“Not Knox.” Betty narrowed her eyes. “So why did he agree to keep mum?”
Nix pressed her lips together. Looked like she was going to have to confess. “It’s, ah, not Knox.”
“What’s not Knox? Nix, you’re not making any sense.”
“The vamp liaison. It’s not Knox.” She stared down at her hands. “It’s Tobias.”
Betty straightened from her slouched position, her eyes wide. “Tobias! As in Tobias Caine? He’s back in town?” Her round eyes narrowed to slits. “When did that happen?”
“Two days ago. The first time I saw him was at the crime scene with Amarinda.” Nix was proud of how matter-of-fact she sounded. “She’d called him and when the council knew he was here, they appointed him temporary liaison.”
“And just knocked Knox off his beat? For the likes of Tobias Caine? Those sons of…” Betty shrugged at Nix’s grimace. “You know I’m right. Sanctimonious, arrogant… And they wonder why demons have no interest in having a seat on their precious little council.” She gulped down some wine, then pointed a slim finger toward Nix. “If you ask me, you never should have taken that job. It’s brought you nothing but trouble.”
Nix couldn’t help but stare. Betty had abandoned her as a child, had shown no interest in her until Nix had already reached her early twenties. Now all of a sudden she was giving career advice? That was more than Nix was willing to let her get away with. “I didn’t ask you.”
Betty raised her brows. “No, you didn’t,” she said in a low voice. She got out of her chair and walked into the kitchen where she poured herself more wine.
Nix turned sideways on the sofa so she could watch her mom. She couldn’t tell what Betty was thinking. Was she angry that Nix had sassed her? Or was she sad, regretting the time she’d lost with her daughter?
With her back to Nix her mother said, “Demons didn’t do this.” She turned. Her expression gave away none of her thoughts, nor did her even tones. “If we had, you wouldn’t be here asking the question. You’d know.”
Which was exactly what Nix had told the council. But she needed to be sure. “So Luc didn’t sanction a blood feud?”
Betty swirled the wine in her glass. “As much as most of us hate vampires and might want to see as many of them dead as possible, we’re not stupid enough to slaughter them and leave their bodies out in the open.”
Nix was well aware that most demons did hate vampires, Betty included. It was something ingrained in them from birth, almost on a genetic level. As a teenager Nix had forced herself to overcome her innate hostility toward vampires. Maybe that was one of the things that drew her to Tobias early on, the chance to prove to herself that she’d mastered her prejudice.
On the few occasions Betty had been around when Nix and Tobias were dating, she hadn’t tried to hide her animosity. That Tobias insisted on calling her Sheena of the Seventh Circle didn’t help. That he then went on to break her daughter’s heart merely solidified her already low opinion of him. The loyalty Betty had shown toward Nix at first had made her feel better regarding her relationship to her mother, until she’d realized Betty was mostly just choosing to side with her own kind rather than with a hated vamp.
Nix realized her mother hadn’t answered her question, not really. “So you’re telling me Luc hasn’t sanctioned an official blood feud?”
Jaw tight, eyes flaring with demon yellow, Betty slammed her wineglass onto the kitchen island. “Don’t you dare treat me like one of your suspects. I am your mother.”
They’d had versions of this argument before, and Nix wasn’t going to back down. “You’re my mother because you gave birth to me. Otherwise, look at us. You can barely bring yourself to be affectionate with me, and you want me to treat you like…what? Like we have this wonderful mother-daughter relationship?” Nix stood. She stared for a moment at the flames on the biggest candle and tried to rein in her anger. She looked at her mother again. “We don’t. Just where were you when I was being raised by a woman who hated me? Who blamed me for her son’s death? Blamed me. Not you, the one who actually killed him.” Fire roiled in her gut and burned in her eyes. “Where were you when I was living on the streets, picking money out of wallets and food out of trash cans?”
“You could have stayed in the foster system.” Betty crossed her arms and glared. There was no regret, no remorse, absolutely no pity in her voice. “Stop feeling sorry for yourself. Can you honestly tell me you’re not stronger for all you’ve experienced? That it’s not made you better at your job? In life? Besides, living among demons was no place for a part human child.”