is the only warning you are going to get from me, and that’s because your lips look good wrapped around my cock.”
His hand released my throat, and my hands rubbed where he’d held me. Rhys’s dark stare held mine before he snorted, moving toward the kitchen. Cole, Acyn, and Nyx entered the house. Cole’s eyes held mine briefly, lowering to the red handprint, surely marring my porcelain skin. Nyx moved toward me silently, grabbing my hand, and her worried eyes noted the tears swimming in mine.
I didn’t need to put into words what we were both thinking. We shouldn’t have come here, not even if it was my mother missing. We should have assembled a team and come in carefully, but I hadn’t thought my mother was missing.
I’d figured she’d just been ignoring my calls or had harmed herself by working a spell that took more than one witch to cast. I’d never assumed there would be a Van Helsing close to where we lived, let alone several of them.
I exhaled, slowly opening my bedroom door as screeching started. My hands lifted, covering my ears to stop the pain that struck so hard my vision swam. I dropped to my knees, along with the others inside the cabin. My head felt as if it was splitting in two. Nyx howled, and I turned, staring at her as blood dripped from her nose. The Van Helsings weren’t faring any better, either. I moaned the spell to undo the wards, groaning as the pain intensified.
Bringing my hand up to my teeth, I bit into the palm to draw blood, slamming my hand down on the floor, which stopped the deafening, piercing scream of the safeguard spell. No one moved, not until Nyx screamed and grabbed me, staring down in horror at me.
“What the hell is happening to your face, Remi?” she stammered.
Gazing up at her, I saw the runic symbols written in golden writing over my flesh. My mouth opened, closed, and then repeated the attempt to speak several more times. I watched as she wiped away warm liquid from my eyes, staring as I started to sit up, only to be gently pushed back to the floor by Rhys and Cole, who studied my face.
“That’s new,” Rhys said carefully, his finger tracing my forehead.
I pushed his hand away, slowly getting back to my feet. The dark room exploded in violet light, changing to an eerie blue as glyphs moved along the walls and ceiling. I stepped back, colliding against Cole, who wrapped his arms around me, ignoring Rhys’s warning glare over my shoulder.
The glyphs pulsed, and every single pulse seemed to drain me until I swayed on my feet, and they vanished as quickly as they’d come. Rhys moved to the bedroom doorway I’d tried to enter, and twisted the knob, pushing it open.
I stared into a nursery, frowning as my head tilted to the side. Cole continued holding me until I shoved him away, pathetically weakened by whatever was happening inside the house. Entering the room, I moved to the crib, lifting the blue blankets before bringing it to my nose.
“Okay, this wasn’t like this when I left.” Sure, I hadn’t explored the room last night, but how had I missed a crib, or that my entire room was converted into a nursery?
“How long has it been since you were home?” Cole asked beside my ear, causing a shiver to race down my spine as his heated breath fanned against my flesh.
“Almost five years,” I swallowed. “She never mentioned a baby. My mother would have mentioned being pregnant. It would be a huge celebration. When my sisters have babes, it’s a full family gathering, and we party for like a week. They have not had any in years, though, nor has my mother been around men, that I am aware. It’s also almost Beltane, which is a huge celebration for witches. So she would be here making preparations.” My face filled with heat as I turned, eyeing Rhys with the reality of what would happen if I was stuck in his house during Beltane.
“The festival of fucking,” Cole chuckled, heat pooling in his eyes as he smiled at me. “That’s this week, isn’t it?”
I nodded, frowning while turning my attention to Rhys, who studied the pink in my cheeks. Ignoring the heat that pooled in my apex at his narrowed stare, I opened the door to my mother’s room, stopping in my tracks as I noticed the blood covering the