Darlings of Paranormal Romance (Anthology) (223 page)

“
Good.” Reluctantly, he
handed me a paper and stood.

“
What’s this?”

He turned away, his hesitance made my
mouth dry. “Delmari.”

I scowled and looked at the letter.
“Of all the sick jokes—”

Delmari
Aiken,
the name practically blared. I
swallowed back the pain stinging my throat. “W-Where’d you get
this?”

“
From the desk
upstairs.”

“
M-Maybe it’s just
a...”

He reached back and handed me what
appeared to be a utility bill. Again, Delmari’s name was printed in
bold black letters.

“
Coincidence?”

Now I really couldn’t breathe. Or
talk.

“
Have you been here
before?” He motioned around the room. “Do you recognize
anything?”

I stared blankly, shaking my
head.

He stood and took a few steps toward
the wall. A dusty old crib sat in a corner along with a rocking
chair. He ran his finger over it. “Maybe you lived here as a
baby.”

“
No.” My voice sounded
barely audible. “We’ve only lived in one house. The one that
burned.”

Aiden grabbed a picture off the
dresser. He wiped the glass with the bottom of his shirt and looked
beyond the little gold frame. “Is this the girl from…” He turned
the picture so I could see it.

My eyes widened, and I crossed the
room, yanking it away from him. “Yeah, th-that’s her.”

“
You’ve never seen her
before?”

“
No. He must’ve been her
Kember before he was transferred to me.”

“
Something like that.”
Aiden fell quiet, leaving the crackling fire as the only sound. He
held another one, his expression weary, his body stiff.

Stepping forward, I peered down at the
photo. The frame I held clattered to the floor.

Delmari.

He smiled. The smile I loved—the face
I yearned to see. I lost all feeling in my legs and sank to the
floor. My breath caught in my throat. A sharp pain squeezed my
chest. How could I have left him? Why hadn’t I tried harder to help
him? I bit the inside of my cheek, trying to get rid of all the
heart-wrenching guilt.

“
What
does your mom look like?” Aiden crouched across from me and angled
the picture so I could see it. For the first time, I noticed the
girl in the picture with Delmari—
with
him. He held her and she was
snuggled against him holding a
baby
.

I swallowed hard, unable to tear my
eyes from the photo. “I, uh… I don’t remember. I’ve never actually
seen her, to tell you the truth.” Realization dawned on me, and I
immediately shook my head. “I know what you’re thinking and no,
Delmari didn’t know my mom.”

“
You’re sure?”

“
Positive. I asked him a
billion times. He didn’t know her. This had to have been another
chick.”

He tapped the glass. “Another girl
with his baby?”

My jaw dropped. What an accusation.
“Remember how freaky life-sucker killed her? That girl’s a Drea.
Not a Kember. Therefore, her baby, not his.”

“
They’re both really young
here. I’ll bet he was assigned to her right after he graduated.
What if he—what if they…” He stared at me, mouth open, but it took
a moment before the words formed. “He’s holding her. He wouldn’t be
doing that for any other reason.”

“
They
didn’t do anything. This’s
Delmari we’re talking about. Staunch rule-following Delmari.
Besides, you know as well as I do, Dreas and Kembers
can’t—
don’t
—get
together, let alone have a
baby
.”

“
How do
you know? Kembers and Dreas don’t overstep that boundary, but what
if
they
did? He
was this girl’s Kember. I’m sure of it and I’m almost positive this
is his baby.”

I narrowed my eyes and leaned back
against the log bed frame. “He would’ve told me if he had a
daughter.”

“
Unless this baby was
you.”

I laughed nervously, wiping my sweaty
palms on my jeans. “I’d know if this was me. Delmari wasn’t my
father. He—he would’ve told me.”

“
Delmari was assigned to
you when you were a baby. He treated and raised you exactly like he
would his own daughter—”

“
Maybe because this baby
died, and he filled that hole by taking me and treating me the same
way he did her.”

“
Or maybe
you were his baby.” He raked his hand through his hair. “You have
similar features. You act
just
like him. Plus, why else would you be seeing this
girl if she wasn’t your mother?”

I exhaled. She wasn’t my mom and I
wasn’t his baby. How many times was I going to have to explain
myself? “I have no idea, but you’re wrong.”

Aiden shook his head, looking haughty
and frustrated. Flipping the frame over, he slid the picture out
and read the back. He lifted his eyes to mine.

I jerked
it away from him and read the back as well.
Delmari, Aileen and Taylee. April 1, 1993.

Chapter 19

My heart hammered. I wanted to
yell—no, scream—but my voice only allowed a whisper. “That’s
impossible. Delmari said he didn’t know my mom.”

Aiden shifted uncomfortably. “I think
Delmari loved your mom. And when she…died, that left the two of
you. Luckily, you needed protection, too.”

My mind
refused to process it even though the evidence stared me in the
face. This girl was my mom. That would mean Delmari was
my…
dad
? Could that
be right? I looked at the picture in disbelief. No, it couldn’t
be.

“
Maybe it was another
Taylee and Aileen.” I realized how stupid I sounded.

“
Do you always deny what’s
in front of you?”

The first vision rushed back to me:
the girl running through the forest from those Rygons. She died.
Where was Delmari? With me?

Delmari told me the Authority assigned
him to me just after I turned three months old. My mother died,
shortly before and my father apparently ran off. He told me he
didn’t know who my mom was or any information about her, when he
would’ve been the best source.

Suddenly, it all started sinking
in.

