Gotta Have Faith Page 6

  Derrick stopped short just behind him, his eyes scanning the room before realization glimmered in them. He directed his gaze at Brock, and it wasn’t a “hey, how ya settling in?” kind of gaze. It was an “I’m going to rip you limb from limb” look of sheer destruction.

  His son’s face was a mask of pure fury. Pushing his way past Max, Derrick grabbed Brock up by his sweater and hauled him off his feet. Brock was helpless to stop him due to his son’s strength. “I will kill you, you sonofabitch! No one takes advantage of my mother, you got that?”

  Faith grabbed Derrick’s arm and yanked it hard, jolting Brock, whose feet dangled. “Let him go, Derrick! He’s—”

  A screech so ear piercing, so abrasive, tore through the air, effectively cutting off Faith’s protest.

  And then, all hell broke loose.

  Derrick dropped Brock just as Avery’s windows imploded, glass scattering everywhere, the walls of her room cracking, swelling, before sheetrock blew outward at them.

  Brock reacted in the best way he knew how as a human. He grabbed Faith and his sons and threw himself in front of them, shoving them to a corner to protect them from the debris, and barking orders. “Take your mother and get the hell out of here!”

  He didn’t wait to see if they obeyed. Instead he turned to face the music, knowing in the pit of his stomach what was next.

  Then the thunder came, loud rumbles that shook the house and rattled his bones. White streaks of lightning crackled in the freezing air as snow swirled in fat clusters of white.

  That was the moment Lorelei appeared, hovering just outside the second-story window of his house, her eyes wild, her lips a tight line of rage.

  Wearing a bikini.

  An orange and purple bikini. Huh.

  But oh, shit. The time for reckoning had come. He’d made a deal, and he’d broken it, and it wouldn’t matter that she’d broken her end of the bargain first. Not by the look on her face.

  Lorelei’s gaze zeroed in on Brock, the lightning highlighting her sharp features, and then she opened her mouth wide and breathed a long stream of harsh red-and-orange fire directly at him.

  Holy mother of Satan’s daughter, now look what you’ve done! I told you, Brock. I told you over and over. Did you listen? Nah. Did you once consider I might know a little something about Lorelei and her hag-ass sisters and how they operate? Um, nope. And now look who’s come to dinner for all that stew you couldn’t shut up about. Thanks for the memories, BFF!

  Chapter Seven

  Brock managed to dive for cover behind the canopied bed, but the crackle of fire was right at his heels, forcing him over top of the headboard.

  But he lost his focus when he heard Faith scream, “Brock!”

  Her scream was followed by his sons yelping, “Dad?”

  Brock didn’t have time to dissect how Faith knew it was him.

  She knew. He didn’t care how, he just cared that she did.

  “Get her out of here!” he roared to his boys over the crashing thunder. “Go!”

  “The hell!” Derrick hollered, backed up by Max, who shoved Faith out the door and slammed it shut.

  Pride swelled in his chest, but only for a moment. He was no match for Lorelei, and neither were Max and Derrick. They had brute strength on their side, but they didn’t have the kind of powerful magic Lorelei and her sisters did.

  “Boys, get the hell out! She wants me. You’re no match for her! Go!” He roared the demand. “Go now. Protect your mother!”

  But neither of them budged. In fact, Max pushed himself harder against the door to keep Faith and her pounding at bay. “Mom!” he roared. “Get Martine now! We need help!”

  “Lorelei!” a disembodied voice screamed, seething with rage. “Don’t you dare!”

  Oh, Jesus’s underpants, Brock, what the hell have you done? Darius is on of the the biggest ball-busters in the land. She’s going to kill everything in her path. Duck! Hit the panic button! Run! Hide! DEFCON—DEFCON!

  Darius? He’d only heard rumors about Lorelei’s sisters, all provided by Winston of course. But if what he’d said was true, Darius was, indeed, one of the three baddest bitches in the land.

  Yet, Lorelei ignored Darius’s warning. Flashing her violet eyes at Brock, her hair a streaming ribbon of gold behind her as the wind roared and howled, swirling in a cyclone of motion, she lifted her arms high.

