The bedroom was dark when I returned in the early morning hours. I closed the door tightly behind me, as quietly as possible, then turned to look out at the room. To my surprise Gabriel was not in bed; it was empty and still made. I bit my bottom lip with uneasiness. I wasn't sure what to think—if Gabriel didn't come home that evening, what did it mean? Was our marriage over? Was he dead somewhere because Voldemort's Death Eaters had found him? Was he at the office still trying to blow off steam?

"I'm right here, Cadence," his voice said calmly.

I jumped back, startled by his voice and looked towards the bay window in the bedroom. I approached the window, and the armchair that was sitting in front of it, to see his figure leaning back in the chair. He was slouching in the chair in a pair of flannel pajama pants. I frowned slightly as I stood next to his chair.

"I was wondering the same things about you," he whispered quietly.

I touched the back of his chair as I sighed. "I can't tell you how sorry I am."

"Me either," he replied. He was staring out the window. His chin was propped up by his arm; his elbow on the armrest of the chair, his chin in his hand. He didn't look at me, even though I was leaning against his chair.

I sighed uncomfortably. "Are we going to continue to have the same fights, all the time?"

Gabriel turned and looked up at me with surprise. "These are entirely new fights, Cadence."

"But the fact is we always fight," I sighed sadly. "Do you know of a time when we were happy?"

Gabriel reached out to me and pulled me into the chair to sit on his lap. I didn't resist him because truthfully, I wanted him to hold me. I wanted him to tell me it was all going to be okay. We would be okay. Carrigan would be okay…somehow we would all survive the new fights that were presenting themselves every day.

"Yes," he said seriously. "I've been happy since the day I met you. Of course, it's been no picnic, you're a giant pain in the ass, but I know that I am most lost when you are gone. I love you Cadence, even when I hate you, and that is how I know I'm happy. Not many people can make me love them while I hate them."

"Are you trying to be romantic?" I questioned with some bite because his complimented sounded more like an insult.

"I'm telling you that even when we fight, when I'm mad or your raging to the point that you destroy our house, I am happy," he said squeezing my hand while he stared into my eyes. Despite the darkness, I could see the stunning shade of violet that had taken his eyes since I had last seen him in the kitchen. "I am happy because I have you in my corner, no matter what happens."

I smiled and rested my head on his shoulder for a moment. "You're right. You've always been what's made me happy and kept me grounded. I'm sorry that I haven't let you into my corner recently." I paused to think for a moment. "Everything is so different now…and I don't know what is real and what isn't. You say these are new fights between us, but Gabriel, everything to me is a new fight. It's a fight just to get out of bed in the morning. And it's a fight to find Carrigan. I don't want to fight with you anymore…I don't know how much fight I have left in me for that…"

Gabriel's fingers brushed through my messy hair as he listened to me speak. He didn't say anything to comfort me. He leaned forward slightly and gently kissed my lips. There was a somber feel to his kiss; it was soft and cultivated. His tender lips pressed into mine as we continued to kiss. Our arms wrapped around each other as the kisses became more passionate.

I repositioned myself on Gabriel's lap so that I was straddling him and kissed him romantically with my tongue journeying into his mouth. He groaned with hot sexual desire as his fingertips traced the waistline of my pants across my hips and around behind me. He rested his hands on my bottom, squeezing gently as he pressed his groin up into mine. I smiled against his lips, pressed my body forward onto him and moved my mouth to his neck where I kissed and bit at him playfully.

Without warning, Gabriel wrapped his right arm tightly around me and stood up from the chair. I clung to him as I continued to kiss him, keeping my eyes shut as he carried me across the room to the bed. I trusted that he wouldn't drop me; and the way he carried me and tossed me gently on the bed was incredibly sexy. His hyper masculine and dominant qualities made my body weak with pleasure and overwhelming desire. I laid back in the bed, as he stood before me, stripping off his clothes. I couldn't help but smile wickedly as his hard, cut body was revealed to me. Every defined, muscular line made me quiver with compulsion; the fantastic artwork that decorated his arms, shoulders and parts of his torso just added to his bad-boy attitude and appearance. I was the luckiest woman alive; I had the hottest husband in the world.

