Chapter Thirty-Eight

Raymond set his Courvoisier onthe edge of the billiards table and racked a set of balls. He chalked his cue stick lazily, feeling quite relaxed in this, his den, the only room which was truly his own in the Rancho Santa Fe mansion he shared with what felt like a shedload of other people. Entrance into his masculine haven was by express permission only, and tonight he'd deigned to invite his partner, Boian, to join him for a game of Snookers.

"You break," Boian said, puffing on a Cuban.

"Very well." Leaning over the table, Raymond sighted along his cue, then broke the rack with a hard hit on the head ball. Narrowing his eyes, he watched the red balls whiz around the green tabletop.

There was a knock on the door.

Both men turned their heads sharply toward the sound.

Boian jerked the Cuban out of his mouth. "Damn it all to hell," he snarled in what sounded like real anger.

Raymond slid a sideways glance at his partner. Was it any blooming wonder Boian's progeny always seemed to spring directly from Yavell's womb in a nasty temper?

Raymond was tempted to ignore the knock, but someone would have to be completely insane to disturb him for any reason other than mortal danger. "Enter," he called.

Pandra stepped inside, dressed in her typical shagbag inelegance, her frock a see-through red mesh piece that showed off a matching red bra and knickers.

Jesus wept.

"It's about Toni," the girl wisely announced immediately.

Raymond propped his cue stick on the floor and leaned on it. "Explain."

"The private investigator you assigned to follow Shannon Parthen, Mr. Rathburn, just rang. Toni is out in town tonight with her mother."

Raymond lifted a single eyebrow into a pleased arc. "That is important news, my pet." He turned back to the table and placed the white cue ball for his second shot. "Send the lads out to fetch her."

* * *

The Field Irish Pub, locatedon 5th Avenue in the heart of San Diego's bustling Gaslamp district was always hopping, and tonight was no exception. At eight o'clock, the Happy Hour crowd was in full swing. Toni was amazed she and her mother had found a place to sit, but they'd managed to snag one of the cozy, dark wood booths near the bar. Both strawberry-blonde women now had a frothy Guinness, Toni having forgone her usual martini tonight, "when in Rome" and all… or Ireland, as was the case here.

Odd that such a hip young place was one of her mother's favorite hangouts, but Shannon Parthen, née O'Rourke, loved all things Irish, and this pub was one of the most authentic in the city. The walls were covered with enough Irish paraphernalia to make any Dubliner feel right at home, and there was generally a lively Irish ditty playing.

"He's teaching me to play golf." Shannon was talking about her latest boyfriend, laughing lightly as she added, "if you can imagine me, of all people, trying to –"

Shannon stopped speaking, her mouth falling inelegantly open and her eyes widening to their fullest.

A strange burp of silence rolled through the crowd next, an almost imperceptible pause in noise and action before everything resumed normal activity.

Oh, crap. Toni didn't need to glance over her shoulder to know who'd just entered the bar. Such a total crowd reaction could've only been brought about by the entrance of too-gorgeous-to-be-true men. "Damn," she grumbled. "Remind me to punch Alex in the face the next time I see him." How else could she have been unearthed among hundreds of bars in San Diego if not for a certain rat fink brother?

"Oh, my," Shannon breathed shakily as Arc Costache came to a stop at the edge of their table.

Gábor Pavenic headed to the bar, lounging negligently against it on one bent arm, his bull skull tattoo bulging. A statuesque brunette smiled cautiously at him, and his return cockeyed grin nearly sent her sliding off her stool. Thomal, meanwhile, was being mobbed by a gaggle of simpering co-eds. Jacken wasn't with them, and a small pain speared through Toni that made no sense. The moment she'd finished her two-day stint in lockdown, she'd come up here for a weekend escape with her mother in order to get a break from him. Right?

Toni swept a gesture back and forth between Arc and Shannon. "Arc Costache," she introduced, "my mother, Shannon Parthen."

Shannon cast Toni a quick you know this man? look before offering her hand to Arc. "A pleasure."

Lavishing a grin of roguish charm on Shannon, Arc shook her hand. "I can see where Dr. Parthen gets her good looks. May I?" He used his hold on Shannon's hand to slide her over in the booth, his smile remaining annoyingly in place as he sat down. "You'll excuse me for barging in on your girl time, but I work at your daughter's new place of employment, and –"

"Oh, the Research Institute?"

Arc's smile grew; if his lips spread any more, Mr. Charm would be showing his fangs. "That's right. You see, ma'am, your daughter, since she's new and all, must not have realized that she needs to get clearance before she can leave our facilities."

