Zurlo, Michele - Riley [Daughters of Circe 3] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) by Michele Zurlo

returning once again. Then he dropped his gaze to the stack of food. “I could appear in his spirit world, but we couldn’t do more than talk to one another. Neither of us wanted to lead an existence where we had to be unfaithful to you or Circe. You shoulder the lion’s share of the burden, Soren. That’s why you have the lion’s share of the power.”
    Connections formed for Riley. She began to understand the structure of their holding pattern, but she had no idea why it was necessary. “Can you still appear to Caiden?”
    Teigh shook his head. “My power has faded too much. We have until the next full moon to complete the ritual, or we’ll all be stuck this way. We’ll grow old and die, and we’ll never be reborn again. Nothing will hold our daughters’ souls together. Your powers will return to the sun, and we will all cease to exist.”
    Riley glanced at Soren who had yet to join them at the table. “And Soren will never meet Caiden.”
    He still didn’t look directly at her. His avoidance dropped a pebble of dread in her stomach. “Who is Desiree?”
      The question had been directed at Riley, but she didn’t answer. She watched Teigh’s face soften, and his eyes glazed over with love and pride. “Desiree is one of our two remaining daughters.”
    Soren turned a chair backward and straddled it. He stared at Teigh. Riley wanted to smack him for the way he seemed to have dismissed her existence. He had ceased looking directly at her, and she hated the wall he was forging between them.
    “Remaining? How many were there originally?”
    “Sixteen. Circe’s power is refueled by the sun. We don’t have access to the sun. As we ran out of power, their souls stopped returning to Caiden. Their life energy scattered to the four winds.” His voice dropped to nearly a whisper. Sorrow laced his words, but hope was there, too.
    Soren blinked, clearly shocked by Teigh’s news. Riley felt a distant sadness, but it wasn’t personal. She hadn’t known these daughters, and she hadn’t processed the whole idea that she was the reincarnated soul of Circe. The concept that Torrey was a Daughter of Circe still gave Riley pause. If she hadn’t seen Torrey use magic or shift into a wolf, then she wouldn’t have believed a word of it.
    “Wow. Sixteen kids. Ouch.” Riley’s attempt to break the tension elicited a smile from Teigh.
    “Over a period of several hundred years, babe. Every time one of them grew up, one of us would bring up the idea of having another.” He closed his hand over the fist in her lap she hadn’t realized she had formed.
    Across the table, Soren scowled and cleared his throat. “What happens now?”
    Riley wanted to stand up and yell at him. Maybe she’d throw the steaming stack of pancakes in his face. He had no call to behave this way.
    Teigh distributed the breakfast food and poured the syrup. “Now that we have our thirteen, we head up to see the girls, they do their thing, and everything goes back to being like it was.”
    Now Soren looked at her, and she desperately wished he would stop. The depth of his hostility radiated outward and scorched her heart. “So, she gets all the power and we have nothing? Will I still be a wolf?”
    The way he threw the word “she” at Riley instead of using her name snapped her temper. She shot to her feet so fast her chair banged to the floor. “Damn it, Soren. What the hell is wrong with you?”
    Teigh wrapped an arm around her shoulders, effectively pinning her arms to her sides. She glared up at him, but he merely flashed a reassuring smile. “It’s not ours, Soren. Think of it like a battery that’s almost out of juice. Once that’s gone, we all die. She’s the only one who can recharge it.”
    Soren’s lips pressed together. His muscles clenched so tight he looked like he might break. Finally, he turned and stalked from the room. A truck engine roared to life, and tires squealed as they left the driveway. Riley turned to Teigh and