“I loved him completely, totally, and absolutely. He was something that was mine—all mine,” she said softly. “Everything was perfect... until my mother called and told me I was pregnant.”
“Wait, what?” Again I tried to twist around and look at her, but the binds held me fast. “Shetoldyou?”
“Blood magic, sweetie. It’s a powerful thing. She sensed instantly that another of her bloodline was about to be born, and who else could be carrying that child but her only child? Me.”
Clink. Clink. Scratch.
What was she doing back there? Why won’t she turn me around so I can see?
“That morning, she called me up more excited than I ever heard her. She was gushing, and I mean gushing, about her plans for you,” she said. “About how you’d be taken away and trained even more rigorously so that you could take over Hart Hospitals, and then from there, government, politics, and one day, the first female president.”
My brows rocketed up my head.Yikes. Fictional Grandma doesn’t mess around, does she?
“She had your whole life mapped out, and me and your father had no place in it. Just hearing her speak of taking my daughter away like it was a foregone conclusion, I snapped,” she confessed. “I shouted that no one was taking you anywhere. That, unlike her, I loved my baby and there was no way I was raising her to be a pawn in the coven’s game of power.
“Your grandmother listened to my rant... and laughed,” she hissed. “That’s right, she laughed. The woman told me that I may be more powerful than her, but I wasn’t more powerful than the entire coven, and that is who would come after me if I dared to run away withtheirheir.
“The whole of the Avos coven would hunt me down, and rip my baby away from my cold, dead arms if that’s what it took.”
I hissed. “I know this isn’t real, but even the thought of a mother threatening their own daughter like that is gross. I’m really disliking Fake Grandma right now.”
“She is gross, and cruel, and very, very real,” she corrected. “She also wasn’t bluffing. I knew she had every intention oftaking you away from me, and resorting to brutal measures if I stood in the way.
“I was scared, Charlie. Terrified and backed into a corner, and so I said the one thing a witch is never supposed to say.”
The warmth leeched out of my body. “No...” Somehow, I knew what she said like I was right there in the room. “You didn’t...”
“I did,” she rasped. “I screamed at my mother that I’d sell my soul to the devil before I let her lay a finger on my baby, and just like that, he was there.”
I opened my mouth, but I didn’t know why. I couldn’t speak even if I found the words.
She continued her awful story. “On that day, Lucifer offered me a deal. In exchange for hiding me, you, and your father from my coven, I had to give him something that only I could. A devil’s spawn that was half fallen angel and... half Avos witch.”
“No...” My lips were numb. All the feeling had left my fingers. “Stop...”
“And so four years later,itwas born,” she spat.
“Stop!”
She plowed on. “And the devil named it... Adora Rose.”
“I said stop!” I shrieked. “That’s enough. Nothing that you’re saying is true! Nothing—!”
The impostor snapped her fingers. “Silentium.”
I kept shouting, but no one could hear it. She’d stolen my voice.
“I’m sorry, sweetie, but the immobilization spell won’t last forever, and your interruptions are wasting time. Just listen quietly so that we can do what we’re here to do. When I’m done, I promise you’ll understand.”
“Understand, my ass! Let me out of here!” I thrashed even harder against my unseen chains.
“I know this is a shock,” she cried. There was more scratching and the sound of something being dragged across the stone floor. “I more than anyone know how attached you became to it. You thought it was your sister. You thought it was something to be loved. You even gave up your future to care for it!” She swore. “You don’t know how it broke my heart when Lucifer told me you dropped out of college to care for the thing instead of letting it go into foster care.”
“Stop calling her it! You’re not our fucking mother, what right do you have to speak of my sister that way!”
“But that was also my fault,” she gritted. “Lucifer put in the soul contract that I wasn’t allowed to mistreat his spawn in any way. I had to treat it the same way I treated you, or the contract was void, and his protection would be lifted. Of course, I couldn’t put your life at risk because of that thing, so I put on my greatest performance, but in doing so, I left you with a terrible burden after I was gone.”
“Dora is not a burden, you monster! Get me out!” I rocked and rolled in the invisible stretcher. “Let me out!”
