Shadows And Light Ch 10

Chapter 10 Family secrets revealed

The study was one of those rooms that seemed a bit stereotypical to Isabelle. The walls were decorated in a dark colored wood that matched the large desk and floor to ceiling bookshelves on the south wall. It also had a large fireplace that looked like it had once been wood burning but now burned gas.

Isabelle was curled up on one side of the small loveseat next to Ian. The man that she knew as his father, John Sterling was seated behind the desk, looking grim. Isabelle had been very uneasy that he was going to be here but refused to stay behind when Ian told her Simon had a few things to tell them. He had acknowledged her presence with a nod and then ignored her, which was just fine with her. Finn was across the way, lounging in chair in all his pale blonde beauty. He grinned at her and unable to stop herself she grinned back. Finn's charm was an unconscious extension of his personality and shutting it off would be like him loping off a hand. She found that she really liked him, just being around him lightened her mood.

Simon entered the room, crossing to the chair by the desk. His eyes caught Finn's and he smiled ever so slightly.

"What have you found?" asked John Sterling, still quietly grim.

"Quite a bit actually," said Simon, seating himself, "Cullen has been at this for a very long time, the last hundred years at least."

Ian shook his head in shock and looking around at the faces of his brother and father, realizing they felt the same.

"That long?" exclaimed Finn, "How was he able to go undetected for so long? I thought council members had mind searching done on a regular basis?"

"According to the journal that I found he found a way around that with magic. Somehow he managed to fade them or conceal them with the magic he was learning," replied Simon, "I am making a list of the spells that he found or created on his own for the council. What interested me most however was his more recent spells."

He shifted so that he was looking and speaking to Isabelle. "You were not a random victim;" he told her quietly, "Cullen researched your family lineage quite extensively and went to great lengths to find you."

Isabelle just shook her head. "Why? There is nothing all that special about me."

"You are wrong actually," returned Simon. "Your grandfather was a lycanthrope. Apparently, panthers are a rare type and that fascinated Culllen. And even though you showed no visible signs of inheritance, he was curious. According to his journal, sometimes the Were-side can be buried deep. Once he had you, he knew that you could not consciously change, or you would have done so to defend yourself. He decided to see if he could bring it to the surface."

"What?" said Ian, rather shocked, looking over at Isabelle.

"But I didn't inherit the bloodline," Isabelle questioned avoiding Ian's gaze. She didn't like the fact that she felt guilty for not telling him. It was her business, not his. "Why would he bother with me? I don't remember him asking anything even remotely connected to that," she replied, "not that I would have told him if he had."

Simon nodded, "He knew that. One of the fastest ways to break down mental barriers is through pain. Your natural mental shields prevented him from finding out what you knew about were-panthers in general and your family in particular. You frustrated him beyond belief, you enraged him. You also fascinated him. He could not get into your head. That was why he had that ceremony planned the night you killed him. It wasn't the sort of ceremony I had assumed it was."

He paused and took a deep breath, "He was planning on turning you, making you his, permanently. He had apparently tried before, twice, obviously without success. He was hoping that with the additional energy he was gaining from outside sources that it would be enough to turn you."

Isabelle just stared. It was inconceivable that the monster that had tortured her for four months desired her as a, lover, companion, slave, whatever. Unconsciously, she moved closer to Ian, shaking her head, her control of her emotions slipping a bit. Ian automatically put his arm around her and pulled her closer.

Simon bit his lip, "apparently he was working on a way to bind souls and keep them until they could be used as sources of power for other spells. He was hoping that the extra energy stored from previous victims would give him what he needed to bind you to him."

There was a long silence.

Simon continued after a moment, "Most of the spells that Cullen created were the kind that required two or more casters." He looked John straight in the eye, "He had at least one partner, probably more. What I don't know is why they weren't with him when he was attempting his ceremony that night."

"Do you have any clues as to who they are?" asked John.

"He never mentions anyone else directly," replied Simon, "It could be someone that we all know or someone we have never heard of. I would guess that it would be the latter. It would have to be someone with strong ties to the occult and an awful lot of knowledge. You don't learn about this stuff over night. Some of these spells are Master level; it would take decades of disciplined study to reach that."

"I am just surprised that he got away with it for so long," said Ian slowly.

There was a long silence.

"It isn't the first time that it has happened in this family," said John finally.

Both Finn and Ian looked at their father with absolute surprise.

"My eldest, Richard, about his one hundredth birthday started down the same path. I didn't know until much later of course," he stared straight ahead, not meeting either of their shocked gazes.

