He nodded sharply and headed for the wrought iron staircase. “There’s no time to fool with the car. I’ll get Grace.”
Ridge found the cell phone where he’d left it, upstairs on his dresser. It was not, of course, a real cell phone—such a thing wouldn’t work in the Mageverse—but when Ridge spoke the word “Grace” into it, the magical device nonetheless chirped obligingly.
He was acutely aware that Kat watched him anxiously, damp but dressed.
“This had better be good,” a male voice growled.
“Your daughter thinks your old lover just attempted suicide. That good enough for you?” Lance’s reply was a single pungent curse. “Grace?” he said. “We need to get over to Ridge’s now.” There was a gratifying urgency in that “now.”
The air rippled into a gate just as Ridge pulled a shirt over his head. Grace and Lancelot stepped through.
“Where’s your mother?” Grace demanded of Kat, the gate still rippling the air behind them.
“In her bedroom, I think. She looked asleep, but I have the feeling there’s something wrong. Really wrong.” Kat took a deep breath and balled her hands into fists, obviously working to get her fear under control. “Fatally wrong.”
Without another word, Grace turned, gesturing. The gate rippled again, now revealing a bed with a woman lying in a fetal ball under an embroidered quilt.
“Mom!” Kat lunged through the gate, and Ridge followed, Grace and Lance at his heels. Ridge was barely aware of the ripple of magic surging over his skin as he dove through the dimensional door.
Kat’s stomach rolled itself into a quivering, ice-filled ball as she plunged into her mother’s bedroom.
Mary appeared deeply asleep, and Kat found herself hoping she’d just scared the hell out of everyone for nothing.
But when she grabbed her mother’s shoulder and shook her with a loud “Mom!” the still form did not respond.
“She’s alive,” Grace said grimly. “Barely.” The Maja reached past Kat, putting one slim palm in the center of her mother’s chest.
Ridge’s warm hands closed gently around Kat’s shoulders and drew her away from the bed. “Give Grace room to work, babe.”
As Kat watched anxiously, Grace’s fingers began to glow. Sparks spilled from her flesh, dancing over Mary’s body, cutting spirals around the woman’s still arms and legs, circling her head in a halo of light.
Kat caught her breath. Grace’s magic had made her believe in witches, but actually seeing the otherworldly light show at work around her own mother was something else again. This is real. All of it. Vampire knights, witches, Merlin, all of it. Real. “Is she going to be all right?” Grace grunted, but made no answer, an expression of deep concentration on her face.
“I think we’d better go downstairs and wait,” said the dark-haired stranger who’d accompanied Grace.
“It’s not a good idea to distract her when she’s doing work this delicate.” Kat looked up at him. This man must be Grace’s husband. Which made him . . .
Her knees went weak.
Ridge caught her forearm and steadied her. “You going to be okay?” His steady green gaze was dark with compassion.
Kat took a deep breath and blew it out, managed a quick nod. As Ridge guided her toward the door, her gaze fell on a small pill bottle beside the bed. She scooped it up and was not surprised to find it empty.
A glance at the label confirmed her suspicions.
Sleeping pills.
“Dammit, Mom.” Anger stiffened her back. Kat pulled away from Ridge’s supporting hand and stalked out to clatter down the stairs. “God forbid she leave another bloody corpse for me to find. This is the third f**king time she’s pulled this stunt.”
Kat didn’t look back to see if the men were following her as she made for the kitchen. They’d need coffee to get through this. At least, she would; she had no idea what stressed vamps drank.
Besides, there was something soothing and familiar about the ritual of making coffee. At least it gave her something to do with her hands.
“I gather this has happened before,” Lancelot said as she put the pot on to brew.
Kat glanced over at him. He was almost ridiculously handsome, with dark, thick brows arching over eyes the color of warm sherry. His hair was thick and curly, his cheekbones broad, his nose narrow over a wide, curving mouth. It was obvious why her mother had fallen into bed with him twenty-six years ago.
It was impossible to think of him as her father. For God’s sake, the man looked only a few years older than she was. Thirty or so, tops, though she knew he had to be sixteen hundred years old, at least.