Chapter 31

Chapter Thirty-One

PIPER

Piper gaped at the smiling hallucination that looked just like her mother—but her mother had died eight years ago. Piper’s hands clenched, her fingernails digging into her palms. What the hell was going on?

“This is your mother?” Lyre muttered.

Piper didn’t answer. She just stared.

Mona stepped forward, spreading her arms as though expecting her daughter to run to her for an embrace. “Piper, sweetheart, I’ve missed you so much. You’re such a beautiful young lady now.”

A barrage of emotions threatened to overwhelm Piper. “I… don’t understand.”

Mona gestured at the group who’d brought them inside. “Take the daemons downstairs. Piper and I need to talk.”

Piper glanced helplessly at Lyre. His narrowed eyes were fixed on Mona, his expression hostile—but he didn’t resist as a pair of Gaians escorted him back through the door they’d come in. Two more men seized Ash’s arms and dragged him after the incubus.

“Come with me, Piper,” Mona said.

Piper looked into her mother’s familiar hazel eyes, eyes she hadn’t seen in eight years and had never imagined she would see again. Her gut had twisted into a giant knot, her heart was pounding, and her mind was reeling. Saying nothing, she followed Mona to a small, barren office with a beat-up desk and a tattered sofa. Mona sat on the sofa’s flat cushion and patted the spot beside her.

Piper hesitated, then sank onto the edge of the sofa. Mona took her hands and squeezed them.

“Piper.” She smiled like this was the happiest day of her life. “How are you? How do you feel?”

Feel? How did she feel ? Piper couldn’t begin to describe her emotional state. Going from the violence of the Styx ring to the heat of kissing Ash, to Micah’s surprise appearance, to losing the Sahar and learning Ash had stolen the real one from her—and now her mother was back from the dead.

But it wasn’t only that. Mona was clearly the leader of these haemons, and if they were indeed the Gaians, then Piper was looking at the person behind the attack on her Consulate. Her mother had almost killed Uncle Calder and abducted Quinn.

“Where’s my father?” Piper asked.

Mona’s smile faltered, but she recovered quickly. “He’s here—alive and well, I promise. I won’t lie to you like he has.”

Piper stiffened. “What do you mean?”

“As you can see, I’m not dead. Quinn has been determined to keep us apart since he forced me to leave the Consulate. His cruel lie about my death was part of that.”

A lie? Quinn had lied to Piper about her mother’s death? It couldn’t be. He must have believed Mona was dead. It must have been a mistake. He never would have lied to Piper about something like that.

Mona squeezed Piper’s hands again. “Your father can’t stand it when anyone questions his decisions. He’d rather tell you a horrible lie than take the chance that you would choose me over him.”

Piper sucked in a breath, trying to think through the shock. “Why didn’t you contact me?”

“I tried, Piper. I really did, but Quinn blocked every attempt I made. There hasn’t been a day I didn’t think of you. I’ve dreamed of the day we could be reunited.”

Piper’s stomach roiled. She looked down at her mother’s hands gripping hers. It wasn’t like Piper had been locked in a secret tower for the past eight years. Not once in that time had Mona come up with a way to reach her daughter?

“What happened at my Consulate?” Piper asked, trying to keep her tone neutral. “The explosion almost killed Uncle Calder.”

Mona’s eyebrows pinched together. “Quinn and Calder should never have even considered allowing the Sahar Stone back into daemon hands. You can’t imagine what a powerful daemon could do with it. We had no choice but to try to take it before that could happen.”

That didn’t justify blowing a hole in the side of the Consulate and killing consuls and delegates.

“What about the choronzon?” Piper demanded. “It almost killed me .”

“We had to make sure no one followed us when we left the Consulate. I never wanted you to be in danger. I sent people to look for you as soon as I could.”

Piper shook her head, struggling to make sense of what her mother was saying. “The Gaians waiting at the Consulate attacked me.”

“You resisted.” Mona rushed to continue before Piper could get out an angry retort. “I would never put you in harm’s way, Piper, but you have to understand how crucial it is that we gain control of the Sahar.”

Piper tried not to think about the Stone in her pocket. “Daemons don’t even know how to use the Sahar.”

“That’s what they want you to believe, but we can’t take the chance, can we?” Mona sighed. “You’ve only seen one side of daemons at the Consulate. I was the same. When I was younger, I thought they weren’t that different from humans—more instinctive and hierarchal, but still capable of civilized behavior. But their civility is superficial.”

“Is that what made you join the Gaians?”

“It’s what made me start searching for answers. The Consulates claim to regulate daemons, but in reality, daemons do as they please on Earth, including hunting and killing humans for sport.”

“And the Gaians are going to fix everything?” Piper asked, trying not to sound blatantly skeptical.

“We’re going to try, which is more than anyone else is doing, including the Consulates. We need to empower humanity before daemons strip us of the little control we have left.”

“Why would they do that?”

“Daemons crave power. They’re ruled by their strongest families and bloodlines, they fight constantly for dominance over other castes, and they crush anyone—daemon, haemon, or human—who challenges them. They want to rule Earth. They’ve been increasing their numbers and influence here for decades.”

An uncomfortable prickle ran down Piper’s spine. How true were Mona’s statements? How much was the Gaian’s anti-daemon agenda?

“None of that is important right now,” Mona said, her smile blooming again. “What’s important is that we’re together. Your father won’t be able to separate us ever again. We have so much catching up to do.”

As Piper looked at her mother’s carefree smile, that uncomfortable prickle turned into needles of ice running up and down her spine. How could Mona smile like everything was absolutely perfect when she’d blown a hole in Piper’s home, killed consuls Piper had known since she was a child, almost killed her uncle, and was holding her father prisoner?

Piper could believe that her father had lied about her mother’s death. As much as she wanted to hope that her father had simply been mistaken, she couldn’t imagine a scenario where Quinn wouldn’t be one hundred percent sure whether his ex-wife was alive or not.

If he’d been lying to Piper while secretly keeping Mona away, Piper knew that meant Uncle Calder had been in on the lie. No way would Quinn lie to his twin brother about something so important. And Uncle Calder wouldn’t have lied to Piper unless there was a very good reason.

“I want to talk to Father,” she said abruptly. “Let me see him.”

“Your father is a liar, Piper. He wants to control you and make all your decisions for you. You have no idea the extent of his lies to you—long before he told you I was dead.”

Piper set her jaw. “I want to see him.”

An uncomfortable silence stretched, making Piper keenly aware of how little power she had. Though her mother was pretending otherwise, Piper was as much a prisoner of the Gaians as her father was.

Mona nodded. “All right, Piper. But you’ll need to be quick. This location is no longer safe, and we were in the middle of preparations to leave when you arrived.”

What a nice way to say “captured at gunpoint.”

“I’ll be quick, then,” Piper agreed.

Mona rose to her feet. “I hope his excuses for his lies won’t hurt you more, Piper.”

Piper didn’t bother to reply.

As Mona led her out of the musty office, the weight of all the deceptions dragged at her lungs, making it hard to breathe. Whose lies were more destructive? Her father’s… or her mother’s?