“Luckily, after a few days of sniffing around, I saw your picture in the local paper in an article related to missing persons.
That is when I knew without a doubt that Sebastian had something to do with your disappearance.
“I have traveled around America for nearly five years, seeing the sights and looking for signs of you. I found nothing so I ended up going back to Texas to try to catch up with Sebastian again. I had a feeling he would return to visit the woman and the boy eventual y, so I hung around there until he visited them again a couple of months ago. When he left, I fol owed him as far as Virginia before I lost him again.
That’s where I was when I saw the newspaper article about a rash of missing kids in South Carolina. There were a few pictures. Two of them were real y blurry, but I stil recognized you. I’d know your face anywhere.”
The smile that Annika aimed toward Bo made me distinctly uncomfortable. It hinted at a history that made me feel queasy. Bo seemed not to notice. He was too wrapped up in her story.
When it became clear that Bo wasn’t going to respond, Annika’s smile faded and a ghost-of-a-frown appeared. It looked like a tiny dent between her tawny brows.
Though it didn’t seem that he real y saw me, Bo glanced toward me before he turned back to Annika and prompted,
“And then?”
“Wel , the rest is pretty much history. I came down here and asked around until I found out where Sebastian lived and…wel , here we are.”
Narrowing his eyes first on Annika and then on Cade, Bo asked sharply, “And how did he get to be a part in al this?”
“Uh, I saw him in town a couple of days later and he recognized me from the first time I visited his mother. He’d heard that I was asking around about a man named Sebastian and mentioned that he was looking for him as wel . We sort of hit it off and decided we might make good travel companions.”
Something about her vague answer made me suspicious of what she wasn’t saying, but I thought it best to keep that to myself for the time being.
“This al sounds very…convenient, but none of it explains how you came to the conclusion that he’s my brother.”
Annika snorted. “Look at him! You two could be twins.”
Both Bo and I turned to Cade. His eyes shifted lazily between us, not the least bit ruffled by our examination.
Annika was right, though. Bo and Cade were amazingly similar, right down to the intensity that shrouded them like a thick cloak. Bo began to scowl as he inspected Cade.
I was wondering about their physical characteristics just as Annika voiced a thought that explained away the doubts I was having.
“Your mothers must have looked a lot alike, because other than your swagger and your smile, neither of you look like Sebastian.”
“Swagger? I don’t have a swagger,” Bo snapped defensively.
Annika smiled. “Then that is another thing that has changed because you used to dominate any room you walked into. You certainly got my attention.”
Although Bo ignored her flagrant flirtation, I found that I could not and it was not doing good things for my temperament. I was becoming more and more irritated by her references to their past. It was obvious that they’d shared a relationship that was more than simple friendship and even though Bo didn’t remember it, I felt increasingly threatened by it.
I reminded myself that Bo was a different person now, that he was mine and that we were divinely destined for one another. No old flame could change that. But tiny termites of doubt and insecurity began to eat away at the foundation of my confidence, eroding the faith I had in our union.
Bo’s voice brought me back to the conversation at hand.
“That stil doesn’t explain how you know he’s my brother.”
“He told me that you were his brother.”
Al eyes turned back to Cade.
“And how do you know you’re my brother?”
He shrugged offhandedly before he spoke.
“My mother used to talk a lot about my father, Sebastian.
He was basical y absent for almost my entire life. He would drop in every few years and stay for a day or two and then leave.” Cade’s upper lip curled in bitterness. “Of course she didn’t mind. He made sure of that. Even though she had no memory of it, I knew what he was doing to her. I saw him do it a couple of times. He would feed her his blood and tel her al sorts of things, things that would erase al that had happened, al that they’d talked about. But I heard him. I knew.”
“What did he say? Exactly,” Bo said evenly.
“One night I heard them talking in her bedroom. She was asking questions about his life and he was tel ing her about a son he had with another woman, a boy that he cal ed Boaz, and how that boy was trying to kil him. Of course, my mother was devastated. But me? I only wished that I could be the one to kil him.
“I hated him for what he’d done to her. It’s like he drained more and more of her life away with each visit. She got worse over time, like she was slowly going insane, and I knew it had something to do with what he was doing to her.
The last time he came, I heard him tel her that he had hoped that their child…me…would give him the blood that he needed, but that I hadn’t. He said he’d had to inject an unborn child. Said that he’d found one even better, one that might be linked to the Chosen One. He said that he had no further need of us.” Cade’s nostrils flared as he tried to contain his hatred of Sebastian. “She was dead the next morning. That’s when I found Annika.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
A hush fel over the room, as though we al mourned the death of Cade’s mother. Annika was the first to break the silence.
“So, now you know our story. Your turn. What happened?”
After a long pause, Bo sighed deeply and dropped down onto the couch beside me. Tiredly, he rubbed a hand across his face. Before I could stop myself, I reached out and pushed a stray piece of sable hair away from his cheek. He leaned back against the cushions and, without glancing in my direction, took my hand and laid it on his thigh, covering it with his own.
“Honestly, I have no idea.”
A smile flickered across Annika’s face before she realized that he was serious.
“What do you mean you have no idea?”
“Exactly that. I have no memory of my life before three years ago.”
“What?” she asked in disbelief.
“It’s true.”
Annika frowned. “Then how did you remember me?”
A pregnant silence stretched across the room as Bo struggled to find an answer. I scanned the faces, taking in Cade’s eyes, narrowed in suspicion, and Annika’s eyes as they sparked with the light of hope. When Bo glanced at me, I saw that his were fil ed with regret. My only question was: regret for what?