“What happened?”
Dad scratched his head with a chuckle. “I ended up as an Irish Wolfhound.”
I fell back into my chair. “That’s how you turned into a dog?”
He dropped his eyes to his feet and gave a solemn nod. “It was the only way to ensure your safety. I’d bound your magic and hidden myself in a way that would make it impossible for them to find us by scrying.”
I reached out to him, taking his hand in mine and giving it a squeeze. “But why, Dad? Could you just have told them no? What could they possibly do to us all the way in Georgia?”
His eyebrows came together in a deep furrow. “They wouldn’t have let it go. They would’ve come for you once you reached puberty. They would’ve expected you to go live with Liam’s family until the ceremony.” He shook his head emphatically. “And I couldn’t allow that. I couldn’t let them take my baby girl.”
“But your spell backfired.” It wasn’t a question. I’d lived through the aftermath. I knew the toll that spell had taken on our family.
“That’s a good way of putting it. But worse than that, I’d failed to cloak you properly. When your magic finally broke free, I wasn’t there to help you through it. And the power emitting from you was like a giant beacon in the sky, pointing them right to you.” Dad seemed to melt into the chair across from me.
“But you were there.” I gave him a weak smile. “As my cat.”
“I could only do so much in feline form. I’d been watching you from the shadows. I saw the telltale signs that your powers were about to break through. But when you turned your idiot fiancé into an animal, I knew I needed to find a way back into human form before the clans discovered you.”
“But you didn’t. Did you?”
“No. I didn’t. By the time you changed me back, things had already been set in motion. Liam’s mother had already made plans to come for you. Thankfully, he convinced her to let him go on ahead of her. He couldn’t wait to meet you.”
“You still haven’t explained why you chose to keep this all a secret from me. Why didn’t you tell me what was happening?”
“I saw how you were with Jack. I knew you wouldn’t just walk away from him without a fight. The only way I could see you agreeing to bind yourself to Liam was if I gave you a little nudge.”
“A little nudge? Dad, you screwed with my emotions! You… you broke my heart.”
The roar of an engine approaching the house had us both turning toward the door.
“Speak of the devil.”
I spun back around to gape at my father.
“It’s just an expression, dear. Liam is hardly the villain in this story. I knew the minute I met him that bringing you together would make for a far better future than hiding would. He’s a good man. And I’d be proud to have him as my son-in-law.” Dad got up and walked away from the table.
“But—” I jumped up and followed him. I wasn’t even close to finished with this conversation. And I wasn’t about to roll over and allow the clans to win. We were living in the twenty-first century, and I was a modern witch with a mind of my own.
Dad glanced at the door before gripping my shoulders and locking his eyes with mine. “We’re done talking about this for now, but listen to me, Ivie. Marrying Liam is your only chance for happiness. I’ve done all I can to protect you. We’ve run as far as we can go. But it would seem destiny has caught up to us. It’s time to accept your fate.”
Chapter 16
With one last squeeze, Dad let his hands drop.
“What do you mean ‘accept my fate’?” He didn’t answer. Instead, he focused his attention on the thundering footsteps outside. “Dad?”
Before I could demand an answer, Liam burst through the front door as if an army of demons chased him. And with the way things had been going, I only partly dismissed the possibility. A light sheen of sweat coated his skin, and his cheeks were pinker than normal. It was the first time I’d actually seen him with even a single hair out of place, and I had to admit, disheveled looked good on him. Almost too good.
“What is it, boy?” Not for the first time that morning, my father sounded exasperated.
Liam pulled in a deep breath. “My mother.”
A spark of hope lit up my father’s face. “Has something happened to your mother?”
Liam shook his head and quickly pulled himself together. “She’s coming. The entire clan is coming.”
“Well, that changes things.” The light in Dad’s eyes dimmed, and he wrung his hands together. “I thought her plans were set for next month. And bringing the entire clan? That’s… unprecedented.”
Liam’s face darkened, and he shook his head again. “She heard…” He shot a pained look my way then turned back to my father.
Dad raised his eyebrows and motioned for Liam to go on.
Liam sighed. “Mother heard about Ivie’s reluctance to bond with me. She’s furious. She swore she wouldn’t let you do this to her again.” Liam slid another glance toward me. “She doesn’t trust anyone else to handle the situation. She’s coming to make sure things proceed as promised.”
“I see.” Dad nodded, but I caught a flash of something in his eyes that set my nerves on edge. He looked almost worried.
“Dad? What’s going on?”
My father grimaced. “I had hoped to delay things has long as possible, but it would seem we’ll be having the binding ceremony a bit earlier than anticipated.”
“What?” My legs gave out, and I sank to the floor with a thud. I wasn’t ready for the clans to show up and throw a wrench into my entire future. My mouth dried up like a grape under a heat lamp, and my heart pounded like stampeding pachyderms. “You only explained everything to me today. I thought I’d have more time to decide, more time to prepare. I don’t even know what’s expected of me, let alone if I can go through with it.”
Liam directed a soft smile my way, and the anger from earlier evaporated. He reached down and helped me up from the floor, his gentle touch making my bones go soft. He held tight to me even after I managed to find my footing. “It’ll be fine. My mother likes to bluster, but she’s not all bad. And she’ll adore you. You’ll see.”