  Brock launched himself from the bed when a blindingly white stream of lightning speared through the air and headed for his sons. He landed directly in front of Derrick and Max, pushing his body against theirs as much as he could. “Lorelei, leave them alone or I’ll find a way to make you pay!”

  Her laughter filled the air, throaty and harsh, taunting him, almost telling him without words he was no match for her.

  But Darius swooped in behind her, and she wasn’t nearly as ugly as Winston had claimed; in fact, she looked really pretty knocking into Lorelei, who landed on her knees on the bedroom floor. “Knock it off, Lorelei!” she bellowed.

  The room went still at Darius’s reprimand, save for pieces of sheetrock slamming to the floor and snow piling up in drifts, blowing in from the gaping hole in the wall where the windows had once been.

  Darius flicked Lorelei in the head, frowning down at her before grabbing her hand and yanking her upward. “You idiot, get up! What the hell do you think you’re doing, Lorelei?”

  Lorelei stumbled to her feet while Brock, Derrick and Max stood, cautiously waiting this out. But Brock kept his arms outspread to protect them. “What’s going on?” he demanded.

  Darius made a face and wrinkled her not-hag-like-at-all nose. “Why don’t you ask Bumbling Witch Walking? Go on, Lorelei, tell him what happened.”

  Lorelei pouted, hiking up her bikini top. “You said I had to right my wrong. Why are you and Marielle always on my back? I said I’d right it. He broke our agreement, and I’m here to take him out!”

  Darius rolled her own pair of violet eyes and tucked a curl of blonde hair behind her ear. “I did not say you had to right a wrong. I said you were wrong, Lorelei! And then suddenly, you were gone. Right in the middle of the one margarita I allow myself per day. And still in your bikini, no less. Your lack of impulse control is astounding. Had you listened, this lovely house wouldn’t look like a wrecking ball tore through it! If you’d just take those damn earplugs out of your ears and quit listening to that Iggy Aztec—”

  “Azalea,” Lorelei spat defensively, plopping her hands on her hips. “And I’m sorry, okay? I had a little too much to drink today.”

  Darius threw up a robed arm, the words Property of Bora Bora Four Seasons printed on the shoulder. “Aztec, Azalea, rama-lama-ding-dong. Whatever! The point is, you do not listen. You could have killed this man and his family, Lorelei. First, young lady, you owe them an enormous apology, and then I’ll explain, because Merlin knows, you shouldn’t be allowed to speak for the next one hundred years! Now apologize. This instant.”

  “Brock! Let me the hell in!” Faith yelled once more from outside the door, banging against it and making the wood buckle.

  “Brock, it’s Martine! Let us in. I can help!”

  Derrick reached around him to open the door, his eyes still wide with wonder. He let both Martine and Faith in, pulling his mate to his side.

  Faith squeezed between them all to come out the other side with fire in her voice and a confrontational stance. “Who are you and what the hell do you want with my husband?”

  But Brock grabbed her around the waist and tucked her to him with a smile. “Whoa, tiger. This is Lorelei and her sister Darius. Darius was just telling us there’s been some kind of misunderstanding.”

  Darius nodded her sleek blonde head. “Yes. An enormous misunderstanding. But first, that apology.” She looked to Lorelei, who had grown quiet and sulky, with parental eyes.

  Sighing, Lorelei addressed Brock, her chin stuck out in defiance. “I’m sorry I stole your immortality and said I could break the curse your family’s under if
you pretended to be dead. I was just trying to make my sisters happy by paying back those whacked werewolf elders on your council for what they did to our mother, which is apparently impossible because nothing I do makes them happy. Oh, and I’m really sorry for locking you away like that for five years. Oh! And also the crappy food. I tried to summon up better meals, but it was hard being so far away. I think I have a glitch in my meal summoner.”

  Brock’s mouth fell open, but no words came out.

  Darius’s finger shot up. “That’s not true, Lorelei, and you know it. Marielle and I love you more than you’ll ever know. It’s not that you don’t make us happy. It’s your out-of-control behavior. Now, you,” she pointed to the bed, “sit, and don’t speak another word. We’ll talk about your punishment after I beg Brock for mercy.”

  Faith gripped his waist while he cocked his head. “Beg for my mercy?”

