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She hesitated before releasing a humorless laugh. “My mom didn’t try to murder me out of fear, she was trying to steal my magic.”
Valen’s confusion deepened. “How could she steal your magic?”
“She suspected I was a mage months before I realized what was happening to me. And my mother being my mother, she saw it as an opportunity to take what she felt should have been hers.”
Valen had never heard of a witch attempting to steal the powers of a mage. Usually they sacrificed them before they could attract the attention of mortals and stir up a hunt for magic users.
“What did she do to you?” he demanded.
“At first she tried various spells, using the objects of power she’d collected over the years.” Peri shook her head, her expression hard with disgust. “She told me they were rituals all young witches went through to become a part of a coven.”
“Did you believe her?”
“It felt sketchy, but I was too isolated to call her a liar.”
Valen didn’t have trouble believing her. The ranch was miles from the nearest town and at one time it’d been heavily protected by magic. No one would have been allowed in or out without the coven’s permission. It would be easy to keep Peri isolated from the outside world.
“I assume she eventually accepted that the magic would never belong to her?”
Peri stared at him in blatant disbelief. “Clearly you never met the woman. Nothing was going to stop her. When she realized she couldn’t siphon the magic from me while I was alive, she decided to steal it as I died.”
Valen’s slender fingers abruptly curled around the arms of his chair, the polished wood cracking beneath the pressure. If Brenda Sanguis wasn’t already dead, he would have hunted her down and destroyed her.
It took more effort than it should have to keep his voice steady. “That makes no sense.”
“It did in my mother’s twisted brain.” Peri couldn’t disguise the lingering pain at her mother’s betrayal. “She infused a dagger with a spell that was supposed to absorb my magic, then she called together the coven and revealed I was a mage. They happily held me down as she shoved the blade into my chest.”
“Including Destiny?”
“She was smiling as the knife slid in.”
The wood beneath his fingers cracked again. He was going to have to replace the seat after they landed.
“Do you want her dead?”
She sent him a warning glare. “If I did, I’d kill her myself.”
Valen put aside thoughts of the nasty little witch. For now. He would deal with her later. “Continue.”
“The blade was inches above my heart and the spell was cast, but it didn’t do what my mother expected.” Peri turned her hands over to reveal the silvery scars in the middle of her palms.
“It ignited your wild magic,” Valen easily concluded.
“Yes.”
A mage could use an object or spell to cast their magic. It not only provided a focus, but the object or spell could hold extra power so the mage was never fully drained. It was only when the wild magic first appeared to mark them as a mage that the power burst out in lethal bolts. Valen had only seen it once in his two thousand years and he’d never forgotten the devastation the mage had caused.
The coven was fortunate Peri had been so young when her magic had ignited. If her powers had had time to mature, they would never have survived the storm.
“That must have been a shock,” he said.
“It knocked them unconscious and I ran from the ranch.” Her fingers tightened on the box until her knuckles turned white. It was the only indication that the memories still caused her pain. “I never looked back.”
He slid his gaze over her bold features. The wide brow, the vivid blue eyes and the lush curve of her mouth. He wasn’t admiring her beauty. Her image had been engraved in his mind from the first moment he’d seen her.
It was her strength that caught his attention. “You didn’t consider returning to punish them?”
Peri shrugged. “I could move forward or I could dwell in the past. I couldn’t do both.”