"What happened to him?" asked Finn quietly, "And why did you never tell us about him?"

John sighed, "He finally went over the edge and kidnapped his step mother, Anne, Cullen's mother. Somehow, she got wind of what was happening and managed to hide Cullen well enough that Richard couldn't find him. Cullen was his real target I think. He could not bear the thought that Cullen might replace him. And he hated Anne because of the way I felt about her. We were blood bonded, life mated, and I adored her far more than anything I had ever felt for his mother."

"She died when Cullen was a baby if I remember correctly," said Ian.

"Yes, Richard killed her," John stated in a flat emotionless voice, that very lack of emotion giving a hint of the agonizing pain he had felt, "I didn't get there in time."

"What happened to Richard?" asked Finn again, more quietly this time.

"I killed him," replied his father, looking at him directly for the first time, "he was out of control and kept coming after Cullen. I had to make a choice."

The silence weighed heavily in the room as each person present mulled over the rather shocking revelation.

Simon broke the silence, "We are starting the process of identification on the remains. They are being transferred to storage for now. I have a friend that runs a lab and is willing to discreetly test them. The council has agreed to pay the fees. As for the magic," here he paused, "the council has hired me to document everything I find and turn it over to them exclusively." He looked over to John.

"I have no problem with that," stated the elder Sterling firmly, "Mr. Witherspoon should be here shortly, and I would appreciate your presence."

Simon nodded.

John turned to Isabelle, surprising her, "Do you wish to be present?"

She shook her head.

"Very well," John rose and left the room.

After a few murmured comments, each of them left the room. They could continue talking later. From the look on John's face they knew that he wouldn't want to continue. Ian wondered what other secrets their father had been keeping from them. He escorted Isabelle out of the room, wondering about his father's blank expression, trying to guess what he was thinking.

He walked Isabelle to her room and stopped at the door, "I have to go out for a while Isabelle, I'll be back in a couple of hours."

"Oh, okay," she said rather surprised.

He turned abruptly and strode down the hall leaving Isabelle staring after him. Feeling a bit bereft, she started getting ready for bed, wondering where he was going this late.

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Several hours later, Ian entered the bedroom, only to find it dimly lit with the small lamp in the corner. Isabelle was sound asleep. He sat heavily at the small table that doubled as a breakfast table and put his head in his hands.

Isabelle carried the bloodline of a were-panther. No wonder Cullen hadn't been able to turn her. As he had told Isabelle, there were some humans that could not be turned even if the circumstances were perfect otherwise. Perhaps that was why Cullen's two prior attempts to turn her had failed. The were in her, however diluted, prevented it. There were also no known children conceived between a were and a vampire. It wasn't that it was forbidden, it had just never happened as far as he knew.

As crazy about Isabelle as he was, the fact was that if they did get together they would probably never have children. That gave him pause. He wanted children; he enjoyed his friend's children immensely. In the back of his mind, he had always been secure in the knowledge that someday he would meet the right person and have a child or two of his own.

If he couldn't turn her she would remain as she was, with a life span of about sixty to seventy more years. His father was over six hundred and still going strong. Would the short time he would have with her be worth it? If it was possible for them to blood bond without her being turned, would he survive losing her? His father had survived losing his bonded mate, but Ian also remembered the look on his father's face every time he spoke of Anne. Pain, absolute and unending, even three hundred years hadn't eased its bite. Did he want to live like that, always remembering the love that was lost to him?

Lost in thought, he finally noticed the sketchbooks stacked on the table. Idly he reached over, opened a page and saw his own face smiling back at him. It was extraordinarily well done for a charcoal. Flipping through the pages, he saw several drawings of Finn, Mrs. Daily cooking in the kitchen, some of the other servants, the garden, even in its current flowerless state. And him. Page after page was of him: sleeping, awake, driving in profile, chatting with Finn. The last page was unfinished and showed him sleeping, bare chested with the sheets around his hips. There was sensuality in every curve and shadow on his body. Every stroke of the charcoal was flawless, perfectly placed.

His heart hammered. Was it possible that she was beginning to feel something for him? Something more than just gratitude, maybe? Standing up and stretching he shed his coat and shoes. Crossing over to the bed on soundless feet he stretched out on the bed, on top of the covers, his hands stacked behind his head. Watching her sleep, he tried to calm his mind in to some semblance of order. So much was speculation, full of maybes. He lay awake a long time, unable to sleep.