T*Witches: Split Decision by H.B. Gilmour, Randi Reisfeld Page B

back. Finally, she said, “Is that what you want me to do?”
    “It is,” Sara said with seething certainty, “what you were born to do. And, yes, it is my wish.”
    Alex fell to her knees and reached out. Hoping to touch her mother, she leaned forward, stretching her arms as far as she could. But there was nothing where the robed spirit had stood. Sara was gone.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN
    THANTOS IN LOVE
    He’d saved her life. Cam had little choice but to grant the lord of the manor an audience — of one. Miranda, he’d made clear, was not to attend.
    Cam’s ragged condition on her return to Crailmore had alarmed her birth mother. Miranda blamed herself for not sensing her daughter’s perilous predicament. She’d begun to believe that her powers, once unrivaled, then lost, had at last returned. Cam’s condition not only tore at her heart but devastated her fragile confidence.
    Cam’s own faith had been dealt a serious blow. She and Alex were supposedly born to be the most powerful witches ever. Yeah, right. So how come she couldn’t even save herself? Not even when she’d had advancewarning, had a vision, seen it coming! Was that how it would always be? Without Alex her powers would be halved? Without Alex she was not so extraordinary after all?
    Cam sat rigidly in a wing chair in the salon of the mansion. Her back was to the fireplace, over which was hung the massive portrait of the family patriarch, Jacob DuBaer. On her first visit to Crailmore, Cam had heard conflicting tales of this commanding warlock. A physician by training, Jacob had survived the Salem witch trials. Thantos revered him; Ileana reviled him. Cam didn’t know what to think.
    Jacob’s descendant, in his black trousers and black silk shirt, his hobnail boots resting on a brocade footstool, sat directly across from her — no less intimidating than the portrait of his forebear. Thantos overwhelmed the very chair he was in. His fingers were forming a tent just below his black-bearded chin. He was studying her and surely must have known that his intense scrutiny was making her uncomfortable.
    Finally, he began. “What must you think of me, Apolla, in view of the poison that’s been fed to you?”
    Cam leveled her gaze at him. Tongues of flame reflecting from the fireplace shone in his coal-black eyes. It was summer yet the fire in the hearth was lit — whichseemed reasonable, Cam thought, considering the icy coldness her uncle displayed. She tried not to glare at him.
What must I think of you,
she echoed silently.
I think you’re a snake and a murderer. Fredo may have done the actual execution of my father, but somehow, someway, he was acting for you.
    Thantos, of course, intercepted the thought and smirked. “You’ve been taught to hate me since the day you learned of my existence,” he reminded her. “But ask yourself this: If I am the murdering snake you’d have me be, why isn’t your mother afraid of me? My dear brother Aron was not just your father, he was Miranda’s husband. And she trusts me.”
    Cam didn’t know. And it was not the first time she’d wondered about it.
    Ileana, his own daughter, believed Thantos DuBaer was evil incarnate. Miranda, his widowed sister-in-law, regarded him highly, was grateful to him, had elected to live under his roof. These were strong, passionate, smart women, dedicated to the protection and nurture of the twins and to the benevolent Coventry credo. How could they clash so vehemently over the character of this frightening man?
    Thantos crossed his long legs. “I don’t claim to know why you are here now. But I choose to take it as a sign.”
    “Of what?”
    The hulking tracker cleared his throat. “This is difficult for someone in my position to admit. But I have not always been the best… well, man I could be, or wanted to be. I have not always acted fairly toward —”
    “— your daughter?” Cam interrupted.
    “I knew you’d bring that up. Ileana is bitter; she has every right to