"I'm afraid you're the one who's confused," Toni returned with a frigid look. "The Institute is run differently now. I'd think you'd know that, Mr. Costache, as you were present at the meeting where that was explained."

Toni's first stipulation as co-leader had been that no woman would ever be held in ??ran? against her will. As a part of that new guideline, Hannah, Ellen, Beth, Maggie, and Kimberly had been called in front of the leadership and individually polled: Did they want to stay or go? It had been a matter of form – all of the Dragons had agreed to stay, of course – but it'd been important to acknowledge their choice. Roth had even gone a step further and gathered the warriors together so all of them could apologize on behalf of the entire community for kidnapping them.

A muscle in Arc's jaw bunched. "Maybe I should say I'm astounded, then, that you'd run out on your husband, when you know –"

Shannon's eyebrows flew up. "Husband?" She gaped at Toni. "You're married?!"

Toni blasted Arc with a heated, thank-you-very-much-you-butthead glower. "I was going to tell you tonight, Mom."

Shannon's hand went to her throat, her fingers twining in her necklace. "Was there a wedding or … or …?"

"No, Mom. If there had been, you would have been invited. Please, don't feel hurt. The whole situation has been … rather unconventional."

"Well, can I meet him?" Shannon asked, still flustered. "He's my son-in-law, after all."

Arc sniffed, the edge of one nostril lifting. "Toni's husband isn't feeling too chipper right now, ma'am."

Toni moved her eyes over to Arc's face and felt something in her chest begin to squeeze, a bad feeling stirring in her belly.

"Jacken needs his … medication." Arc's gaze sharpened on her. "And you know you're the only one who can give it to him."

Toni's cheeks went cold, then numb. But that didn't make sense. Pure-bred Varcolac could last five to seven days without blood, Mixed-blood Dragons up to ten. Surely a Half-R?u –

"Men of your husband's unique heritage," Arc went on, correctly assuming she needed clarification, "require their meds every three days. Today's the third."

Her stomach bottomed out. Dear God, that meant by tomorrow Jacken would be in a blood-coma. She pressed a hand to her mouth, then her cheek. "Where is he?" she asked in a frayed voice.

"We've got him holed up nearby at a Doubletree Hotel on Front Street. Nyko's babysitting him." Arc's mouth compressed into a tight line. "He's pretty bad off."

"Jesus, stop looking at me like that, would you? I'm not a monster. I didn't know something like this was going to happen to him."

"It wouldn't exactly have been an issue, if you'd kept your ass planted at home where it belonged, now would it?" Arc jerked forward in his seat, his eyes blue steel. "You got problems with your husband? Then fucking man-up and fix them, Toni, because everyone's getting sick and goddamned tired of you running away."

Bracing the heels of her palms on the edge of the table, Toni pushed her spine against the back of the booth. Arc's words cut like a knife, spilling blood, opening her up to the infection of guilt. Tears sprang painfully into her eyes.

Arc's gaze dropped. "Shit." He rubbed a hand over his face. "I'm sorry. I saw what Jacken did to you, Toni, and, yeah, it was really damned bad." He exhaled a long breath through his nose. "But you're one of the leaders of our Institute now. You can't deal with your marital issues like this. It sets a bad example."

"No, I suppose not," she admitted stiffly.

Shannon was staring at her Guinness, but Toni could tell her mother was listening intently to everything.

"Look, I know there's a lot of stuff you still haven't been told yet. Everyone thought you knew about the O-sticks, but –"

"I do know."

Arc's brows came down, his narrowed eyes searching her face. "Then why –?"

"Just let me say goodbye to my mother, okay?" Toni cut in. "I'll meet you in the parking lot."

Arc paused a moment, then nodded. "Yeah, sure." He scooted out of the booth and shook hands with Shannon again. "It was nice meeting you, ma'am." He smiled. "Sorry for all the weird." He jerked his chin at Gábor and Thomal, and the two men joined him on their way out the door.

Toni watched the three Varcolac leave, her stomach so heavy it felt like it was full of lead. She smiled faintly at her mother. "Well … um … I'm sure you have a ton of questions about all that."

"Just one." Shannon's eyes darkened with concern. "Are you all right, Toni?"

Oh, God. Toni planted her elbow on the table and slumped her forehead into her palm. Her mother thought Jacken was a full-on power-and-control wife beater. "Mom, listen, I don't want you to think …. What my husband did to me wasn't awful, like Arc said, I mean, it wasn't his fault, so …." She expelled a breath. "I don't want you to think ill of him, okay. He's a great man." He's just genetically challenged.

Shannon smiled gently. "I don't mean to kick you when you're down, honey, but your choice in men in the past hasn't exactly been spot-on."