  Darius moved toward them, her bare feet crunching over the shattered glass as if nothing but carpet lay beneath them. “Okay, so here’s what happened. Your council of werewolves—the very council who cast this dreadful curse upon you—is also responsible for killing our mother. She helped those of your pack who’d been experimented on, and as a result, they hung her and staked her in the heart to ensure her soul would never return. It’s not a secret our hatred for them runs deep.”

  Jesus. “I’m sorry, Darius. You weren’t the only people who lost friends and family, according to my mother and father. But we didn’t have anything to do with your mother’s—”

  Darius’s hand flew up again. “Oh, we know that, Brock. No one blames you. Nonetheless, you know the coup it would be for us to break the curse your council elders placed on your children, don’t you? Our revenge would be delicious, to say the least. No one wants those outdated fools to pay more than my sisters and I do.”

  “That was my understanding, which was why I researched Lorelei and went to her and offered my immortality. Because legend said it was the only way to break the curse.”

  Faith gasped, along with Derrick and Max, but Brock quieted them by continuing. “It took me years to find that one small lead. So I set out to find Lorelei. She is the most powerful witch, isn’t she? In truth, she didn’t do anything I didn’t ask her to.”

  Darius shook her head and gave an ironic chuckle. “Wellll, that’s not exactly true. First of all, that lead you found was recorded improperly. Lorelei is not the most powerful witch. I am. In our coven, anyway. Damn those idiot historians, huh? I dated one and he was overzealous in his musings about me, I suppose. Secondly, yes, giving up your immortality and remaining imprisoned is certainly a way to break the curse, and Lorelei did speak the truth when she told you as much. There’s just one problem.”

  Now he was angry. Here was this witch, aka One of The Most Powerful Witches Ever, making her sister apologize to him after keeping him hostage for five long years for nothing? All he was going to get was an apology? “You know what the problem is, don’t you? The problem is my sons are still cursed!”

  Darius made a sheepish face, tightening the belt on her robe. “Right. About that. It all leads back to Lorelei not listening.” She shot a glare at Lorelei before returning her gaze to them. “Firstly, we would have never asked for the kind of sacrifice the curse requires. Not without deep consultation with you. We’re good witches, Brock. Giving up your immortality isn’t something we’d ask of a man whose family worked toward the same goal our mother did. She wanted to help those werewolves just like your mother and father. And we surely wouldn’t do it without permission from your family. Losing your immortality affects them as much as it does you.”

  Brock shook his head. “But I heard Lorelei bragging to her familiar about how she’d pulled one over on me, and now you want me to believe this is some big misunderstanding?”

  Lorelei held up a finger, her eyes full of denial. “I did not say that! I’ve done plenty of stupid things where you’re concerned, but you must have misheard me. I told my familiar I never meant to pull one over on you. You really need your werewolf ears back.”

  “Seven hells, Lorelei. What a mess!” Darius sighed.

  “No kidding.” Derrick spat the scathing retort.

  Darius sighed, her eyes full of regret. “I’m sorry…Derrick, is it? And Max, right? I can’t tell you how sorry I am. Lorelei was only trying to impress us by exacting revenge on a centuries-old hurt. We didn’t even know about you, Brock, until she’d had one Sex on the Beach too many and told us everything. I know that’s absolutely no excuse, and I can promise you, she’ll be punished accordingly.”

  Now Brock held up a hand. “Go back to the part about Lorelei not listening. Please,” he managed to grit out.

  “She did take your immortality, that’s true, but she didn’t finish the spell, Brock. Because why, Lorelei?”

  Lorelei rolled her beautiful violet eyes. “I don’t listen.”

  “That’s right!” Darius declared. “In essence, she screwed up the spell. She messed up a crucial ingredient. It wasn’t the tears of a Dutch maiden she needed to finish breaking the curse.”

  Lorelei hopped off the bed, her long legs carrying her. “Do you have any idea how hard it was to find a Dutch maiden and make her cry? Holland is full of broads who are tough as nails. It took me a solid week!”

  “Argh!” Darius roared. “Sit, young lady! It’s not the tears of a Dutch maiden. It’s the touch of a man named Aiden, mixed with his tears! You know, Aiden the almighty warlock, who, by the way, is long dead?”

