Merlin's Children (The Children and the Blood) Read Free Page A

Elias.”
    He looked away.
    “So you can get us a vehicle?”
    A moment passed and then he closed his eyes. “There’s a van in the garage that should give us enough room.”
    “Thank you.”
    He bowed slightly and then headed for the garage. She sighed as he walked away. Of its own volition, her gaze slid back to Lily and Cole.
    They needed him. With Crystal and Ghost dead, and Mud betraying them, Cole was the best shot they had at identifying the Blood. Everything she’d told Elias was true.
    To a point, anyway.
    She bit her lip, disquiet moving through her. Something was off about Cole. And it wasn’t just that he kept watching the wizards as though all the reassurances in the world of their trustworthiness wouldn’t make him relax. The look on his face the moment before she dragged him through the portal in the factory was nagging at her, leaving an increasingly uneasy feeling she couldn’t seem to shake.
    He hadn’t looked scared by the Blood wizards. Horrified at what was happening, yes. But that hadn’t been the only thing.
    Lost. That was the only word she could think of to describe it. Like someone had taken something from him. Or possibly had, anyway. Like, if he could have, he almost might’ve stayed to see if he could get it back again.
    Her brow drew down as she watched him. She wanted to ignore the way the memory of the look on his face made her feel. Whatever she thought she’d seen, Cole was on their side. He’d rescued them the night the Blood came to their farmhouse and he’d obviously been keeping Lily safe ever since. That should’ve been enough to end the discussion.
    Except she couldn’t quite let herself be that naïve anymore. Not after Darius and the council and the way she’d let herself believe them too. Fact was, she barely knew Cole. His actions on the night her dad had been killed notwithstanding, she’d only met him for a few minutes before she’d thought he and Lily died, and she had no idea what he’d even been doing at their farm in the first place. He’d helped Lily, sure. And for that she was incredibly grateful.
    It was just everything else that neither he nor her sister had yet explained.
    She couldn’t bring her discomfort up to the others, though. Since the factory, Nathaniel and Elias seemed to have fallen back on a view of her safety that shared a lot in common with a scorched-earth policy. Wary enough of Cole on their own, there was no telling what they’d do if she mentioned she had misgivings about the boy too. And then there was Lily, who clearly trusted Cole implicitly and wouldn’t take well to the idea that her sister didn’t feel quite the same.
    Though really, that was only one of the issues with the little girl.
    Never particularly comfortable around any wizard she’d seen since Ashe found her again, hearing that the portal could have killed Cole had left the girl practically glued to his side. For the past half hour, Lily had regarded every wizard on the property with near-rabid defensiveness, as though daring them to try to force either her or Cole to go anywhere near magic again.
    But that hadn’t stopped the Merlin’s interest. Curiosity about Lily was rampant, and nothing short of having Nathaniel stand guard over the girl had thwarted the wizards from trying to prod Lily for answers to the question plaguing them all. The girl looked human. And after seeing the equally human-looking Blood lay waste to the factory, no one was content to just idly wonder why.
    Her lip slipping from between her teeth, Ashe tensed as yet another group made good on her thoughts and started toward Lily again. Nathaniel shifted position warningly, bringing the wizards to a halt. The closest said something, at which Nathaniel’s face darkened, but after a moment’s consideration at his silence, the wizards scowled and then retreated.
    Ashe exhaled, trying to calm down as she watched them go. The whole mess was getting upsetting. More so, anyway. And that was without