Wren wrapped his arms around her as if to protect her. "You have a problem with that?"
"Not at all," his father said firmly. Sincerely. "My mother was human, too."
Wren gaped, letting Maggie know that his father had just imparted a secret to him. "Pardon?"
His father moved to lock the bedroom door as if he was afraid of someone overhearing them. "You heard correctly. It wasn't something that we ever spoke about outside of the immediate family, but yes. My mother was an Arcadian tiger." His face softened. "Hell of a woman she was, full of fire and spirit. I wish to the gods that I had been mated to a human, as opposed to the bitch I fathered you with."
Marguerite felt Wren tense around her, but she wasn't sure why. She rubbed his arm to offer him her support. Poor guy was having one hell of a day.
But then, they had come back here for answers. Even hard ones.
"I want you to know that I don't regret you," his father said, reaching out to touch Wren's shoulder. "I never did." And then his handsome face turned sad and wistful. "I take it by your presence here that I'm not around in your future."
Wren leaned his head against hers. His tenseness increased before he answered. "No."
His father winced as he dropped his hand and sighed. "Do I... Did I do right by you in the end?"
Wren didn't answer the question. Instead he asked, "What day is today?"
"August 5,1981."
Marguerite gasped at the date as a chill went down her spine.
"What?" both of them asked.
"I'll be born at noon tomorrow," she said incredulously. "It's just kind of eerie, isn't it?"
Wren's father snorted. "Not in our world. You get used to such weirdness."
Wren took a deep breath while he continued to hold her close. "Three days from now, I'll be in the back of a car headed for New Orleans."
His father opened his mouth as if to say something, then snapped it shut. Emotions played across his face while the reality of his imminent death hit him.
Marguerite couldn't imagine anything worse than to know just how limited your future was. All the regrets. All the concerns. His poor father.
He sighed heavily. "I'm going to assume that I'm not the one who sends you there."
"No."
His father sat down on the edge of the bed with a sad, faraway look in his eyes. She could tell he was struggling with the news.
"I only have three more days left alive," he breathed.
"You shouldn't know that," Wren said.
"No." His father looked up at them. "If you're here, then it was meant to be."
A weird feeling went through Marguerite as she considered that. "I think he's right, Wren. Remember what you said about running into the man in the woods who took you to Sanctuary? He knew who and what you were. He knew to be there. How?"
Wren looked as perplexed as she felt.
His father frowned. "Why didn't you go to Grayson for protection? He's your guardian."
Wren shook his head. "Bill Laurens was my guardian until I came into my own."
His father scoffed at that. "Bill is a child."
"No, he's twenty-one right now, and for reasons I never understood, you made him my guardian. Bill's the one who saw to it that I was tutored in my powers and kept safe until I could protect myself."
"Grayson is the one who kills you," Marguerite told Aristotle. "He would have killed Wren, too, had Bill not been his guardian."
Wren's father snarled as he came off the bed. "That sorry sack of shit. I always knew he was a scabbing bastard." Hatred and anger burned deep in his blue eyes as he paced back and forth in the room. "I should have killed him. I should have..." His voice trailed off.
Aristotle paused as he looked back at the two of them. "Your mate is right. You were here before. You had to be. Because if you weren't, Grayson would have had full rights to you. I would never have left my only son in the hands of a human child."
Aristotle growled and cursed... and returned to pacing even faster. He definitely reminded her of a caged tiger that was ready to tear the arm off anyone who came near it. "Who runs my company after I die?"
"Aloysius Grant."
He screwed his face up in disgust "He's an incompetent nerd."
"Yes, but he's a visionary," Wren said quietly. "In the next twenty years, he makes this company second only to Microsoft."
Disgust gave way to incredulity as his father stopped pacing again. He gaped at them. "Microsoft? Don't tell me that kid from the West Coast really got that stuff to fly?"
"Oh yeah," Marguerite said with a laugh, "Bill Gates pretty much takes over the world as we know it."
Wren's father growled again. "Damn, see what happens when you get killed before your time? Someone else dominates the market you've spent your entire life grooming. It's just not right."
"It's okay, Dad. Your company makes it on the hardware side anyway. That and the World Wide Web. Not to mention plasma TVs and cell phones."
His father's eyes burned with intensity as he locked gazes with Wren. "Not my company, cub. Your company." He wrinkled his brow as if another thought occurred to him. "What's this World Wide Web thing?"
Marguerite laughed again. "In short, money. Lots and lots of money. Especially for Tigerian Tech."
Wren's father smiled. "Good. I like money. Always have. It doesn't ever betray you, and unless someone steals it, it stays where you put it. But mostly, money keeps us safe from the outside world." The humor fled from his face as he let out a long sigh. "I guess my problem was that I wasn't looking within. I should have kept a better eye on my family."
He returned to pacing with his hands behind his back and his gaze on the floor. "So I only have three days to get everything in order." He glanced back at them. "But that doesn't explain why the two of you are here, does it?"
Marguerite stepped away from Wren. "We're both being hunted."
"Why? By whom?"
"Grayson wants to finish what he started," Wren answered. "He wants me dead so that he and his son Zack can take over the company."
"That'll be over my..." Aristotle ground his teeth. "I guess it is over my dead body."
Marguerite moved to pace beside him. She wasn't sure why, but it seemed a natural thing to do. "They framed Wren for the deaths of you and your wife."
Both of his eyebrows shot upward. "Karina dies as well?"
Wren nodded. "But not until after she kills you."
He wrinkled his nose as if that was the most disgusting thing he'd ever heard. "How the hell does that bitch kill me? There's no way she could do it."
"She had help," Marguerite said. "Her lover is here with her."
Aristotle shook his head in denial. "That worthless leopard cub? He can barely tie his own shoelaces. Never mind take me on. That's just stupid."
"I never understood it, either. But as a cub, I will hear something break in this room and I will come in here and find you dead. Mom and her lover will be in the study across the hall, laughing about it."
Still Aristotle shook his head in disbelief. "And who kills her?"
Wren shrugged. "My money says Grayson. But I don't know. When I woke up after her lover attacked me, she and her lover were dead, too. I never saw hide nor hair of who did it."
His father ran his hand over his face before he sighed wearily. His eyes were sincere as he looked at Wren. "I'm so sorry that I wasn't around for you, Son. Here I've been thinking that I would have time to make it up to you that I left you alone so much as a cub. I should never have ignored you."
She could tell exactly how much those words meant to Wren. And she was grateful that she and Wren had come back so that he could hear them.
"It's okay."
"No," his father said sternly, "it's not. I spent all my time building a company that I won't even be around to see prosper. You must hate me."
"I never hated you, Dad. Not really."
He reached out and pulled Wren into a tight hug.
Marguerite watched the look on Wren's face as he tensed, then returned the hug. Tears welled in her eyes as she reached out and patted Wren's back.
"I love you, Wren. I'm sorry if I ever said or did anything that hurt you."