Page 59 of Anomalies

“I forgot about the glass. Stay there,” he orders, then leaves me on the porch. I watch from the doorway as he uses magic to gather all the broken pieces from the shattered lantern, casting all of it into the trash. The chair that I’d wedged under the doorknob lay halfway across the room, and he picks that up too, setting it gently in the corner.

My brows rise when he closes my back window, then triple-checks that it’s locked.

“Okay,” he says on an exhale, giving the space one final walk-through. “You can come in now.”

“You sure?” It’s a poor attempt at teasing him, but his nostrils flare all the same. “You didn’t check underneath my bed. What if there’s a monster down there?”

Callan snorts, then strides across the room. He grabs hold of the flimsy metal bed frame with ease and lifts it—mattress and all. “See anything?” he asks.

I make a show of checking, then shrug. “Nope.”

“Good.” The frame hits the ground with a heavy thud. “Come inside.”

I hesitate for a second longer, then I plop down on the edge of the bed, freezing when he tosses something silver onto the mattress beside me.

His key to my cabin.

“I’ll rip through this door if I have to,” he starts, capturing my attention. “But I don’t want to be the reason you tuck a chair under your doorknob at night.”

I don’t respond. I can’t. He has no idea how deep certain wounds run.

“Get some sleep,” Callan advises, then takes two graceful steps to the door. Moonlight streams past his towering frame as he turns back to face me. “You won’t like the way I train you, Lucina. I won’t have you playing with wildflowers.”

My thoughts are impossible to wrangle, but I manage to find my voice. “I killed them all, remember?”

“They were too delicate for you.”

And then he leaves.

16

CALLAN

Van Reenan. It’s all I can think about.

Gods, the thing that runs through her blood…I’ve only ever heard stories about it. Lucina has inherited a matchless kind of power. Nothing has ever compared to it. For centuries, it was worshipped—until we witnessed firsthand what possessing that kind of magic could turn a person into.

A murder. A traitor.

I’ve been ordered to protect the daughter of a traitor.

Can we trust her? The Banyan seems to think so. Lucina claims she never knew her mother, but what if that’s a lie? What if she’s known the whole time and⁠—

“Callan, please share with the group before you pop that vein in your forehead.”

Pax’s face is flat when my eyes refocus. I readjust in my chair, surveying my coven. Everyone but Devon is crammed into my office, the small second room in my cabin. I told D the news this morning when he came to take over Lucina’s watch, but if we are going to protect her the way Delia insists on, they all need to know who she is.

I clear my throat. “Lucina is a Van Reenan.”

More than one face pales.

“Sick.” Pheonix grins, his mismatched eyes flickering with something sinister, and Pax shakes his head at him.

Hunter looks wide-eyed back at me. “That would mean she’s⁠—”

“Esme’s daughter,” I finish for him. “And we’ve been ordered to protect her.”

Easton tenses from across the table, noticeably enough that my gaze swings in his direction. “You want us to protect a girl who has the same magic as the woman who betrayed us?” he grits out, crossing his arms over his weapon-clad vest.