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“We don’t think so.” Fielder sounds almost apologetic. “They were behind the man in the woods, an illusion cooked up by Julie.” I frown. That illusion felt awful real when I was tackled by the dog and a knife obviously made the cuts in my coat. How are her illusions able to do that?
I shake away the thought and focus on the more important question of who is trying to kill me.
“So then, your father?” I ask, Fielder. He nods in confirmation. “And you have no idea why he wouldn’t want me at Septem Stellae?”
They all shake their heads. “We don’t. But we’ll work on it, on figuring it out. I promise, Ro,” Ezra presses another kiss on my temple.
I hum in my throat and pluck at the string on my leggings again. “So, magic is hereditary. Does that mean Sam has magic, too?”
I glance up at Hardin and see he’s focused on the movement of my fingers on my thigh, stretching the string out and smoothing it down. He swallows hard and forces his eyes up to meet my gaze. “Sorry, love. Got distracted. Yes, Sam does also have magic.”
“Do you think Desi knows?” I feel uncomfortable thinking that she might know something like witches and magic exists, and that she hasn’t told me about it, but then again, I haven’t been entirely truthful with her either.
And I can’t even imagine how that conversation would go. ‘Hey Des, so turns out your girlfriend is from a magical family and her brother has been torturing me at school to get me to leave because one of their coven elders doesn’t want me around.’ I shake away the thought. Yeah, that’s probably not a conversation that’s going to happen.
“Its not likely that she does. We don’t exactly go around proclaiming it to everyone.”
“But you’re telling me.”
“You’re different.” Fielder says matter-of-factly. “You’ve shown signs of having magic. We don’t know if Desdemona does.”
I take a deep breath and puff out my cheeks as I release it. “Okay, so just so we’re all on the same page. You’re all witches. You think I am too. But not my sister. We don’t knowhowI’m a witch because it’s hereditary and as far as we know, it doesn’t run in my family.” I point a finger at Fielder. “Your father saw me at parents’ day, demanded that you all work to get me to leave the university, and you all went along with it because…”
I let the sentence linger, wait for them to finish.
They look down at their feet, at the ceiling, at the wall, anywhere but at me.
“Because you’re all assholes,” I declare. “And you’re more afraid of the elders in your coven than you want to admit and you all thought ‘what’s the harm in getting rid of one girl?’ Right?”
“We were actually trying to keep you safe,” Gideon says. Stubborn beautiful boy that he is.
“Really? Well, I sure felt awful safe while a maniac was chasing me through the woods and when I was pushed down a flight of concrete stairs.”
“Better that you leave and live, than stay and die,” Fielder argues, running a hand down his face.
I open my mouth to deny it, to state that I wouldn’t die, that they wouldn’t have killed me, but then it snaps shut. It’s true. I don’t feel like I’m physically threatened by them. There were so many times that I’d felt like my life was in danger in the last six months. And if they in front of me are to be believed, none of those life threatening incidents had come from them. None. Someone else did all of those.
I think about Robert Harris glaring down at me, talking about how much he’d like to shove his cock between my pretty lips, and yeah, I can imagine him telling his coven to just go ahead and kill me. Even if I have no idea why he wants me dead, I can see him giving the order.
I hum in my throat again, not willing to argue with them about it.
I want to ask about a million other questions, but the words get caught in my throat. Hardin curls his fingers around the nape of my neck and pulls me toward him to kiss my forehead. “It’s a lot. We know it is, love. But you need to believe us. Things with the coven are likely to get a lot worse before they get better.”
“We don’t know-” Fielder starts, his tone chastising.
“I fucking know!” Hardin shouts, standing, fists clenched. Ready to fight everyone. “I was there. And this time, it wasn’t a warning. Look at her, Harris.” He points one ringed finger at me. “He was going to take her and he was going to kill her.”
Ezra presses a kiss against my temple, while Fielder and Hardin glare at each other. I stay quiet for as long as I can, but eventually I need to break the tension.
“So, what do we do now?” My voice is small. I hate that. When I speak again, I add strength to my words. “How do I not let these assholes kill me?”
Their silence to my question is answer enough. There isn’t a way I just get to go back to my normal life and continue living. I’ll be looking over my shoulder forever until they eventually kill me. Or we somehow manage to kill them.
My phone rings.
Gideon strides over to the bedside table and looks at the name of the person calling. “It’s your mom.”
I wave my hand. “I’ll call her later.” The last thing I want is to deal with her screeching at me about some imagined slight. Not when I just found out that I’m apparently enemy number one for a coven of witches.