“She’s coming here? As in here here?” I pointed to the floor at my feet, and they both nodded. I shot a panicked look to my father, but he darted his eyes away at the last moment. Traitor.
Liam gave my hand a squeeze. “I suspect she’ll check in at the hotel first. She’s reserved a suite of rooms at the St. Regis.”
Was I the only one who didn’t know Liam’s family was rich? A suite at the St. Regis could fund a small country for a least a year.
“Well, I’m sure she’ll need time to settle in.” My father tried to slither out of the room like the snake he was, but my glare froze him in place. I wasn’t about to let him get away with sneaking off after putting me in this position.
“I still don’t understand why she’s coming now,” I said. “She has to know I wasn’t prepared for all this. Hasn’t anyone told her I haven’t made up my mind yet?”
“She’ll expect us to go to her.” Liam ignored my questions and spoke directly to my father. The two of them carried on a conversation as if I wasn’t even in the room. “She likes to surround herself with the comforts of home.”
“Yes, I imagine so. Though…” Dad threw an arm over Liam’s shoulder with a faraway look in his eyes. “Spending time at the St. Regis is hardly a sacrifice. You know, perhaps we should all get rooms. Do you think the clan would mind footing the bill? Things would run much more smoothly if we stayed close by. Then again, your mother may prefer to head directly to Scotland. I haven’t been back in years…”
“You two can go wherever you like, but I’m not going anywhere. Do you hear me?” I crossed my arms and glared at them in turn. I didn’t bother to disgu
ise the mocking tone in my voice. “Except maybe China. Or Singapore. Maybe Bali. I hear the weather is lovely this time of year.”
Liam inched closer to me and winked, making my heart jump. He bent down and whispered in my ear. “I’d find you even if you left the country.”
I tried to ignore my body’s involuntary reaction to him. “What if I left the planet? I’ve always wanted to join the space program.”
He chuckled, brushing up against me. “There’s no place you can go that I can’t find you. You’re part of me now.” He pressed his hand flat against his chest, and even that simple action made him somehow hotter.
“Stop teasing me.”
“I’m dead serious.” He gave me a pointed glare, and my knees went weak again.
Gah! I needed to get away from Liam before he turned me into an Ivie-shaped puddle on my mother’s dusty old carpet. Could he really track me to the ends of the earth? Or the solar system? The man penetrated my defenses with every little word or glance… like kryptonite. “Dad, can I speak with you in the kitchen?”
My mother burst through the door with her purse dangling by one strap from her shoulder. “Angus, what’s wrong? You said to come home right away? Is Ivie… oh, there you are, dear. I didn’t see you. Is everything all right?”
Tears welled up behind my eyes, threatening to spill over in torrents. “Liam’s mother is coming to town.”
My mother’s face twisted into the most evil expression I’d ever seen on her. “Marion? Why? Why is she coming here?”
My father winced. “Rose, I’ll explain everything to you in private.”
“Oh, no!” My arms flailed through the air like I was a juggler who’d lost her balls. “I’m sick of everyone discussing my life in private. Why is everyone still keeping things from me? I’m the one who’s supposed to accept my fate and marry a man I barely know. I at least deserve to know what’s going on.”
Liam’s face fell, and I knew I’d hurt his feelings, but I didn’t have the time or the inclination to worry about it.
Dad scratched his head the way he did when he had trouble solving his scientific crossword puzzles. That was me: an impossible puzzle he couldn’t figure out. “Ivie, I explained this to you already. It’s tradition for—”
My foot came down on the floor with a thwack, sending up a mini dust cloud. “I don’t give a flying—”
“Ivie!” My mother shrieked, and my dad caught me by the arm and dragged me into the kitchen like a spoiled toddler.
“But, Daddy,” I whined. “I don’t want to bind to Liam. I love Jack.”
“I didn’t want to have to tell you this, but marrying Liam may be the only way you can ensure Jack’s safety.” He kept his voice down, biting off each word and spitting them carefully out.
I stopped in my tracks, letting him stretch my arm until it hurt. “What are you talking about?”
“Marion McDougall isn’t the forgiving sort.” He checked over his shoulder. “Walking away from your commitment to Liam would be a slap in the face to her. And you need to be nicer to the boy. None of this is his fault.”
“Not his fault?” I wrangled my arm out of his grip and did my best to get my point across without raising my voice, though I had no idea why I cared if Liam or my mom heard me. “What about me? None of this is my fault either! I never made a commitment to Liam. I didn’t even know I was a sorceress a year ago.”
Dad seemed to ignore me as he went to the cupboard and grabbed a coffee cup and a half-empty bottle of Macallan. He poured two fingers of whiskey into the cup then downed it before turning back to me. “Nevertheless, you were betrothed to him.”
“Is that even legal? I was a baby!”
He poured himself another drink and sat down, this time savoring the scotch with a groan. “That’s how they’ve done it for centuries. If I could undo the promise, I would.”
A new thought hit me, and I had no idea how it’d managed to escape me before. “How did you marry Mom?”
