Unbroken Vows Read online

  “Actually, it was my father who wanted you there. He wanted to see you in person, to have a chance to find out how strong you actually were. I’d told him about the way you warded off my attack, and he needed to know whether that was a fluke or whether you really were as strong as I’d said.”

  As much as Rosemary hated to admit it to herself, she had to recognize that Caleb’s explanation made some sense. She couldn’t help thinking that hers and Will’s getaway from the Lockwood mansion had seemed almost too easy, even though she’d done her best to tell herself she was being paranoid and that it had been a simple case of her angelic powers being stronger than Daniel Lockwood’s demonic ones.

  But if he’d always intended for her to get away….

  She swallowed, then said, “And was I?”

  Caleb’s smile broadened. “Oh, yes. He was quite impressed. That was why he sent me here to talk to you, to make you understand what your true place in the world actually is.”

  That comment sounded ominous. Rosemary had thought she’d finally begun to figure out that very thing, knowing the truth of her feelings for Will Gordon, realizing how right and good it felt for the two of them to be together in this house, planning a shared future. But if Caleb was telling her the truth…if demon blood really did flow in her veins…then how in the world could she possibly be involved with a man of God?

  Her hands were shaking. She knotted her fingers together and hoped Caleb hadn’t noticed. “Why should I believe a word you’re saying?”

  “I know you don’t have any reason to,” he said, his tone casual. He sat back down on the sofa, this time at the end closest to the armchair where Rosemary was perched. In that position, his knee almost brushed hers. Almost. If either of them moved, they’d definitely touch.

  She resolved to sit as still as a statue. It was hard enough to even have Caleb that close to her; the last thing she wanted was any physical contact with him.

  “But,” he went on, “although I know I haven’t been entirely truthful with you in the past, I am telling you the truth now.”

  He sounded sincere. He even looked sincere…which meant absolutely nothing where Caleb Lockwood was concerned.

  “It doesn’t make any sense, though,” Rosemary protested. “How could my father be a — a cambion? And if we’re all part demon, why don’t my sisters have the same powers I do?”

  For a few seconds, Caleb didn’t reply. His silence seemed ominous, since during their entire conversation, he’d appeared only too happy to answer her questions. He released a breath, eyes not quite meeting hers. True reticence, or more play-acting? She couldn’t begin to guess, although something in her gut tightened, as if anticipating yet another terrible revelation.

  When he spoke, his tone was gentle…too gentle. That couldn’t be good.

  “Because they’re only your half-sisters,” he replied. “Their psychic powers are purely human powers, the ones that were passed down from your mother and grandmother. As humans go, they’re very strong. But they’re not like you.”

  “That’s impossible,” Rosemary told him, forcing herself to make the argument because to do otherwise was to accept the unimaginable things Caleb was telling her. “Our father wasn’t a half-demon — he was just someone who worked in finance!”

  Her protest elicited an ironic eyebrow lift. “And yet you were only too willing to believe he was an angel. You can’t have it both ways, Rosemary.”

  As much as she wanted to argue that point, deep down, she knew Caleb was right. She hadn’t made that same argument when told her father was an angel. Learning he wasn’t quite human had been unnerving, but it wasn’t the same as having to acknowledge that the same black blood flowed in her veins as the beings she and Will — and Michael and Audrey — had been fighting for the past six months.

  But something in her forced her to continue the debate. “That’s different. Not because he was an angel, but because he never claimed not to be Isabel and Celeste’s father. He’s been the same man all along — I mean, how could my father be one of you? The whole thing is impossible.”

  “Oh?”

  And before Rosemary could reply, Caleb’s appearance shifted again, this time to that of his own father. The change was so abrupt — and so frightening — that she began to launch herself from the chair where she sat, only to have his hand close on her wrist and pull her back down. As he did so, his face became his own again.

  “That’s how,” he said quietly. “Your mother had no idea the man in her bed wasn’t her husband. John McGuire traveled a lot for his job, didn’t he?”

  Mutely, Rosemary nodded. She wasn’t sure she could trust herself to speak.

  “And sometimes he came back early from those business trips?”

  Again, all she could do was nod.

  “Well, then,” Caleb said, as if he knew he’d proved his point. “One of those times when he returned sooner than expected, that wasn’t your mother’s husband. Or I guess, several of those times. I don’t have all the details. I just know that the man she was married to wasn’t your biological father.”

  This was a nightmare. No, not a nightmare, but a night terror, one of those horrible dreams where you felt as though you were immobilized and couldn’t move, couldn’t do anything except lie there helplessly as horrible visions bombarded you and every limb in your body felt as though it had turned to lead. Rosemary clung to the armchair, cold sweat trickling down the back of her neck. She wanted to argue with Caleb, only she wasn’t sure whether her protests would be of any use. Everything he’d said had sounded completely, horribly plausible.

  But still, she had to try.

  “Why my mother?” she demanded. “Why her, out of all the women in the world?”

  “Because she was so psychic,” Caleb said simply. “We — or rather, the other demons of my father’s generation — wanted to see what the child of such a pairing would be like. I guess they were kind of surprised when your mother had a girl, though. That was unexpected.”

