AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Your power will take time to develop, too, as you and Derek build the trust and intimacy between you. It won’t hit you all at once. So you’ll have time to adjust as your spark expands.”
Really? Was that only because I wasn’t all that connected to Derek to begin with, or would the same thing be true with my actual consorts? It was hard to imagine the flame inside me burning even brighter, even headier… But maybe it could. A giddy thrill trickled through me.
“So you don’t think I have any reason to worry?” I said.
“Not at all,” Dad said, warmly but firmly. “I’m looking forward to seeing you come into your powers. You’ve waited a long time, but you’ll show the witching world just what a Hallowell is capable of.”
He sounded so happy about it. So proud. Nothing about his expression or his tone suggested the slightest concern about how I might use that power. I tucked my hands behind my back and curled my fingers in a subtle magicking designed to gauge his mood. I didn’t have any experience reading the impressions that echoed back over me, but I sensed nothing from him that was hostile.
I knew my father, didn’t I? This was exactly the man I’d thought he was, not the terrifying figure Celestine had tried to convince me of. One last jab to throw me off, to wound me while she still could—was that all her claim had been?
I was never going to know for sure that his loyalties were with me until I tested him outright, by laying out what I knew. I was going to have to trust him enough to attempt that sometime. And if this was all an act, if he’d played out some master con on me… Well, I had all that magic at my disposal. What could he do to me? None of his connections mattered if I forced him silent the way I had my stepmother. I’d find some way to navigate around the Assembly too, if it came to that. One step at a time.
Jin was right. I had to remember what I was, what I was already capable of.
“Dad,” I said. “There’s something else I wanted to talk to you about. I just need to get something from my room first, to show you—I’ll be right back.”
He looked at me curiously as he let go of my hand. “Of course, Rose. I can wait.”
I shot him a quick smile and hurried out of the office. In my bedroom, I ran my fingers over the spines of my massive book collection. There.
The contract between Celestine and Derek that had signed my magic to his control after our consorting lay folded beneath the book’s back cover, right where I’d left it. I exhaled in relief and slid it into my pocket. I was just turning back toward the hall when the front door thumped open downstairs.
“Mr. Hallowell!” a frantic voice shouted. “Mrs. Gainsley!”
I darted to the top of the stairs as Dad emerged from his office. The young guy from the garage staff—Tyler—was the one who’d called out. He was standing on the threshold supporting a slumped figure with sandy blond hair.
Supporting Derek. My heart lurched as I recognized my supposed fiancé. His sandy hair was flecked with blood, his face mottled red, and his hand clutched against his side. As I stood there frozen, his arm slipped from Tyler’s shoulders and he collapsed onto his knees.
Chapter Seventeen
Rose
Imight not have been feeling the most friendly toward my former fiancé at the moment, but I wasn’t going to leave him to stagger around bleeding in my front hall. I dashed down the steps with Dad right behind me.
“I’m fine, I’m fine,” Derek was muttering as he pushed himself upright, gripping the end table, but he so obviously wasn’t. His breath was coming with a faint squeak through his bloody nose and he already had a black eye forming. His yellow shirt and gray slacks were mottled with dirt and drops of blood. From the way he held himself, I could tell there were more bruises down his side. He winced as he shifted his weight.
“Get the first aid kit,” Dad barked at Tyler. The garage assistant ran off. Derek tipped back against the wall with a thump and a grimace. He could barely open that one eye.
“Sit down,” I said, cringing in sympathy. “You shouldn’t be pushing yourself. Whathappened?”
Derek stayed where he was. He swiped his hand past his mouth, which only smeared the grit and blood there more.
“I’m not even sure,” he said in a raspy voice. This close, I could smell the sweat on him, laced with the faint metallic tang of that blood. “I was driving back here, between towns, and I had to stop for a bunch of guys carrying something across the road. The next thing I know, they’re dragging me out of the car and beating the shit out of me. Took my wallet and left me. I managed to drive back… The Spark only knows what the damned car looks like.”
Right, because the state of the car was the most important consideration here. I stared at him. What the hell could have provoked an attack like that? “You didn’t know who they were at all?”
He shook his head and winced. “Not a clue. Never seen them before. They were unsparked, so it’s not like I’d have been doing business with them. They looked like some kind of gang, I guess. Leather jackets, scruffy.”
“But they left your car,” I said. They hadn’t just wanted to steal from him.
They’d mostly wanted to beat him up.
Dad’s jaw set. He must have been thinking the same thing. “There are always murmurs passing between the neighbors about us being a little ‘odd,’” he said. “Maybe a few of the unsparked decided they didn’t like the idea of the Hallowells expanding their strange family.”
“No one around here has everhurtany of us,” I protested. The worst I’d ever had directed at me was that jerk’s muttering in the museum archive the other day.
Dad caught my eyes. “There’s always a first time. And it isn’t the first time, not really. Just the first time you’ve been here to see. We can never trust the unsparked—because this is how they react the moment they invent any reason not to trustus.”