Toni flipped over a cocktail napkin, changing it from a shamrock to a leprechaun. That was, unfortunately, a valid point. "I can't explain all the reasons why things are different now, but they are. I've chosen well."

Shannon tilted her head to one side, her eyes moving over Toni's face. "You love him, don't you?"

A rush of emotion flooded Toni's heart. "Yes, I do," she pushed through a suddenly tight throat. "Very much."

Shannon nodded. "Well, that's the problem, then."

Toni felt a frown pull at her features. "I don't …. What do you mean?"

Shannon's blue eyes softened. "Toni, honey, ever since what happened with that Brad Flannigan boy you've been a changed person … more closed. I just don't think you've ever forgiven yourself for it."

"That's not true. I understand now why I slept with him." Oddball that she'd been in high school, having no way to understand about being a Dragon, it'd been irresistible to have a handsome, popular jock show her attention, even though it turned out he'd only been pretending.

"I'm not talking about having sex with that boy." Shannon gave her a meaningful look. "I'm talking about what happened afterward."

A spasm of pain gripped her body. "Mom, no. I don't want to talk about that."

"Of course you don't. You'd rather go through your whole life pretending the consequences of that Homecoming night with Brad never happened. But the problem is that every part of your heart knows it did." Shannon drew a breath and exhaled a rush of air. "Ever since your senior year of high school, you've been living in a kind of preemptive strike mode, Toni, pushing away anyone you started to care about, or who cared about you, before they could leave you." She glanced down. "Alex might've been an exception, but I certainly haven't been."

Shock tripped Toni's pulse out of rhythm. "You think I'm the one who's been pulling away from you all this time?"

"Yes," Shannon answered somberly, "you have been."

Toni put a hand over her mouth, tears stinging her eyes again. Had it really been her?

"And now I'm guessing you're doing the same thing to this man of yours," her mother said. "You're running away from him, not because of whatever this not-awful thing is he did to you, but because you started to love him too much. And you got scared." Shannon set both palms on the table, a loving ache entering her eyes. "You need to stop beating yourself up for the choices you made back then. You didn't do anything wrong. You did everything absolutely right." Grabbing her purse, Shannon reached inside and pulled out a photograph. "Here" – she set it on the table in front of Toni – "it's time you took this."

A tear slipped from Toni's eye and rolled over her fingers. She didn't look at the photo. She didn't have to.

"I've kept it all these years," her mother said softly, "knowing you'd want it someday."

"I don't." Toni reached out to shove the photo away, inevitably glancing at it. The paper was curled at the corners and yellowing around the edges, but the picture in the middle was startling clear. Acid lurched into her throat.

"Take it, Toni." Shannon gently pushed the picture back to her. "Show it to your new husband and tell him about it. When you see nothing but loving acceptance in his eyes, then maybe you'll finally realize you didn't do anything wrong."

Toni stared blurrily at the photo. "Oh, Jesus," she moaned low, "Mom."

Shannon reached across the table and gripped Toni's hand, holding it firmly while Toni cried, her chin ducked to her chest and tears dropping steadily into her lap. She couldn't believe she was crying in the middle of a bar, but there was nothing she could do about it. That photo had torn open an unhealed wound, and there was no getting around the excruciating anguish of something that had been festering within her for so many years.

When Toni's tears had finally eased to sniffles, Shannon patted her hand. "You okay, baby girl?"

Nodding, Toni wiped at her eyes with the palms of her hands. "I … I should probably go, though."

"Yes," her mother agreed. "It sounds like your husband needs you."

Toni pushed unsteadily to her feet, feeling utterly drained.

Her mother put some money on the table, then stood, too, handing Toni a tissue. "So when do I get to meet this man of yours?"

"Probably Christmastime. Sooner if I can arrange it." Toni blew her nose. "I should warn you, though, he's … kind of scary-looking."

"Is he?" Shannon laughed. "Okay." She hugged Toni tightly. "Email me, baby girl. I miss you so much."

"I will." Toni squeezed her mother back. "A lot."

The two women exited The Field, parting at the door. Toni headed for the parking lot, spotting Arc, Gábor, and Thomal standing next to the community Pathfinder. Thomal made a pained face when he saw the evidence of her tears.

She came to a stop right in front of Arc, clutching the photo to her chest. "You don't know anything about me Arc Costache," she said, barely keeping a quaver from her voice, "the experiences I've had and the pain I've suffered. So I'd appreciate it if you'd keep your damned judgments about me and my marriage to yourself."

"All right." Arc shocked the devil out of her by pulling her into a quick brotherly hug. "Sorry, Doc."