I could tell by the shock on his face he was taken aback. “What?”
My spine straightened, and I wiped my eyes as the first potential contingency plan for escaping my so-called fate sparked in me. “If all the marriages are arranged, how did you marry Mom?”
Dad cleared his throat. “I was given a special dispensation to marry your mother.”
“How?” My senses lit up with possibilities. “Can’t we do that? Get a special dispensation for me to marry Jack?” If he even still wants to marry me. After what’d happened that morning, I wasn’t sure anymore.
My father clucked his tongue against the roof of his mouth then rinsed the sound down with another swig of scotch. “I’m afraid that won’t be possible.”
I wasn’t above pleading. “But if they did it for you, maybe—”
Dad jumped up from his chair, tipping it over. “It just isn’t! And that’s the last I’m going to say about it. You need to accept your fate. If you don’t marry Liam, Marion will assume—quite correctly, I’m afraid—that you’ve spurned Liam for Jack, and she won’t hesitate to retaliate. Trust me, retaliation is one of her special talents, and you don’t want to see her in action.”
The more I heard about Liam’s mom, the less I wanted to meet her. “How well do you know her?”
Dad emptied the rest of the bottle into his cup and brought it to his lips. “Too well for my taste.”
I couldn’t wait to escape my parents’ watchful eyes. It was as if they saw me as a ticking time bomb. For more than an hour, they took turns engaging me in mundane conversations about the weather—sunny and warm with a slight chance of the apocalypse—and the newest neighborhood gossip. Apparently, we were the neighborhood gossip since someone had recognized the unmarked government car in the driveway. It was all I could do not to explode while they went on pretending nothing was out of the ordinary and waiting for the phone to ring and announce Marion’s arrival.
And Liam was no help. He’d refused to speak a word to me after the mini-meltdown in which I’d all but proclaimed I’d rather engage in illicit acts with a goat than be bound to him for the rest of my life. He’d planted himself in my father’s chair, piercing my heart with his damned baby blues and sending texts to persons unknown.
The whole situation had me wound up tighter than a Herve Leger bandage dress. I couldn’t breathe. So despite Liam’s pledge to find me no matter where I went, I snuck out the back and caught a cab to Chloe’s house, leaving her rental car in the driveway. At least there, I could stuff myself with Thin Mints while I waited for my turn at the gallows.
My phone vibrated, dancing across the face of the glass-topped coffee table on a path to the edge. I reached over and hit ‘decline.’ I’d turned off the ringer after the twelfth time Mom called, but that hadn’t stopped her. All nine of the Scottish clans could have been descending on Atlanta for all I cared. I wasn’t picking up the phone for anyone but Jack.
I’d left him several messages of my own, but I couldn’t blame him for ignoring me. He’d done nothing to deserve the hand he’d been dealt—other than falling in love with me. And that seemed to be on par with crossing paths with black cats or walking under ladders these days. After having his ass handed to him by Liam, I couldn’t blame him for licking his wounds in a quiet corner somewhere. But at the same time, I wished he’d given me at least some indication as to whether or not he even wanted my attention anymore.
“Would you please get off your ass and do something?”
My head shot up at the bite in Chloe’s voice. She stood in the entryway with her phone pressed to her ear, dressed to kill, as usual. I certainly hoped I wasn’t on the endangered species list.
I pointed to my chest. “Are you talking to me?”
She scrunched up her face and waved me off. “I’m serious, Jon. Your brother isn’t picking up hi
s phone. Ivie’s dealing with a crisis of epic proportions. You would think so, but I’m telling you, this makes the whole Matt situation look like a minor hiccup. Well, on a scale of Mary Poppins to Cruella DeVille, I’d suggest you keep a close eye on your hide. Maybe if you weren’t gallivanting all over Nevada, waving your wand where it doesn’t belong… Oh, don’t give me that pathetic excuse again. I saw the pictures on TMZ. And just FYI, my father’s a plastic surgeon, so I can spot a pair of fake tits a mile away. She totally got hers on clearance.” She wandered out of the room, leaving me with my buzzing phone and the last box of Girl Scout cookies.
I nestled back into the plush sofa. The air around me pulsed, and I got a distinct whiff of butterscotch candies. I sat up, bumping my knees on the coffee table as Liam shimmered into focus on the opposite side.
I brushed the crumbs from my front and stood to face him, wielding half a sleeve of cookies like a light saber.
He didn’t even crack a smile. “Drop the weapon, Little Debbie.”
“What are you doing here?” I lowered the cookies and straightened my spine. “You do know you can’t just pop in and out of people’s houses whenever you like? Don’t you have to be invited first?”
Liam clamped down on the inside of his cheek with his teeth to keep his grin at bay and maintained an icy distance. “You’re mixing mythologies. Vampires have to be invited. Sorcerers can pop to their hearts’ content.” He reached out and snatched a Thin Mint from the top of the sleeve and popped it into his mouth. His sudden aloofness threw me off balance. I couldn’t remember a time when he hadn’t flirted with me—not since that first day in the lab. “Mum’s arrived. She’d very much like to meet you.”
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