Page 56 of Malice

“Won’t they hate that I’m married to a vampire?”

“Oh, they definitely will,” she says a laugh, adding another spoonful of sugar to her tea. “There will be many elders in the coven who will try to convince you that you’ve made the wrong choice by marrying a vampire,” she admits. “There will also be plenty of witches who tell you made a mistake by getting married in general.”

I would love to sit here and chitchat, making small talk and getting into Marie and the ins and outs of life as part of a coven. I don’t have that kind of luxury and have no choice but to awkwardly rip the Band-Aid off and cut to the chase. That’s what I’m going to have to do.

“What do you want to know?” she asks.

“Everything,” I rush out and we both laugh. “The Blackwoods. You were right to say I come from that family.”

“I knew it, especially with your name starting with an F. There aren’t a lot of names that start with F, you know.”

“Do all Blackwoods have F-names?”

She shakes her head. Her braids are pulled back in a loose bun today and she’s wearing another flowing dress. “From what I was able to dig up, the woman who would have been your great grandmother, Felicity, started it. Like I said, I don’t know your family well but they do have quite a reputation for being hunters. Which makes this whole you were raised by the Order thing all the more curious.”

“Trust me,” I say. “No one’s more curious about it than me.”

“I have to ask,” she says almost apologetically. “How exactly did you end up in the Order? You said your family was killed by demons and the order took you in?”

“That is what they told me.” I leave it at that, letting her come to her own conclusion. “The Order still believes that we get our powers by making a deal with the devil. They didn’t know I would have magic but when I did, they utilized it. Powers come in handy when you’re hunting demons.”

“They definitely would.” She reaches up and plays with a crystal pendant hanging from her neck. “Once they found out you were a witch they just accepted you?”

“Hah, I wish. A few members who had known me since the beginning saw that power is something they were born with and treated me with as much respect as they treated other hunters. For the most part, we tried to keep the fact that I was a witch a secret. There were times when we were out hunting and I purposely hid my magic. It made things harder than necessary.”

“So you’ve never been taught magic formally, have you?”

“I spent some time when I was a teenager with witches just learning the basics. But that was only a few months and, honestly, I’ve learned more from looking through a Book of Shadows my vampire sister-in-law has given me.”

“How did she get it?” Marie asks quickly.

“She has a friend who made a copy of a copy or something like that,” I say with a shrug, trying to be dismissive. “I don’t think she realized that it was a real spell book that had been passed down from someone in her family.”

Maria nods, thankfully finding that answer to be plausible. “I would love to have you come to New Orleans and spend the summer with me. Your mind will be blown.” Her brows go up and she smiles. “In a good way, I promise. I would take you on as a private student myself and then you can sit in on all the classes we offer over the summer. I have a feeling you would catch on pretty fast considering you’ve done well with no formal guidance so far.”

The thought of sitting in the back of a classroom listening to somebody teach witchcraft excites me in a way I never knew it would. The possibility of being surrounded by other witches makes me stupidly emotional. The one thing I’ve wanted more than anything was to belong. I was never going to belong with the hunters. And even though Xavier loves me, am I ever going to fully belong with the vampires?

“Sorry,” Marie says and she shakes her head again. “I’m asking the questions instead of you.”

“It’s okay. I have so many questions. I don’t even know where to start.” My mind, which was just firing off thought after thought, blanks. “Ummm…magic school,” I say looking at her like this is just not possible. “You’re serious about that.”

“Yes,” she laughs. “It’s not like you’ve seen in movies. We offer a very good educational program that teaches much more than magic. In my opinion our students are much better prepared for the real world than those who attend public school. You learn the same curriculum as your non magical peers—nons, is what we typically refer to them as, by the way—along with magic. You’d learn your history. Our history. The Blackwood family was one of the first magical families to settle in the States.”

“Really?”

“Yes. They’d be happy to reconnect with you, I’m sure.”

Reconnect with my family. My biological family. Holy shit. The waiter comes over and takes our orders. I just order an iced tea and dessert since Antonio and I feasted on the pasta Alan made. “You said the Blackwoods didn’t follow the rules…what exactly do you mean? Are there a lot of rules?”

“No. They’re more like traditions. We do have some pretty big ones, like don’t participate in human sacrifice or cannibalism anymore.”

“That was a thing?”

“Yeah. Some covens still sacrificed a member up until recently. Who knows what goes on behind closed doors, but the Grand Coven doesn’t allow it anymore. It’s just…safer to follow the rules,” she says, studying me for a second as she decides how much to give away.

“Safer from what?”

“Monsters. Demons who want our power. Not all of them can be killed, you know.”