“
Oh
shit.” I tried to laugh, but it came out a frantic, jagged breath.
The pain in my chest intensified and I dropped to the floor,
wrapping my arms around myself. The Kember’s words hit me hard,
like he said them all over again.
If
Delmari was such a good man, why didn’t he tell you who your father
was? Why didn’t he speak of your mother or let you see a picture of
her? Every word out of his mouth was a lie.

All those
times Delmari and I searched for information on my parents. Every
time I asked a question, hoping he’d
possibly
know. Deep down, maybe I
always knew he did. Funny how complete confidence in someone could
blind you beyond reason. Everything I’d ever known, everything he’d
ever told me
was
a
lie.

I clutched the picture in my hand,
feeling the smooth texture crinkle beneath my fingers.

“
You okay?” Aiden
asked.

I nodded, hot, angry tears welling in
my eyes. I swallowed past the lump in my throat, refusing to meet
his gaze. I couldn’t talk. I could barely breathe. Every day for
seventeen years, Delmari looked me in the eyes and lied to me.
Actually lied—to me!

I felt like I’d been abandoned in a
foreign country. Nothing made sense. I didn’t know which direction
would lead me where. Everything appeared and sounded different. Who
could I trust? Who was on my side?

“
Why don’t you get off the
floor?” Aiden held out his hand.

My head ached. I stared at his palm,
feeling like I’d lost all comprehension.

“
You have every right to be
upset but we’re going to figure this out.”

Figure out what? Delmari had been the
only thing right in my life. My rock. My savior. Now? Now, I didn’t
even know what to think.

I wanted
to know, understand why Delmari kept this from me. Too late. A tear
rolled down my cheek and I quickly wiped it. He’d raised me like a
daughter. He’d given me his unconditional love. Sometimes I
wondered why he tolerated me. Why
I
was his weakness. Now I knew.

“
It’s better than the
alternative, isn’t it? You thought your father deserted you. You
wondered who he was. At least now you know he loved you and
cared.”

“
Don’t
you
dare
take his
side!” My words sounded venomous. I sat on the bed, legs crossed,
with Aiden next to me. “If he’d loved me, if he really
cared,
he would’ve told
me.”

“
Taylee, he
probably—“

“
Will you stop?” I kicked
my legs over the side of the bed, I stormed toward the
door.

Aiden was faster and a lot more
stable. He stood, blocking my exit. “I’m not taking his side. I’m
trying to get you to understand—”

“
That he’s a fucking
liar?”

“
That he
did what he thought was best for you.” A flash of anger stirred
behind his suddenly dark eyes. “Can you
imagine
if someone would’ve found
out? Have you even paused to think about the severity behind this?
If you spent as much time and energy trying to find reason as you
did acting irrational, you may have a different outlook on
things.”

I clenched my fists and gritted my
teeth. “Irrational? How am I being irrational about this?
He-He—”

“
Lied. I get it.” His eyes
softened and he lowered his face down closer to mine. “But you know
what? Delmari was human—he wasn’t perfect. It doesn’t mean he loved
you any less. He made every decision with your best interest in
mind. I honestly believe that. If he didn’t tell you about him and
Aileen, you better believe there’s a good reason.”

I
realized then how much a part of me
needed
to stay mad at Delmari. I
didn’t want to be sad. I didn’t want to miss him. I didn’t even
want to think about him. Every time I did, my chest ached and a
nauseous feeling crept in my stomach. It hurt so,
so
bad. I bit my
quivering lip; treacherous tears filled my eyes. Spinning on my
heel, I turned away from Aiden and dropped onto the bed. Within
seconds, the dam I’d worked so hard to build broke, releasing two
months of pent-up tears.

I wiped at the stream pouring from my
eyes, but it just kept coming and coming. My body shook, and I
failed to hold back the sobs. My throat felt sore and tight. I
didn’t even know which issue I was crying over. Leaving Delmari to
die? Missing him? His betrayal? Maybe all three.

After my tears finally calmed, Aiden
walked over and sat next to me. He kept his eyes cast away from my
face, like he knew I’d only beat myself up more for crying in front
of him. He waited patiently while I mulled things over and tried to
make sense of everything.

I’d never appreciated his silence or
chivalry more than in that moment. I was beginning to think he
understood me more than I did.

“
I thought Kembers and
Dreas couldn’t have babies together.” I wiped my cheeks and glared
at the wall. “What’s up with that? Delmari said… ” I closed my
eyes, realizing for the first time, I couldn’t believe what Delmari
told me. He’d probably been covering his own ass.

“
I’ve never heard of it.
It’s not…natural, I guess. Not to mention that they don’t really
get the chance. Female Kembers guard female Dreas. Male Kembers
guard male Dreas. It’s not very common they get mixed.”

“
So why did
they?”

“
Sometimes there’s a
shortage in female Kembers. Then they don’t have a choice. Others,
like in your mom’s case, request certain Kembers”

“
Yeah,
then they get together, make babies, lie about it and
die
. Easy and fun for
them, but sucks for the ones who get left behind.” I pulled my
knees to my chest and wrapped my arms tightly around them. “Why did
he lie? Didn’t he think I could handle the
truth?”

“
Your
father was a Kember and your mother was a Drea. He probably didn’t
know how or
if
the
race mix would affect you. The last thing he wanted was for someone
to find out you weren’t normal.”

“
But
I
am
normal.”

“
Yes.” He paused. “For the
most part. I have noticed, aside from the physical ability, you
have all the characteristics of a Kember. Every one.”

“
Maybe Delmari rubbed off
on me.”