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“I should’ve come out there and seen it—or you, for that matter,” she whispered as she moved deeper into the room. Smiling, she sat on my bed and picked up the picture of us together in London, then sat it down. “You should get some sleep. We’ve a lot of catching up to do. I’d love to hear all about your time in Ireland. You must’ve had so many great friends, and adventures there.”
“I did,” I confirmed with warmth spreading through me.
It had to be the exhaustion catching up with me. This was my grams, the woman who’d raised me without complaint even though she hadn’t been forced to take on the responsibility.
“Ireland was amazing, even if it rained a lot. The library in Trinity College was pretty overwhelming to see in person. Do you know they have the Book of Kell’s in it?” Smothering a yawn with my hand, I felt my eyes growing heavier.
“I’ve heard it’s an amazing sight,” she agreed before slipping from the bed. Leaning over, she tucked me in before rising to smile down at me. “Sleep well, Moira Darling. We’ll have plenty of time to catch up once you’re rested and settled in.”
Chapter Four
Rowan
The shit I’d set in motion was coming together splendidly. It shouldn’t have been as easy as it was to call each Bishop witch home. Either Violet was weakening, or she’d become too comfortable in the hills I’d led her and her people to so long ago. I’d chosen the perfect place for them, which allowed me to easily keep track of her bloodline.
Violet owed me for what I’d done for her, nevertheless, she refused to hand over the one thing which could free me from the noose around my neck. But I wasn’t planning to back down this time, no matter what happened. I’d waited too fucking long to be free of the chains binding me. Not even her very pretty granddaughter, who’d be the key to bringing her grandmother to her knees, would stop me.
When news of Rena’s pregnancy circulated, it had sent shockwaves off in the Underworld. Bishop women didn’t procreate without Lucifer’s blessing. It just didn’t fucking happen. But something had successfully bypassed the magical IUD Lucifer had in place to protect his bloodline. After meeting Moira, I was even more intrigued to figure out what genetics had created the ethereal, lithe creature.
Moira Darling was naïve, but intelligent. I’d seen the proof of it in her eyes when she’d tried to connect things together. She’d named off the classes she’d taken, confirming she wasn’t merely a sex toy to be played with. Unsurprisingly, everything she’d taken would be lucrative in witchcraft, which Moira appeared to be clueless about. I hadn’t believed the beguiling creature at first, but the more I watched her, the more truthful it seemed.
The girl was soft curves and sharp edges. I craved a taste of her pleasure to see if she’d be as wild and reckless in bed as she was outside of it. Her fear was intoxicating, but mixed with her arousal? Fucking delicious. Violet either assumed Moira was protected by the Bishop protection spells, or that the girl was too intelligent to end up in the hands of her enemies. Of course, she’d been wrong. I could’ve easily taken her from Violet without a fight tonight. Instead, I’d dropped her off on Violet’s doorstep.
Entering the room, I scanned the walls as the runes hummed with warning at my presence. A smirk spread over my lips as the men noted it, groaning before returning to what they’d been doing before I’d arrived. I could read the room without them asking the question.
“I have a reason for allowing her to reach the manor. For now, she’s more useful where she is, gentlemen.” Grunts sounded at my answer to the burning question hovering in the air. “Violet knows I could’ve easily kept her pretty little granddaughter if I’d chosen to do so. Let her go mad, wondering why I didn’t seize her when I had the chance.” I’d been asking myself the same fucking question as well. But if I was being honest, I had something much more sinister planned for Moira.
“She’s beautiful, brother,” Lorne rumbled from the fireplace, where he poured two fingers of bourbon into a glass.
“Yes, very pretty and deliciously naïve about what she is,” Xayden chuckled from the chesterfield he occupied. “Can we play with her?”
“No.” I grunted, taking a seat beside him. I didn’t like them speaking of Moira, which merely pissed me off that it bothered me at all. She wasn’t mine, nor would she be. “She’s different from the others. I’m not sure what it is about her, but she is. Her scent is off, but between the pomegranate and white lotus perfume, it’s hard to pinpoint what is wrong about it. There’s also her coloring. Never in the history of the Bishop line have any of them been born without the scarlet-colored hair or ice-colored eyes they are known for. So, who bedded Rena Bishop to create pretty little Moira Darling? Whoever sired her, he managed to break the bloodline genetics. That’s something no other has managed to do before.”
“That’s true,” Jaxon agreed as he strolled into the room and plopped down on the armchair across from me. His amethyst eyes sparkled as his lips curled into a sly grin. “Here’s your little hottie before she left town, asshole.” I narrowed my gaze at the picture he held up and smiled without having to fake it. “No one here’s mentioned her, so I figured it needed a second look. I found this image in the yearbook for the high school. Her birth certificate wasn’t easy to find. It’s almost as if they were trying to conceal her parentage on it, but it was a dead-end, too.” Leaning forward, he held out her birth certificate, which I took.