He leaned over the bed and grabbed the belt loops of my pants. He pulled me to the edge of the bed and kissed me hard as he undid the button and zipper. Gabriel's kisses were always dark and mysterious; they made me feel so many things at once—love, desire, passion, fear…His kisses were just evidence of how much he made me feel. More then ever I was in love with him and I knew that he loved and desired me. But he also made me realize everything I had to lose; everything that I feared losing. His kisses reminded me of what it would be like to never kiss him again. I didn't want to lose that. I didn't want it to be our last kiss; but he always managed to kiss me as if it were going to be the last time.

Within moments, I was naked and pressed beneath him in a fury of intoxicating stimulation. His mouth danced across my neck, shoulders and collarbone. His right hand was tangled in my hair, holding my head, while the other was wrapped around my waist, holding me tightly against him.

I pressed my hands against his chest and quickly, pushed him over onto the bed. Our bodies remained pressed together as I took control on top of him. I kissed him dangerously, hoping to make him feel everything that I felt. It wasn't long after that that we both succumb to the overwhelming excitement that had taken our systems. I cried out in feverish longing; he groaned beneath me as I buried my head in the crook of his neck.

Gasping for breath, I rolled off him. My legs hung off the side of the bed feeling weak and numb. I smiled as I turned my head to look at Gabriel. He was smiling back at me, looking just as exhausted as I felt. He reached across, rolling onto his side and touched my cheek. We kissed slowly as the vigor seeped from our system.

I gasped for breath as my back arched with searing pain that shot up my spin. I cried out and recoiled from Gabriel, startling him to stand up from the bed. I felt as if my skull was being crushed between two overpowering hands; they were holding me, pressing down on me, refusing to let me go.

Mom!

Carrigan's panicked voice rang in my ears.

Help me, please! She was sobbing; crying out for someone to save her.

MAKE IT STOP! SOMEBODY HELP ME!

The pain dissipated. I gasped for breath as I slid off the side of the bed, falling onto my knees on the hard wood floor of the bedroom. I held my head as tears fell down my cheeks.

"Cadence?" Gabriel's voice was close by. I lifted my head to see him crouching beside me, his hands were on my shoulders. "What was it?"

"I heard Carrigan," I whispered, not bothering to wipe the tears from my eyes. "She was crying for help."

Gabriel frowned and pulled me up off the floor. He held me in his arms as we sat back down on the bed and kissed my forehead gently. I quickly composed myself and wiped the tears from my cheeks. I stood up, pulling out of his arms, and began to make my way around the room, getting dressed.

"What are you doing?"

"I need to talk to Benjamin," I said. "See if he made any headway with his research today."

"Cadence, you need to sleep," Gabriel said calmly from the bed.

"I can't sleep right now, Gabriel. There's no point of trying," I stopped at the bedroom door. "You get some rest. You need to be up for work tomorrow. I'll let you know if Benjamin did find something."

Gabriel frowned and didn't say anything. I left the bedroom before he really had the chance to. Before going to Benjamin's bedroom, I stopped at the bathroom to clean myself up. It only took a few moments, but once I had showered and redressed I banged my hand on Benjamin's door. The point was to wake him, so I had no remorse about being loud.

The bedroom door opened after a few moments of stumbling and cussing could be heard. I stepped back from the door when it was ruthlessly pulled opened by Benjamin who stood before me in the doorframe in his boxer shorts. I frowned slightly.

"What the bloody hell, Cadence!? It's three in the morning!"

"Get dressed," I said. "I need to talk to you."

"What about?" he snarled with grogginess.

"I just had a connection to Carrigan," I retorted. "We're running out of time. Get dressed and meet me in the kitchen."

