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I nearly drop my donut at the abruptness of the word. My biological grandmother was murdered?
“They said it was a satanic cult.” He pauses again, letting that sink in.
“But it was probably witches,” I finish the thought for him.
He inclines his head. “Once I knew that, once there was no hope of reuniting with my biological mother, I gave up on finding my father. But I at least had some answers. Some idea of who I was. At the time, I thought that her death was tragic and pointless. I didn’t know that witches exist, didn’t see what it could mean.” He shakes his head. “I should have left it alone, should have just been happy with what I had. But they noticed, they saw I was looking, that I was the right age, that… that I belonged to that family.”
My stomach cramps with nerves again, with a knowing of what’s going to come next even as I ask the question. “Who?”
“You know.”
“Tell me.” I drop the half eaten donut back in the box and wait.
“The elders of the Septem Stellae coven.” Yeah. Just like I thought. It’s the only explanation for why they hate me so much, why Robert Harris wants me dead. They also hated my father’s biological family.
“Do you have any idea why?”
I jerk back when he stands abruptly and his lips thin out even more. But his face softens a moment later as he stretches his hand out to me. “I have something to show you.”
I frown, glancing around, meeting the eyes of several of the orderlies. “Are we allowed to do that?”
He smiles. A full on smile, like one that I remember from my childhood, though at the time I wouldn’t have been able to pinpoint what exactly he’s conveying with that smile. Cockiness. Like he thinks he’s untouchable. And that can’t possibly be right because he’s here.
“I can do anything I want, ladybug.”
He sounds sure and I still need answers, so I push to my feet and ignore the hand he offered me. I’m not ready for that, not ready to touch him. His fingers curl into his palm as he nods once and then leads the way out of the art room.
As he guides me down the hall, I check in with Kohaku, just a brush of my mind against his, to let him know I’m doing okay. I know he’ll tell the others. I have no doubt that they are all waiting in the parking lot. He sends back a feeling of contentment and I tuck it into my heart to help me get through this.
We walk along the first floor until we’re near the back of the building, overlooking the gardens. Here he stops, a hand on the handle of a room. There’s a brief flare of light that I assume is him shutting down a protection spell, and then he pushes the door open and strides inside, not waiting for me.
I follow anyway, a bit more hesitantly, my feet shuffling over the thick carpet,
My father’s room, or what I assume is my father’s room, is big. A king sized bed, plush pillows, a sitting area with a couch and two chairs, and shelf after shelf full of books. It’s something I would expect to see in an English lord’s manor or something, but definitely not as the room holding a convicted criminal.
It’s then that I realize my father isn’t a prisoner at all. Yes, Garza had told me he had been given the option to leave months ago, maybe years, but he’s decided to stay. Now I see that he’s not even a patient here.
There is no way that they would have given a patient this room.
“What- How is this your room?”
He glances over at me before striding up to the bookshelf and pulling out a thin notebook. “Magic,” is his answer, and I realize that he’s being serious. He’s used magic to make his life here comfortable.
An uncomfortable realization trickles over me.
“Are we even still at the facility?” I ask, not daring to look out the windows.
He grins at me again. “Smart girl.” The pride in his voice makes my chest ache. I push it aside as my father peruses the bookshelf until he finds a second book and pulls it free, too. “We aren’t.”
Fuck.Fuck.I lick my lips as my hand comes up to rub at my surgery scar. “Where are we then?”
“Irrelevant. I won’t keep you here, ladybug, so you don’t have to worry about communicating with your coven where you are.” I think he sounds pissed. Angry that I have friends.
“I don’t have a coven. I don’t particularly want one.”
His eyes, so like mine, travel over me, going soft all over again. “I don’t blame you.”
There’s a frantic tapping against my brain, and I know without checking that it’s one of the guys, not Kohaku. My phone in my bag is also buzzing with rapid texts and phone calls. I pull out my phone, and silence it, but open up my communication rune to all of them.
