Mixed Blood

Chapter 17

Rhia loved the sand. It's coarse and rough, and it got right between her toes. The way it buffed out the cracks and patches of dry skin on her heels was therapeutic. A poor girl's pedicure, as she used to call it back in the day. She laughed at the thought. Back in the day of less than one whole year ago.

God, it felt so long. So long since she lived in blissful ignorance of her true identity. When she believed... when she was human.

She never thought she'd think back fondly on those days now that she knew the truth. Hindsight being twenty-twenty, she now saw that a lot of the questionable things Richard did was to control her actions and keep her on track for the Entity Program. From whom she was allowed to hang out with, what activities she could do after school, what she was allowed to do with her own brother... dating Church.

She had been so excited to finally be with someone that Richard and Madeline and Maddox all approved of at the same time. It was the first time that Mark didn't sneer at her every time he saw her. It was the closest she had ever been to her family. Even Richard.

What a horrifying thought.

Rhia buried her hands deeper, taking fistfuls of the damp sand, and rubbed it between her palms in a slow, methodical motion. The sand was right here, right now, just like she was. Looking back on the past never got her anywhere. That's how she always got in trouble. That's how she ended up in that habit of endless drinking after Nolan disappeared.

Here and now. The past didn't matter, because she couldn't change it. All she could do is look forward for the best outcome. Nolan was alive. That's all that mattered...

So why did it feel like no one else cared?

Three days had passed since meeting Priya the mimic. Or... as the Organization called her, Entity Sierra. For three days, Bastian and Atticus got her settled in a heavily secured safe house. She was technically a prisoner, but they needed to show her that they meant her no harm. They talked to her every day, but not so much as to overwhelm her again, and she was allowed to continue taking her medication under their supervision. A large sample had been sent to a trusted lab for testing and reverse engineering.

They refused to mention Nolan again. They kept saying that she probably didn't know anything. Rhia could have accepted that answer, but why wouldn't they just try?

To take her mind off it, she called her mother. Madeline decided she was going to stay in L.A for a while. She told Rhia that she hadn't realized how much she missed being back home and at her studio. So, she was going back to her old life full of art and teaching.

Nova was going back to Europe, though. The last time Maddox checked in, it was from a payphone in Spain, so he was probably still there somewhere. She wanted to at least be on the right continent when... if... he came back. She was also going to be stepping up to help Val in her training as a Lord of the Counsel, which freed up some of Atticus's time to focus on Priya and the Organization.

Speaking of Val, of all the people, she hadn't expected such a cold conversation from her or Cameron. She knew they were under tremendous pressure and stress, having so recently learned what Nolan truly was as well as trying to fix a crumbling kingdom, but... maybe she shouldn't have pushed so hard to talk to Aarón Guerrero...

Here. And. Now.

Rhia squeezed her eyes shut and tried not to think about the werewolf king... or Raphael Laurent... or Danika Schell, wherever that traitorous little bitch had run off to.

It. Didn't. Matter. What's done, was done.

She felt his presence long before she opened her eyes to look at him. If there was one thing she had learned in the last year, it was to recognize the dragon's way of announcing themselves by magic before coming into range of sight or sound.