Midnight's Master (Midnight 3)

"Screwing around on me." Which her mother already knew. "Thanks, but no thanks."

Niol walked past them. Made himself comfortable on her couch.

Her mother's nails dug into her skin. "You don't know what you're doing."

But her mother obviously knew Niol. Holly kicked off her pumps and heard the whisper of relief from her feet. "Niol, you didn't tell me that you knew my mother."

His gaze swept over her mother's figure. Kelly Storm kept herself trim from a vicious workout routine. She'd been working out every day, for at least an hour a day, since her husband had passed away from a heart attack just over two years ago.

"Never met before." He offered a smile, one that didn't look reassuring.

"I know who you are." Kelly's voice was arctic. "And I want you to stay away from my daughter. She's not your kind. She's-"

Holly's heart slammed into her ribs. She gazed at her mother and just felt…sad. "Why didn't you tell me?" Enough crap. Enough tension.

Kelly blinked. "I don't know what-"

Her hand waved toward Niol. "You know exactly what I'm talking about." Lies. "Are you a demon, too, Mom?"

"No!"

Such a fast denial. "Who, then? It has to be someone in the family. Dad? Was he-"

"I will not talk about this." Her hand fell away and her thin shoulders straightened. "This is nonsense. Ridiculous. There are no-"

"I'm a demon." The first time she'd confessed. Made her feel…strange. Right. "Peter was, too.

But you knew that, didn't you? When he started talking about the voices and the things he'd seen, you knew what he was and you said nothing!" Rage bubbled up, hard and too fast. Rage . All those years when her mother had been so distant with her. Those years when she'd watched her brother slipping away.

Wasted years.

When she'd known.

A tear slipped from the corner of her mother's eye.

Holly had seen her mother cry three times in her life. Peter's funeral. Her father's hospital bed and now.

"Easy, Holly." She jumped. When had Niol moved to her side? He wrapped an arm around her and pulled her close. "Easy, love."

Shit, she was crying, too.

One hell of a night.

"You should have told me." The rage was gone. Now she just felt tired. "I could have helped Peter, I could have-"

"You were a little girl." Whispered. "There wasn't anything you could do. I-I didn't know, not until it was too late…"

Peter's face flashed before her.

No.

Kelly licked her lips. "I-I don't guess I need to ask how you-how you found out." Her eyes darted to Niol.

"Holly's not a half-breed." He spoke with cold certainty, but his hold on her was warm. "Not you. Not her father-"

"Her grandmother." She looked so frail then. So small. "George's mother was a-a demon." Her gaze turned back to Holly. "I swear, baby, I didn't know what she was. She died before I married your father and he seemed so normal. I-I thought he was. Until Peter…"

A swallow. Loud in the quiet room. "George thought you were both just like him, that the demon trait or gene-or whatever the hell it is-had just passed you by. God, baby, I prayed it had passed you by."

Her head pounded. "You knew and you let Peter-"

"I did everything I could for Peter! I loved him! He was my son! Mine ! Demon, human-it didn't matter!"

She'd never heard such passion in her mother's voice.

"I sent him to doctors. One after the other. For days. Months. They tried every treatment, every therapy but noth ing worked. He slipped away from me while I watched because nothing worked. "

My boy's goin' into the dark.

And it was happening again.

"Then he left me and I was so scared you'd leave me, too."

So she'd started to shut me out. "You weren't ever going to tell me, were you?"

A shake of her mother's head. "I just prayed you weren't-"

Like him.

A fist squeezed her heart. A cold, clammy fist that just tightened and tightened.

"Peter had a…sickness." Niol, his voice softer, pitched with sadness. "We call it the Dark Touch in the demon world."

Kelly's lips trembled. "Could you-could you have helped my son?" A pause, so brief, then.

"You're strong. Some say maybe the strongest born this century."

Well, that was a new one for Holly.

"Could you have helped him?"

Her mother's words twisted with Jon's. You got to help my boy.

Holly looked up at him, saw the clench of his jaw. "Not then. No, I couldn't."

Brutal honesty.

"But I'm sure as hell working to make sure no more kids go Dark."

The fist eased its hold. Niol glanced down at her with eyes cloaked in so many shadows.

He looked worried. For her.

Niol pressed a kiss to her lips. "Talk to your mother. Get past this. It can't eat you up anymore."

He would know all about being destroyed from the inside.

His head inclined toward her mother. "Interesting meeting you, Mrs. Storm."

Her mouth parted.

Then he walked away. Calm, slow steps. In moments, the door clicked closed behind him.

Holly stared at her mother. Two feet between them, but it sure seemed like so much more.

Do you hear the voices, Hol?

"He…he's not what I expected."

A cold-blooded killer. She knew that was what most people expected. "There's more to Niol than just-" His reputation for death. "What you see and hear."

Her mother crept forward, hesitated.

Holly couldn't move.

"I didn't know how to tell you. There weren't any signs, I thought it had skipped you-"

It. There was no it. She was a demon. Blood, bones, and soul.

"You're afraid of Niol." Her voice sounded rusty. Of course, most folks were rightly afraid of Niol. "Are you-are you afraid of me, too?" Because of what I am.

Another inch forward. Her mother's hands lifted, then fisted. "No."

Holly wanted to believe that.

"I'm not afraid of you, baby. I love you. "

Holly couldn't remember the last time she'd heard those words.

One more inch. "But I understand just how dangerous this world is, especially for you." An inhalation of air that sounded too loud in the room. "I just want you to be safe."

With a demon-hunter on the streets, that wasn't going to be an easy order.

Her mother's gaze searched hers. "You…care for him, don't you?"