“Moira Darling Bishop, born to Rena Sarah Bishop on April 30thwith no witnesses? That doesn’t scream ‘bullshit’ at all, does it, gentlemen?” They did not spell the parchment like other documents pertaining to the Bishop line. Almost as if they meant it to be discovered. “There is no father listed, which marks her as impure and is a blight on the bloodline. No way in hell would Violet allow a daughter of hers to birth an impure witch into the line, not unless it was important. To my knowledge, there has only ever been one other, and that was Violet herself. This isn’t Rena’s signature, either. I’ve studied their signatures more than I’ve studied my own. Violet Bishop forged her daughter’s name. What I want to know is, why would she need to do so? Did Rena not care enough to fill one out? Or, are they hiding something big from daddy dearest?”
Not since The Hammer of the Witches had a witch willingly taken in an impure witch. That was in 1486, which was when the witch-hunting manual was written, and they almost wiped witches from existence. “Violet still hasn’t admitted to anyone here that her mother was Isobel Gowdie, or that she’s the daughter of Satan.” It stood to reason. No one would willingly admit they were the daughter of the devil.
Movement outside the window caught my eye, and I shifted my attention to it. Moira was outside the Bishop manor, apparently trying to hear something her grandmother was saying as she paced the balcony above her. Rising from the couch, I moved to the sliding glass doors and pulled them open, stepping outside. Studying the girl from afar, I caressed her delicate neck with ravenous eyes before forcing my attention to Violet. A smile twisted my lips, knowing she’d seen me leaving after dropping off her precious package. Whatever the old witch said had pain flashing across Moira’s pretty face, and I found a certain dislike for anyone other than me hurting Moira Darling.
I’d never been attracted to a woman as strongly as I’d been to Moira. It wasn’t her beauty that caught my attention, even though she was breathtakingly beautiful. It was something else, and the pull to her was alarming. I wasn’t a nice guy, and I had no intention of becoming one either.
If I was a better man, I’d ignore the pull to the pretty imp. But I wasn’t, and she was oblivious to the war being fought here. A war in which I’d been moving parts around since the day I’d discovered Isobel’s betrayal. Too many things were falling into place already, and there wasn’t a way to stop what had already begun. Besides, I had no place for Moira in my life. I’d let one woman in, and she’d destroyed any kindness I’d held.
No, I wasn’t here to play with one pretty woman who got my cock hard. I was here to take back what was rightfully mine. The Book ofDaemonologie. It was the very book that the king of Scotland told the world he’d written five-thousand-years after it had actually been penned. One lie had started it all, which resulted in the devil rising. Each witch sacrificed had brought him closer to the surface until the seal on his prison broke. The moment they’d released him from hell, Satan had targeted those who’d forsaken him. The same creatures who’d once worshipped the ground he’d walked on. Demons and witches. He’d pretended to be on our side long enough to destroy the partnership we’d created. But for some of us, it destroyed much more.
That was why Isobel had been susceptible to the devil’s influence. And also, why she’d confessed to witchcraft, knowing she’d never escape the taste of flames against her naked flesh. It had given the devil enough time to find and retrieve both books. Books that the witch-hunters had stolen and intended to use to destroy both demons and witches alike. The devil had discovered the hidden tomes, and in their place, he’d planted forgeries with crucial pieces missing. The witch-hunters then circulated the counterfeit copies to the four corners of the land.
In the end, we’d merely been playing a losing game. The devil had used us in a game of his choosing and design. We’d been told to choose between sacrificing something we loved, or the original books which could protect our races. I’d chosen to save something I’d thought would be more precious to the woman who’d betrayed me.
I’d chosen what she’d created with the devil. Unbeknownst to me it had bound my hands from intervening to save Isobel. It forced me to watch as they broke her mind and body until nothing remained of the woman I’d once loved. The witch-hunters and finders had drowned Isobel in barrels of holy water. When she refused to die, they took to beating her with heavy stones. The sound of her bones shattering beneath them still haunts my dreams. They’d whipped the flesh from her back multiple times, with nary a cry from her lips for mercy. But when she wouldn’t break, they violated her in ways so cruel, that she lost her mind. She’d lain there in the filth of their releases, bloodied from their brutality. I’d waited for her mind to return, but it never had.
She’d remained there, forgotten by the witch-hunters, and finders and priests. I’d refused to abandon her. On the morning of All Hallows’ Eve, Isobel’s scream ripped through the musky, death-filled dungeons. For hours, she’d screamed and cried, even as she forced the child she’d created with Satan from her frail, emaciated body. I’d expected something unsightly, or with hooves. But the tiny babe wasn’t grotesque at all. She was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. I’d swaddled the babe and then taken her to a coven to be nursed and looked after. I’d protected the child from the shadows until she’d no longer needed protection from anything.
“You cannot have her, demon,” Violet’s voice drifted over the wind, forcing my eyes from where I’d been watching her precious granddaughter pretending to read. Her choice of reading material was questionable, but intriguing at the same time. Images of her naked and bound to the bed with red welts covering her smooth, taut skin had my dick twitching.
“If I want her, she’ll be mine, witch. If I decide to take her from you, there isn’t anything you could do to stop me. You and I both know the truth of it, don’t we? Your father doesn’t scare me any more than the insane mess-of-a-mother you hide in your crypt outside of your manor does.” Her gasp of shock made my smile widen. Did she really think I wouldn’t find out her secrets? “Yes, I know who your daddy is, and your mother. I was there when you drew air into your underdeveloped lungs. I’m the one who delivered you to the witches and kept you hidden from humans ever discovering you existed.”
