“Mother?”
“Amrin,” Dr. Childs greeted me first.
The older woman turned immediately, surprise flashing across her face before softening into a smile.
Her gaze moved quickly over me, lingering briefly on my joined hands with Menon, the faint glowing mate marks along my skin, and the very obvious celestial Monster attached to my side.
My mother frowned, but didn’t speak.
“Well. You look significantly better than when we last spoke,” Dr. Childs added.
I laughed nervously.
“Yeah. About that. I, um, I think I know why I always had trouble sleeping.”
She studied me carefully.
“Really? And how is the insomnia?”
The question would have embarrassed me once.
Now?
Now I almost wanted to laugh at the cosmic absurdity of it all.
“Fine! Perfect even. See, I think we were wrong,” I admitted softly.
Menon’s fingers tightened around mine.
Dr. Childs tilted her head curiously.
“Oh?”
“I wasn’t sick,” I said slowly, still trying to fully process it myself. “Or unstable or chemically imbalanced or emotionally disordered or any of the other things everyone kept assuming.”
My throat tightened slightly.
“It was always just my magic trying to align itself.”
Understanding flickered across her face instantly.
“You mean to say your magic has a nocturnal affinity? But no one in the Cordoza line—I’m astonished, Amrin, and so sorry we missed it!”
I nodded quickly.
“Yes, well, even Professor Kenna believes it. I’m a Lunar Witch.”
Just saying it aloud felt surreal.
Magic crackled faintly at my fingertips in response.
“Well, imagine that!” Dr. Childs nodded enthusiastically, while my mother’s frown deepened.
I forced myself to continue addressing my former doctor, knowing my mother wouldn’t interrupt and hoping, really hoping, that maybe she might relent.
That the woman who bore me might actually believe in me for the first time in my life.
“I think,” I swallowed hard. “I think my magic and my body really, was simply preparing me to meet him. My mate.”
