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I reach out a trembling hand and place it on his leg. “You found me because I carried your wife’s power.”
“Carried?” he asks.
“They confiscated it after I performed that banishment ritual,” I mutter.
His face hardens. “All the more reason to punish them—”
“No,” I blurt. “If they hadn’t given me your wife’s magic, you would never have crossed over into our realm to find me. If they hadn’t given me your wife’s magic, you would have spent even more centuries raging and frustrated and miserable.”
He swallows, his expression turning pensive, and he runs a clawed hand through his hair.
My pulse quickens. He’s conflicted. Good. Perhaps now he’ll reconsider this outrageous mass slaughter.
“If they hadn’t given me your wife’s magic, you would never have found me, and I would never have gotten the chance to fall in love.”
The Boogie Man’s jaw drops.
“You love me?”
“More than anything,” I whisper. “I love the nineteen-year-old king who adored his wife with all his heart, the hound who became my closest companion, and the Boogie Man who made me feel wanted for the first time in my lonely existence.”
His chest heaves. “Alienor.”
“Most of all, I love the kind and loving and forgiving man who came to my rescue, even after I banished him to another realm.”
His nostrils flare. “Don’t make me give up my quest for vengeance.”
“These witches didn’t steal your life. They wanted to, but you were too strong. Isn’t it enough to have them squirming at your mercy?”
“They are a scourge to all men,” he says through clenched teeth.
My throat thickens. “You attacked my cousin and murdered a man just for trying to touch me. Some might call you the scourge.”
I try not to stiffen at his glare. The Boogie Man might huff and puff, but he doesn’t mean me any harm. Now, I need to extend that feeling to the rest of the coven.
“They’re also the only family I’ve ever known.”
“I will be your family,” he growls.
I shake my head. “If you plan on killing them to get back at your wife, then you have to kill me, too. I’m also one of her descendants.”
The Boogie Man winces.
My heart beats so hard and fast that I’m surprised he hasn’t noticed. It’s too early to feel triumph, but I’m close. Pointing at the sarcophagus, I say, “The person who hurt you is standing right there.”
He turns to the withered corpse, his features twisting with rage. I suck in a sharp breath and hold it deep within my lungs.
Please let him be satisfied with desecrating his wife’s remains. I repeat the words in my head over and over until they run into each other.
The Boogie Man’s shadows snap back into his feet, and the witches fall to the ground in an echo of groans and thuds. Before I can check on Grandma, he leaps off the altar with a battle cry and sticks his claws into his wife’s chest.
I step back, hoping he doesn’t tear it apart with his teeth. There’s no way I could kiss him with bits of my great-great-to-the-power of twenty grandmother in his mouth.
Aunt Klara is the first to stumble to her feet. “Mother, the sacred sphere is floating away.”
“Don’t touch that,” Grandma screeches in the Boogie Man’s direction. “It’s the source of all our power. Tampering with it would be catastrophic!”
The Boogie Man hisses through his teeth, digs his claws into the glimmering ball, and draws the magic into his fingers. His hand glows, then his forearm, then his bicep, then the light disappears into his chest.