I turned on my heel and marched away from him. He slammed his bedroom door violently, making me smirk. Obviously, Benjamin was not a morning person. When I arrived downstairs, I was surprised to find Gabriel in the beautifully rebuilt kitchen, making pancakes and tea. I entered the kitchen slowly, looking at him with raised eyebrows. He turned to me, a frying pan of pancakes in one hand and a spatula in the other.

"You didn't think I was really going to go to bed, did you?"

"I suppose I shouldn't be surprised," I replied with a weak smile. Gabriel nodded his head once and turned back to the stove. He flipped the pancakes out of the pan and onto a plate. I moved forward and retrieved three plates from the cabinet. Gabriel smiled at me when I arrived at his side and set the plates out. He thanked me then served the pancakes.

"You're not going to push me away," he said as he leaned forward and stole a kiss from my lips. "If this is how you're going to be, I'm going to fight just as hard as you. Even if that means I have to fight to stand next to you."

"I'll try not to make it that difficult," I smirked as I looked up at him.

"Good," he said then kissed me again very slowly.

"I know you didn't wake me up so I could watch you two snog in the kitchen," Benjamin said sorely as he entered the kitchen, fully dressed in black jeans and a red tee shirt.

"Thanks for rebuilding the kitchen," Gabriel said with a nod.

"Sure," Benjamin said nonchalantly. He took a seat at the table and leaned back with a long, wide yawn. I picked up a plate of pancakes and set it in front of him.

"What'd you find?"

"You're not even going to sit down?" he questioned. "Or give me a fork?"

I snapped my fingers and a fork appeared in my hand. I held it out to him. Benjamin's crystal blue eyes locked with my green-eyed stare as he took the fork from my hand. He turned away, breaking the intense stare, and began to dig into his breakfast. Gabriel and I took seats on either side of him and waited patiently for him to speak while we ate.

"I had to do a lot of digging," he said very carefully after he took a sip of tea that Gabriel had brought over. "That's why I was there so late. I looked into all types of dark magic, white magic and even red magic trying to find something that would require twelve women in ascending age. The Ministry's resources proved to be fruitless. So, I thought I would look at other case files in the archives, see if anything jumped out at me. I was running out of ideas…I needed to look at it all from a different angle. I came across your old partner's files."

"Mitchell Scott?" I said surprised. "How did you come across those in regards to this?"

"Well, I searched for 'experimental' magic. Because there is no record of any sort of magic requiring twelve women, I thought maybe this is something experimental. What else could it be? Mitchell Scott's file came up…so I read it."

I frowned deeply. I knew where this was going. Benjamin had fond the file on Rickon Form and Penelope Talon, who were responsible for research operations for Voldemort. Penelope was my niece, Haiden's, Guardian. She had betrayed the relationship they had and performed experimental procedures on Haiden in an attempt to prove if she was immortal. And when it was discovered that Haiden was not immortal, they proceeded attempting to make her immortal. The research was meant to find a way to make Voldemort immortal. They had to use Haiden because they needed a female infant of his bloodline for their research.

I couldn't remember if I had named Penelope Talon in the file, or if I had used her other alias, Savanna Snow. Benjamin didn't know it, but Penelope Talon was his mother.

"I read the files of what happened last year, how Rickon Form was responsible for Mitchell's death and putting Gabriel in a comma. I was curious why Scott was interested in Form. In your file, you said that Form and his partner—who you didn't name—were responsible for magical research operations for Voldemort. The work they did on your niece is gruesome and terrible. I was thinking if he was responsible for research, maybe he had outlined a theory that required twelve women of ascending age."

"It's more likely that his partner outlined the theory," I said honestly. "She was the brains behind the research done on Haiden. Of course, she would be involved in all of this. That woman is the bane of my existence."

I was angry. If Penelope Talon was somehow involved with Carrigan's kidnapping, I was going to find a way to resurrect her so that I could kill her again. It seemed that no matter what went wrong in my life, or when it happened, Penelope Talon was somehow involved.

