Witch Blood - By Anya Bast Page 0,66

existed there. Isabelle opened her eyes and let a smile play on her lips. Whatever it was, it was good.

He leaned down and whispered in her ear, “You okay?”

She shook her head. “Not really, but I’m better now.”

“Your mom is fascinating. I think a shrink would have a good time with her.”

She snorted. “She’s not really my mom. She’s just the woman who gave birth to me.” Isabelle didn’t want to believe that, though. The words felt too harsh in her mouth.

Thomas pulled her back against him and enveloped her in his arms. She nestled into his chest, inhaling the scent of him and enjoying the warmth of his body. “I think Catalina is starting to understand what she missed in you and Angela.”

Tears pricked her eyes. “Do you think she’s capable of that? Truly?”

Thomas went silent for a long moment. “Yes.”

A sob of grief bubbled up from somewhere deep inside her, like a pocket of sorrow that had been stored in the depths of her soul had suddenly been popped. “I miss my sister, Thomas.”

She hadn’t cried once since she’d found Angela, not really, but now it seemed like all the tears she’d stored up rushed forth in a torrent.

Thomas eased her down to the bridge and sat, holding her in his lap, and let it happen. He made soft sounds at her and brushed his fingers through her hair, seeming to understand as well as she did that she needed this release.

Memories flooded her mind. Playing jacks with Angela on the front steps of the brownstone where they’d lived for a time in Chicago. Running down to the pond in France where they’d watched the other kids race toy sailboats. Isabelle remembered her first date and how her older sister had given her a small amount of advice based on her own limited experience. She’d helped her do her hair and then sat up with her when she’d returned home crying because the boy hadn’t been all she’d hoped.

Lord and Lady, she missed Angela.

Isabelle cried until her eyes were dry, her makeup was nonexistent, her nose ran, and her head pounded. Despite all that, at the end, she felt better than she had in a long time. She felt emptied of the heaviness she’d been carrying around since her sister’s death.

As the afternoon faded into twilight and the small lights illuminating the pathways in the conservatory gradually grew brighter, Isabelle rested her head against Thomas’s shoulder and sighed. “I ruined your shirt. My mascara ran all over it.”

“I didn’t like this one anyway.” His low voice rumbled through her, rough and silken at the same time.

All of a sudden Isabelle wanted to be in bed with him, craved the slide of his skin across hers, the slip of his lips over her mouth and all that wonderful dark hair brushing over her body.

But it would have to wait. Twilight had fallen and they had a demon to hunt.

“Do you really think it’s possible my mother could regret?”

He stroked her hair. “I believe she is regretting now, Isabelle. It’s just that she doesn’t have the first clue how to make amends.”

“And maybe it’s too late.”

“Yes, and maybe it’s too late. That’s for you and her to work through.” He paused. “She mentioned that sometimes she left you and your sister with people who didn’t treat you well. Is that true?”

Isabelle stiffened against him. “It didn’t happen that often. There were two times…Neither was very long. But once she paid this woman, Marie, to keep us for a while. She lived in Marseilles. Anyway, I was a little kid, always getting into trouble. Smacks never really bothered me as far as discipline went. So one day…I don’t even remember what I did anymore…Marie got fed up with me and locked me in a closet.” She swallowed hard, still able to feel the press of the darkness like a physical presence and her throat working dry from a lack of water. “And there I stayed for four days.”

Thomas tightened his arms around her.

“Angela tried and tried to open it, but couldn’t. She stayed with me the whole time, tried to push food and water under the tiny crack beneath the door.”

“Catalina said that’s why you’re claustrophobic and that you used to have recurring nightmares.”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“What did your mother do when she found out what happened?”

She shrugged. “She moved us somewhere else. That time we went to live with her and her flavor-of-the-month, Fredrick, in Switzerland for a while.” She sighed.