  Lorelei frowned, squeezing her temples. “Ohhh, damn. Could’ve sworn I read that right. I don’t know, it’s all sort of a jumble now. It was a long time ago.”

  “Five damn years!” Max thundered, his blue eyes hard like chips of ice.

  But Darius confronted him directly in a soothing tone. “Yes, five years, Max. Five years that you were without your father and you, Faith, were without your husband. Five years Brock was left to rot in the basement of our old family home in Albuquerque. We almost never go back there because…well, because of the memories of our mother. It’s too hard. To leave you in that basement for all those years…”

  “The book said I had to keep him my prisoner forever. Or something like that.” Lorelei defended herself, then she glanced up at Darius and winced. “Oh hell. Did I get that part wrong, too?”

  Darius popped her lips in disapproval. “Um, yeah. You didn’t have to keep him your prisoner forever. You were supposed to keep his immortality locked in the keep forever.”

  Disbelief washed over Brock in waves as Faith tightened her grip on his waist and his sons rested their strong hands on his shoulders.

  “But never mind our woes, this disaster is on us and we’ll do whatever we can to rectify it. But I’m begging you, Brock, please don’t take it out on Lorelei. If you go to your council, they’ll kill her. She was only trying to please Marielle and me by proving she was as powerful as us. It was impulsive and reckless. I know it was misguided and horribly wrong, but we can fix this, if you’ll let us.”

  Brock felt as if he’d been punched in the chest, but there was relief, too. Relief that sunk into his bones and left him almost weak. “No more revenge.”

  “Dad!” Derrick yelled. “She can’t just get away with making us think you’d up and left us for all these years! Do you have any idea how hard that was on Mom? On us?”

  “And don’t think for one second I’m not going to watch you like a hawk, lady!” Martine chimed in. “I’m no slouch in the witch department myself. If you’re lying, I’ll hunt you down.”

  Brock turned to Martine and his son, the son he’d missed so much, the son he’d known would take his leaving the hardest, and shook his head. “Derrick, Martine, no. No more revenge. I won’t have that be my legacy as pack leader. I understand how angry you must have been. How hurtful this was for your mother, but I did start this. I was determined to break this damn curse, and nothing could have stopped me from keeping you two from something so awful. Now, thi
s was a mistake. A huge mistake, but I won’t allow this to go on. This isn’t yours to decide, anyway, and I need you to understand that. Please.”

  Derrick opened his mouth with what Brock thought was going to be a protest, but turned out to be a hoarse sentence. “I can’t believe you gave up your immortality for us. You did this,” he waved his hand up and down the length of Brock’s body, “for us.

  Brock looked first him then Max in the eye, his throat tight. “I’d do anything for you two, son. Anything.”

  Derrick’s swallow was visible when he grabbed his father and pulled him into a hard hug, thumping him on the back. Max wrapped his arm around Brock’s neck and squeezed. “Damn good to have you home, Dad.”

  Home.

  He was finally home.

  * * *

  Faith wriggled in between the men in her life, clenching her eyes tight to fight off the sobs of relief, the years of fear and worry.

  “I can fix this, Brock. Please let us,” Darius said from behind them, her voice soft and choked.

  Lifting his head, Brock took a deep breath and nodded. “You can turn me back into a werewolf?”

  Darius’s smile was warm. “I can, and I will, and I don’t know how you managed to cloak yourself—”

  Brock’s bark of laughter interrupted her. “I dug out some of your old spell books in that mansion of yours once I got loose, and somehow I figured it out. It was the only way I could come back and find out what happened.”

  “How did you know the curse wasn’t broken?” Faith asked him, snuggling as close as possible to his side.

  Brock’s face went grim, but he dropped a kiss on top of her head to soothe the worry she knew was evident in her voice. “We heard Lorelei and her familiar discussing it from a vent in the ceiling of the basement.”

  “We?” Darius asked in surprise. “I thought you were all alone in the basement?”

  “Nope. I was with Winston. You know, the fairy you locked up?” Brock looked to Lorelei.

  Darius looked astonished, her pretty face confused. “Winston? I don’t know any Winst… Oh, Lorelei! You didn’t!” She slapped her hands against her thighs.