Vampire Most Wanted(29)
The next weeks had been stressful as she waited to learn whether her son had managed to drag himself off that roof on his own, or had been caught. She’d also changed carnivals at that point, moving to the Hoskins Amusements, and she’d dialed Abaddon’s number so many times she’d started to dream about dialing it. And then she’d finally got a call, not from Abaddon, but from her son. He was alive, well, and wanted to thank her for saving his life. Seriously, that’s what he’d said. Divine had flipped. All that anxiety and fear and he finally calls her up cheerful as a chimp to say thanks? Divine had demanded to know where he was and when she found out he was holed up not far from where the carnival was, she’d left at once to go see him.
Her temper hadn’t improved any once she’d arrived at the dilapidated building he’d taken shelter in. He deserved better than the holes he chose to inhabit, and she didn’t like his choice of companions either. Not the women. They were all emaciated drug addicts, every one of them high as kites, either passed out and blank-brained or so strung out their thoughts didn’t make sense when she tried to read them. She hadn’t been any more pleased to find her grandsons just as high from feeding on them. She’d ignored that at first, too intent on seeing for herself that Damian was all right to care what her grandsons got up to. Once she’d seen for herself that he was alive and well, Divine had demanded an explanation and Damian had explained that Abaddon had carried him off the roof and got him away when she’d left him there.
That last part had been said with a wounded note that suggested she’d abandoned him, and that was when Divine had let her temper rip. She’d explained in no uncertain terms that she’d left him to fetch the RV and came back to find him gone.
“Says you. You were probably off fetching the Rogue Hunters to come get Dad,” Rufus had sneered, his words slurred with the effects of the drug-soaked blood he’d consumed. Divine hadn’t even thought; she’d picked him up by the throat and thrown him up against the wall . . . only he’d gone right through it, crashing to the floor in the next room. Divine had followed to make sure he was all right, and then to warn him to watch his tongue if he didn’t want to be tongueless as well as fangless. It had been an empty threat, but effective. He’d said “Yes ma’am,” and nodded repeatedly as she’d turned and stormed out.
Damian had followed her, but when she’d asked how Lucian Argeneau had tracked him down, he’d been infuriatingly vague about the whole ordeal. He’d claimed that a couple of the boys had taken some risks they shouldn’t have and behaved stupidly, and that he’d tried to clean up their mess and got himself caught. Damian had refused to explain what those risks had been, however. He’d also avoided her eyes the whole time, which had made her suspect he was lying to her about something, though she couldn’t tell which part of the tale was a lie.
“What risks?” she’d demanded. “What stupid things did they do?”
“They’re my sons. I’ll handle it,” he’d said, refusing to explain.
Divine had let the matter go, too emotionally exhausted from weeks of worry to have the energy to fight with him. But she’d taken the time to warn him in no uncertain terms to lie low and avoid trouble for the next little while. Lucian didn’t like to lose, wouldn’t be happy about losing him, and would have his people out in force looking for him. She’d emphasized it by pounding at him until he’d assured her he’d lie low for a while.
The moment he’d made that promise, she’d mounted her motorcycle and left. Divine always came away from visits to Damian’s chosen shelters feeling slightly dirty. She blamed it on Abaddon and some of her grandsons. She had always found Abaddon loathsome, but while she disliked admitting it, some of her grandsons left her feeling the same way. As a rule they avoided her as much as possible, and were mostly quiet and polite when they couldn’t avoid her, but it didn’t matter. Divine always left worried about what they were up to and feeling like she needed a bath. It was why she didn’t go out of her way to see her son. In fact, she hadn’t seen him more than half a dozen times over the last century, and four of those times had been over the last two or three years, twice when she’d had to save him from Lucian and then had visited him after, and twice the last couple of days.