelique.
“Mother’s diary. Read it. Out loud. Everyone might as well know.”
Angelique stared at the book, almost afraid to touch it. When she looked up at Izzy again, there were tears in her sister’s eyes.
“Know what, Isabelle?”
“We’re demons, Angie. Our mother had sex with a demon. Our father was a demon. In fact, he was killed by people just like the ones in this room.”
The room went cold and goose bumps popped up on her flesh. Angelique shook her head. “That’s not true.” None of it could be true. Could it?
But what about the incident in the cottage with Ryder, when he was attacked by the demon? The transformation she’d undergone hadn’t been normal-hadn’t been human. She’d rationalized it as some kind of power she’d acquired after coming into contact with the black diamond. Maybe that was just wishful thinking on her part, a way to explain away the unexplainable, when in her heart and the logical part of her mind, she’d already known the answer.
“I’m a demon?”
Isabelle laughed. “Not according to how you’ve lived your life, or anything that Mother said in her diary. Go ahead, read it. Or let me point out the highlights, since much of it is mundane.”
Angelique pushed the journal toward Isabelle. She didn’t want to know, couldn’t accept what she’d heard.
“Fine. If you don’t want to read it, I will.”
Isabelle opened the book and flipped the pages. “I’ll just cover the salient points. You know, the ones that talk about the demon.”
She began reading, translating into English as she read, and despite her horror, Angelique was transfixed. Her mother wrote of the night Angie and Isabelle had been conceived, about what happened to the man-the creature-who had fathered them. Angelique had seen demons melted down, and Ryder explained what happened when the Sons of Darkness were killed. They disappeared in a pile of ash.
The man who had lain with her mother had, in fact, been a demon, not a human.
Their mother had lied. All these years, to find out everything Mother had told them about their father had been a lie.
Stunned, unable to speak, she could only stare at her sister as she went on to read more, especially about herself, their mother’s concern for Isabelle’s behavior and her request for Angelique to watch over Izzy.
Isabelle read it with no emotion, but Angelique knew how much it must have hurt to read their mother’s words. When she closed the book, Angelique reached across the table and took her sister’s hand.
“I’m sorry, Isabelle.”
Izzy shrugged. “I’ve read it so many times it no longer hurts me.”
That was a lie, and Angelique knew better than anyone how well Isabelle could mask her emotions. “Mother loved you.”
“I guess she must have, because I’m still alive. We both are. But how could she have allowed us to live, knowing what our father was?”
Angelique’s head was spinning. She had no answers, only a million questions. Isabelle had always come to her to solve her problems. This time, she had no solution.
“Because she would have loved us no matter what. No matter who or what the man who fathered us was, we were also part of her.” That much she knew was true.
“I think she just blocked it out and pretended he was someone else.”
“That’s not true, Izzy. Look at what she wrote in her diary. It’s obvious she knew exactly what he was, or at least that he wasn’t. .normal. It doesn’t sound like she repressed any memories at all, only that she was confused, and a little afraid of what happened. The good thing is she had us, we’re here, we’re human. At least so far.” God, she hated even thinking it. What kind of blood ran in her veins?
“May I see the diary?” Michael asked.
“Sure, why not? It’s not like I have any secrets anymore.” Isabelle lifted it over her head and Michael took it from her.
“Thank you,” Michael said. “I can assure you that any information given to anyone within the Realm of Light is kept in the strictest confidence. Your secret will remain safe with us.”
“It’s true,” Mandy said. “You have nothing to fear from any of us, Isabelle. Most people don’t even know we exist. We live with secrets every day. Yours is only one of them.”
“Thanks. If you don’t mind, I have a killer headache. It’s been a long couple days. Is there someplace I can lie down?”
Angelique started to say she’d take her upstairs, but Dalton said it first.