"Mom." Alex's voice was firm. "You're not going anywhere.”

"What?" She thrust out her chin belligerently. "Just try to stop me, young man."

“Really?" he said. He nodded towards her groin, where one of her fingers was idly amusing itself, and her.

“You're going to give the neighbors a free show then?"

She pinched her lips together as a wave of loving laughter rolled through the room.

“Fine,” she said with a put-upon air.

“I'll put on clothes and meet you out there. Good enough for you?"

As the rest of the family trooped out, Rachel pausing to pick up her discarded skirt, Jeremy slumped back against the back of the couch, his mind reeling.

How could it be true? Then he thought of the slowly swaying tail emerging from Rachel's back, just above the cleft of her sexy buttocks, and shivered. How could it not be true?

“Did you know anything about this?" he asked Sarah. Even in his own ears his voice sounded strange.

She shook her head, her eyes wide and stunned. "No idea. I mean, I could tell something was going on. Her personality has changed so much over the past few weeks. No, that's not right," she corrected herself.

“She hasn't changed. She's just...more herself. More the way she was when Alex and I were kids. Happier. She seems more comfortable with who she is."

“Well, you've known her a lot longer than I have," he said. "But she always seemed...driven. When I was interning at the law firm.

Completely focused on her work and on the Law. Now she's still driven.

But she has a different focus." He took a deep breath. "So," he said, trying not to let his voice falter.

“Does it bother you that I had sex with her?"

She smiled faintly, then leaned over, shoving at him with her shoulder and chest until he was laying on his back on the leather couch. She leaned over him, her eyes kindling with desire, much as they had the night before. She took his head between her palms and kissed him with a passionate thoroughness that made him ache.

“Only if it bothers you that I slept with my father last night.”

“Huh?

“Me," she explained patiently, as if he had a learning disability.

“And my father. You remember him, right? Older fellow, not too tall, sandy blond hair, lives here?"

“You? And Josh?"

"Yup." It would be hard not to call her expression smug. "I've wanted to for years. But what Althea did to my mother...it's spilling over,

Jeremy. To all of us. That's why she’s protecting us, you know. Any of us who have been touched by Althea's power."

“I haven't—"