"Well, let's track her down! Do you know who she is?" Benjamin questioned eagerly. He thought that we had caught a break…that we were getting closer to finding Carrigan.

I looked at Gabriel with a grim expression. He returned my stare, but with a firm fatherly look in his eyes.

You should tell him, Gabriel said in my mind. I frowned deeply and exhaled with aggravation. I didn't want to tell Benjamin that his mother was a betraying killer.

"Form and his partner are dead," I whispered. Gabriel frowned, but didn't say anything, which I was thankful for.

"How do you know the partner is dead?"

"I killed her," I whispered tragically. "Just before Voldemort returned to power."

"So, we have no leads then," Benjamin exhaled with annoyance. "I think this is the way we need to go though…is there a way we can get our hands on their research at all? Would Haiden be able to help us?"

"I don't know, Benjamin," I said with a defeated tone as I looked at Gabriel again. The room fell silent and Benjamin looked between Gabriel and I with distrusting eyes.

"What's going on?" he asked.

"Nothing," I said. "It just is a dead end…"

"You're not looking me in the eye." I pivoted to face him, still frowning. "And you're blocking me…"

"I block everyone," I responded. "I think you're on a roll, Benjamin, I do. We have to find out what requires twelve women in ascending age and experimental research is most certainly not out of the question. I actually think you're absolutely right about it. It's the only thing that makes sense. But we're not going to be able to find out about the research from Form or his partner, so we need to devise a different plan from a different angle."

"Who was she?" His crystal blue eyes were annoyed; his tone and body posture exemplified his annoyance.

"Her name was Penelope Talon," I responded honestly. "She befriend and betrayed me. Her process of gaining my trust took years. She and I met before Carrigan was even born and she made me believe that she and I were very similar. When she reappeared in my life, I didn't doubt her, which is how she got the best of me. She laid, undercover in our home and even grew close to Carrigan, all the while reporting back to my father and aiding him to return to power. I killed her in a struggle in front of my father and Peter Pettigrew a few days before the ritual to resurrect him was performed."

"Carrigan mentioned her to me," Benjamin admitted with a nod of his head. "But that doesn't explain why you're resisting sharing your thoughts with me. You woke me up, remember?"

Benjamin was more perceptive then I gave him credit for. He was obviously a very good Guardian. He was able to read me even though I wasn't his charge. I frowned grimly and looked down, which I'm sure did not instill confidence.

I hesitated, but then I snapped my fingers and made a small gold locket appear. I extended it to Benjamin carefully. He looked at me perplexed.

"This belonged to Penelope," I said. "I found it after she died."

Benjamin looked at the locket as he took it from me and his expression immediately changed. He recognized it. He probably remembered the necklace hanging in front of his face as his mother held him close to her chest. I looked at Gabriel who was sitting across from me looking indifferent. His emotions were not revealed on his face, but he did seem tense and ready for a fight.

"You should open it," I said.

Benjamin opened the locket and stared at the picture of a man, who looked almost identical to him, and a small boy. He set the locket down and looked up at me. His expression was blank, too overwhelmed with surprise to express anything. But that quickly melted away as rage flushed his cheeks and ears.

"You knew I was looking for her," he said quickly. "The moment we met you knew I was searching for my mother…all this time, you knew!"

"I've known for about a year," I admitted. "I wasn't sure how to tell you…if you'd even want to know who she was."

"I had a right to know! You had no right to make that decision," Benjamin shot up from his chair; it skidded back across the kitchen floor and slammed into the wall with a loud crunch. There was no chance to say another word, Benjamin marched to the front of the house and left, slamming the front door behind him violently.

I exhaled and fell back in my chair, feeling defeated.

"Well," Gabriel said as I looked up at him. He sipped from his teacup before continuing. "At least you won't be fighting with me anymore. Benjamin has enough fight in him for the both of us."

"Shut up," I growled as Gabriel chuckled.