  Somehow, Rosemary was able to force out the words past the dryness in her throat. “Because all of the Greencastle demons are male.”

  “Exactly.”

  This had all been horrible, but an even more terrible thought had begun to surface in her brain. If this was some sort of demonic eugenics experiment, then it made sense that they would have used the strongest half-demon to stand in as her father. And that would mean….

  She stared at Caleb in horror. “Is…is your father…my father?”

  To her relief, he shook his head. “No. I think the thought crossed his mind at one point, but he decided he didn’t want to be unfaithful to my mother.”

  “How noble of him,” Rosemary remarked, her tone acid. Although she was very, very glad that Caleb hadn’t turned out to be her long-lost half-brother, she wasn’t sure she entirely believed Daniel Lockwood’s reason for not being an active participant in their little breeding experiment. However, she didn’t bother to argue. Maybe Daniel had told his son that because he wanted Caleb to believe that his parents actually did care about each other. Their messed-up family dynamic was their problem, not hers.

  Because she hadn’t gotten a response to her comment, she went on, “So…who is my father?”

  Caleb smiled, a genuine one this time…or at least, a smile he wanted her to think was real. “Why don’t you come meet him for yourself?”

  “‘Come….’” Rosemary repeated, then let the word trail off as she realized what he was asking. “You want me to come to Greencastle with you?”

  “Yes.” He rose from the chair and extended a hand to her. “It’s time for you to meet the other half of your family, don’t you think?”

  Her head was swimming. Rationally, she knew she should refuse, should either keep him talking until Will showed up or, failing that, get rid of Caleb before she did something really stupid.

  But…so much of what he’d said sounded so plausible. In a way, it made far more sense than the original story the man
she thought was her father, John McGuire, had handed her, although she had to remind herself that the man she and Will had met in that Indianapolis restaurant hadn’t been John after all. Just a cambion wearing a dead man’s face, albeit one that had been cleverly aged to make it seem as if he really was the man she’d known as her father.

  “I’m not giving you the footage,” she said, and Caleb smiled, as if he’d realized the comment was a signal for her capitulation, even if she hadn’t intended it as such.

  “I’m not asking for it,” he told her. “I just want you to come with me. And you can come straight back here after you’ve met your father. Will doesn’t even have to know that you’ve gone.”

  Will. How in the world was she ever going to explain this to him? She didn’t know, but she supposed she could figure that out later. For the moment, though, she needed to get to the truth…no matter what.

  “I need to leave a note for Will,” she said, and Caleb gave the slightest lift of his shoulders.

  “Go ahead. Just don’t be too specific. You don’t want to frighten the guy.”

  No, obviously not. Rosemary sort of doubted that Caleb’s solicitude had anything to do with actual concern for Will, though. Most likely, he just didn’t want her to say anything that would send Will chasing after her. And there was no reason for that, right? Caleb had said this would be a quick trip…if she could even believe him at all. That was a pretty big “if.” On the other hand, she needed to know the truth. If there was even the smallest chance that the man who’d approached her in the restaurant in Indianapolis wasn’t an angel at all, but a half-demon cambion, then she needed to find out, needed to confront him and have him tell her to her face why he’d thought it was okay to hand his daughter so many lies.

  This could be a trap. But if that turned out to be the case, at least she was only endangering herself.

  As Caleb watched, she went over to the antique table by the door and pulled out the notepad and pen Will kept in one of the drawers. I decided to take a walk, she wrote, figuring that would explain why her car was still in the driveway. Be back soon. Love you. Then she tore the piece of paper off the pad and laid it on top of the table, and placed one of the ubiquitous books that were scattered around the house on one edge of the note so it wouldn’t get blown off by a stray breeze. That way, Will should see it the minute he walked in the door.

  “All right,” she said as she turned back toward Caleb and pulled in a breath. “Let’s go.”

  Chapter 2

  Will held back an ungodly curse as he glared at the line of cars in front of him. Usually, the drive from All Saints Church in Old Town Pasadena to his house in the Bungalow Heaven section of town took him fifteen minutes at the most. This afternoon, though, there had been an accident on Orange Grove Avenue, his usual route home. And although he knew the area well and had decided to drop down to Villa Avenue to head east that way, apparently all the other Thursday afternoon commuters had decided to do the same thing, and traffic on the residential street was bumper-to-bumper, probably no better than the traffic on the eastbound 210 Freeway less than half a mile away.

  Even though he’d only told Rosemary that he’d be home somewhere a little after five and therefore didn’t have a hard-and-fast deadline for his arrival, he hated the thought of being late with no explanation. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and pressed her entry on his contacts list. Her cell phone rang and rang, and then went to voicemail.

  Hey, it’s Rosemary. I really want to talk, but something else has me tied up right now. Leave me a message, and I’ll call you as soon as I can.

  It felt a little foolish for him to leave a voicemail when he’d probably be home in about ten minutes or so, but he went ahead and did it anyway.

  “Hi, Rosemary. I’m stuck in traffic, but I should be home by five-thirty…I hope. Just wanted to let you know so you wouldn’t worry. Love you.”

