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“No.” Tears welled in my eyes, and I clenched my fists. “Now isn’t the time. You did what you did. I feel magic in me I can’t even begin to understand. I now hear Eres’s voice when all I’ve ever felt was her faint presence. I find out you bound me, and for whatever reason, you chose not to tell me until I was dying. Not when I was eighteen. Not when I was twenty. Not when I was struggling with barelyanypower while living in a magically driven world. Now the very thing I guard is attached to someone claiming to be my mate, and he has my cousin hostage. That is too much shit to deal with all at once, so this—this has to wait until I’m back.”
“Rea,” my sister started, reaching out to touch my arm, but I jerked away.
“You knew too. That hurts more than you could ever imagine.” I swallowed down the sob that threatened to escape. “The clock is ticking and none of this compares to Clara being trapped in Tartarus. Only one of us can enter. I’m going.”
My dad took a step quickly but halted. “Reagan, wait. You can’t leave like this. I’m sorry I hurt you. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner.” He stood up straight, showing his full size. It wasn’t for intimidation. It was to show me he was giving his word. That everything he was saying was truthful, swearing on his honor as an alpha “But I won’t apologize for saving you.”
“I know.” I pressed my lips together, dipping my chin once. “I love you both more than you could ever know. I even forgive you, but despite all that, I can still be mad at you—and I am, Dad. I’m pissed as hell at you for keeping Eres and my magic from me.”
Tía Celeste placed her hand gently on my dad’s arm, and she sniffed harshly, her nose audibly stuffy from crying. “Give her time, Alvaro. She has earned that.”
“Um, what time does she have?” Nog interjected, throwing his hands out. “She’s crossing through a portal, apparently, and she might never come back.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m just going to get your sister, you numbskull. Not to go live happily ever after in Hell.”
“Tartarus isn’t Hell,” Jo said, and I tilted my head as I squinted at him. Caius had said the same thing.
“How do you know?” Nog asked, oblivious to anything going on in the room that didn’t involve him. “It’s not like you’ve ever been there.”
“No, I haven’t. That’s true.” He swung his legs innocently, his hands curled over the edge of the couch for balance.
My dad sighed. “Sin, go with her.”
“No,” my sister and I said in unison.
My eyebrows shot up in surprise as her refusal caught me off guard. Considering how she had always been the one to look out for me, I assumed she’d be hot on my heels. It’s what big sisters did best.
“Dad, she has to go by herself. The two guards aren’t going to let anyone else through. I . . . I don’t think he’s going to hurt her.”
“You saw that death magic.” I picked up the backpack and hoisted it over my shoulder. “It was branching out, reaching for him. And it stopped the minute he left. It wants him. And he wants me. And I want Clara. We all have different goals. I just need to go there and figure out how to achieve them.”IfI even could.
Not that I wanted it to be true, but I was basically the only bargaining chip I had, and well, that sucked. Surely they had to realize that too. I wondered how it could get any worse.
My dad bit his bottom lip and glared at us, the frown between his brow shaking. Finally his features softened, and he sighed, yielding to his two daughters. “Celeste, my satchel is in the kitchen. Get the Sumerian dagger with the runes. And the book. She might need it.”
She nodded, stepping into the kitchen, and grabbing his bag from a barstool.
“Tío! You’re the alpha,” Nog said. “Make her stay. Do . . . I don’t know—something!”
Tía Celeste scoffed alongside my dad as she handed him the leather bag he’d requested. He glanced at his sister-in-law, raising a brow. “He has no idea how women work, does he?”
She shook her head. “Not even a little bit.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” My cousin put his hands on his hips, offended.
Dad put his large hand firmly on Nog’s shoulder, looking down to him as he spoke. “It means you have a lot to learn.” He glanced up and turned his head toward me and my sister. “There’s no amount of alpha that can bend a woman’s will, Nog. You have to know when you won’t win.”
“You’re kidding,” he said, his jaw slackened as he stared.
My dad walked around my cousin and stopped in front of me while he reached into his satchel. He pulled out a book wrapped in a soft muslin cloth. “This belonged to your mother, Reagan. Spells. Some she learned, and some she was working on creating herself. I ...” He paused briefly, and my heart thundered in my ears. “I can’t read most of it. I should have ... done things differently with you. Both of you. But maybe now that you have Eres again, she can help you read it and figure out how to work your own magic.”
I took the book and rubbed my fingertips over the cloth. There was a scent I recognized but couldn’t place. Another memory that had been locked away, just out of reach.
I walked up to him, wrapping my arms around him and squeezing. “I swear I’ll bring Clara back.”
“Yeah.” The single word was enough to make him choke up as he hugged me in return.
Sin came out of her room with a small suitcase. Then she went into the kitchen and began putting large mason jars of my moonshine on the counter.
