AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He lifts a shoulder. “We’re not the only witches they’ve tried to suppress. Anyone with a power that they can’t understand or fear they try to keep down. For instance, oracles. They don’t want witches out there spouting true prophecies to anyone who happens to be around them when they get a vision.” I frown. Merritt has that power, but she can never remember her visions.
My dad is watching me with a knowing gleam in his eye. “Your friend is a seer, isn’t she?”
I nod, slowly, a little blown away at how much he actually knows about my life. He’s not lying when he says he’s been keeping track of me. “She is, but she doesn’t remember her visions.”
He tsks. “Why do you think that might be?”
I stare at him hard, trying to piece together what he’s told me, putting the puzzle pieces together. Merritt has been relegated to the sidelines of her family. She’s been told repeatedly that she is not good enough to be a part of them, while still having to follow all of their stupid rules. It had taken months of me prodding her for her to finally date Ben, because he’s non-magical.
My father watches me, a pleased smile on his face, like he knows that I’ll put it together. And then suddenly it clicks.
“They bound her.” I say, knowing it in my bones. “They cut her off from her magic and made her feel inferior because they worry about what she might see.”
My dad nods proudly. “They did. And she still has visions while bound. Imagine what she would be able to do if she wasn’t.”
I blow out a breath through my nostrils, trying to calm some of the anger inside me. It doesn’t work. It’s still there, bubbling inside of me, growing in intensity. “I’ve never liked the idea of the coven,” I say honestly. “I’ve never wanted to join one. The elders told their heirs to get me to leave Septem Stellae by any means necessary. They tortured me for months. They sent someone to try to kill me when I was in London. But I have never hated them more than I do at this moment.”
Merritt doesn’t deserve this. She’s the kindest, sweetest person who has spent her entire life feeling like she’ll never measure up to the rest of her family. And her family are the ones who did that to her.
I think about Merritt’s mom, how welcoming she was, how open and fun. How much she loves her daughter. Maybe she doesn’t know, maybe she has no idea that the coven elders did that to her.
God, I hope that is the case. I don’t want Merritt to feel that betrayal from her mother. It’ll be bad enough coming from other members of her family. I wonder if Ezra knows what they did.
I try to imagine it; him knowing and being okay with it, not doing something about it, and it just doesn’t sit right. He probably doesn’t know. I have to believe that, that none of the heirs do.
“What’s the spell you were doing on me? Were you trying to bind my magic as well?” I almost don’t want to know if he was.
“Never,” he spits out. “I would never try to keep you from your birthright, ladybug.”
My hand clenches around our family’s grimoire. “Then what were you doing? Please. Please tell me.”
His lips curl into a smile, a true genuine one. “I was trying to make sure they would never be able to bind you.”
Chapter 21
I blink at him in surprise. His statement hanging in the air between us. “You were doing an anti-binding spell?”
He nods eagerly. “Yes. No matter what spell they throw at you, it will not work. You’ll always have access to your magic. Or at least you would if I had been able to finish it.” I swallow hard, knowing why he’d been unable to complete the spell. Our neighbor had gone out for a cigarette in the middle of the night and seen what my dad was doing in our backyard. He’d tried to intervene, and my dad ended up accidentally stabbing him as they wrestled over the knife.
The neighbor died.
I got my heart surgery.
My dad ended up in jail.
“Why did you cut it into me? Why not do a tattoo?”
“Limited time. I knew they were coming for us. Knew they would take you from me, try to kill you or turn you against me. You were young enough that they could have brainwashed you. I didn’t have the time to get a tattoo gun, and it’s not like I could take my eleven-year-old daughter into a tattoo parlor. So I used a knife.”
My jaw tenses and I look away from the earnest expression on his face as he keeps talking. “I also added a protection spell that I think I have to apologize for because it appears to make it hurt when anyone else tries to cast one on you.”
I look at him again, thinking of the two hours of pain that I endured while the four men and Merritt put a protection spell on me. “The one I used wants to protect you from everything, including other spells.”
I frown. “What about when Morgan tried to siphon from me? Why didn’t it protect against that?”
My dad’s lip pulls back in a snarl. “That little witch used a potion, snuck it into the bottles of alcohol at the party. She designed it for you, so everyone else was fine. My protection spell isn’t completed on you, so it snuck through.”
I have a lot of questions about this spell that he put on me. Does it protect against all outside castings? Can I somehow pick what ones I’d want to let through? That way it wouldn’t hurt when others tried to do protection spells on me as well. Or do I need to learn how to do all the spells myself so that no matter what we need, I can cast it on me? If I’m a part of a group spell, will that work? Or will the influence of another person’s magic stop it from working?