  He ended the call there and slipped the phone back in his pocket. It still felt new and a little strange to be declaring his love so openly, but they’d both said “I love you” several times to each other by that point, so he didn’t see why he should dance around the issue. After all, he did love her, more than he’d ever thought he could love someone. She was bright and strong and lovely, and something that had been sorely missing from his life.

  As to why she hadn’t answered her phone, well, he supposed there were any number of reasons for that. She could have gone out to collect the mail — it was delivered very late in the afternoon in his neighborhood — or she could have been in the bathroom, or next door at his neighbor Lucille’s. The two women had hit it off right away, even though more than forty years separated their ages. Will suspected some of the attraction could have been Lucille’s dogs, a pair of lively little terrier mixes, but he was glad of the women’s acquaintance nonetheless. It made Rosemary feel even more connected to his life, to the world he’d built around himself over the past decade. He was profoundly grateful that she’d chosen to be a part of it.

  He finally pulled into the driveway and saw Rosemary’s little pale green Fiat parked up close to the garage. Clearly, she hadn’t run out to the grocery store or gone on some other errand. Then again, he didn’t see why she would have, since they’d already discussed going grocery shopping together, as the cupboards were starting to look a little bare.

  Well, he supposed he’d figure it out soon enough. He parked behind her Fiat, then got out of the vintage Dodge Challenger that was his daily ride and locked it behind him. Satchel with his work papers slung over one shoulder, he went to the front door and let himself in.

  “Rosemary!” he called out, figuring she must be back in the kitchen, or maybe in the small bedroom he used as an office.

  Only silence met his greeting, however, and he found himself frowning. He supposed she could also be out in the backyard, although it was getting on toward dusk, and the day had been just cool enough that it wouldn’t have been all that comfortable to sit outside for any length of time.

  Even so, he set his satchel down on the dining room table and went through the kitchen and out the back door, then paused on the stoop to take a quick look around. The backyard was as empty as the house, though, and he found his frown deepening. There was no point in calling her name again; the yard wasn’t big enough that she could have been out of eyeshot somewhere.

  He went back inside and glanced at the refrigerator, thinking that maybe she’d attached a note with one of the magnets on the door. However, he didn’t see anything, so he went back through the house, checking all the likely places where she might have also left a note — the dining room table, the little table by the door, even his desk back in the office. Every surface was bare, or at least, bare of notes, since the usual pleasant clutter of books and magazines kept things from being completely tidy.

  Even though he had a feeling it would be a wasted effort, he got out his phone again and tried making another call. Just like the time before, it went straight to voicemail. Wherever Rosemary was, either the reception wasn’t good, or she’d turned off her phone altogether. That didn’t sound like her, though. With everything they’d been through together, she’d made a point of keeping her phone on and fully charged so there wouldn’t be any issue with getting through to her. And although Southern California had pockets of bad reception just like every other region of the world, Pasadena certainly didn’t have many of them.

  Unease began to tighten the muscles in his shoulders and neck, although Will tried to tell himself there had to be a perfectly logical reason why Rosemary was currently unreachable. He pushed aside his worry as best he could, and decided to go next door and ask Lucille if she’d seen Rosemary anywhere. For all he knew, she was there with Lucille now, and hadn’t heard her phone because they were playing with the dogs in the backyard.

  The mental image was reassuring enough that he felt himself relax slightly. He slipped his phone back into his pocket and went outside, although he didn’t bother to lock up the
house since he was only going next door. The evening breeze was cool and ever so slightly damp, a sign that the winds had shifted and were once again coming in from the ocean. If the weather held like this, they’d have a cool Halloween.

  Lucille Atkinson’s house wasn’t so very different from his, a smallish Craftsman-style home built around the turn of the last century. Unlike his home’s more sedate paint scheme of cream and dark green, though, her place was a cheerful pink with accents of burgundy and white and deep blue. The flowers that bordered the front walk were also pink and burgundy and white, echoing the colors of the house. Usually, he found himself smiling whenever he looked at that pink house, but right then, he couldn’t quite summon a smile. Yes, it was probably likely that Rosemary was over here…but what if she wasn’t?

  Will mounted the steps to the front porch and then rang the doorbell. At once, dogs began barking inside, sharp little yelps that were borderline yappy but not quite. A moment later, the door opened, and Lucille blinked up at him. She was in her middle seventies, with some of the thickest, snowiest-white hair he’d seen outside an actress playing Mrs. Claus. Her features were still delicate and pretty. Actually, the person she reminded him most of was that old silent movie actress, Lillian Gish.

  “Will!” Lucille exclaimed, looking a bit startled. “What can I do for you?”

  “Is Rosemary here?” he asked, and did his best not to peer past her into the depths of the house to see if he could catch a glimpse of the woman in question.

  “‘Rosemary’?” Lucille repeated, clearly surprised. At her feet, her two terrier mixes, Daisy and Rosie, milled about, tails wagging, their barks silenced now that they knew who was at the door. “No, I haven’t seen her at all today.”

  Damn it. If she wasn’t here, then where in the world could she be?

  “Is there anything wrong?” Lucille asked then. Obviously, she’d seen some kind of shift in his expression, something that told her he was worried by her reply.