by D. G. Swank
My father turned to him with hate-filled eyes. “This doesn’t concern you.”
“Bullshit,” Logan said. “If it concerns Rowan, it concerns me. Unlike you, I’m thinking about her well-being, not what she has to offer me.”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about!” my father shouted.
“Don’t I?” Logan asked in a calm voice. “You’ve had six years to reach out to her, yet the only reason you did so now is because you need her to read that book of nasty spells. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be wasting your time.”
I gasped and stared at my father. “He’s right.”
For the first time, my father looked pissed at me. “He’s a human, Rowan. He’s beneath you. He’s nothing.”
“And yet he’s right,” I said.
“What’s more,” Logan continued, a sharp edge to his voice. “If I’m understanding all of this correctly, you let that madman Donall have free rein with the daughter you claim to love. You let him ravage her mind and put her in a coma for two days. You let him beat her and lock her in a closet.” He took a breath, getting himself worked up. “You knowingly let that man hurt her, all for the sake of getting her to read that goddamned book. And not only that, but you want that abuser to marry her?” He shook his head in disgust. “Sounds like I have a good grasp on what’s going on here, and I want Rowan to have no part of it.”
“This is none of your concern!” my father shouted, his face turning red. “You’re a human. A nonmagical. Rowan is nothing to you!”
“I don’t care if Rowan is a witch or a troll or a talking donkey. I care about her, and I can guaran-fucking-tee you that I know more about her than you do. She likes to be in control because she feels like she’s had so little of it in her life. She has a cooking show on YouTube because you taught her to cook and it was a way for her to feel close to you.”
My mouth dropped open. While I’d told him I loved cooking because my father had taught me, I hadn’t told him the rest.
Logan gave me a wry smile. “I told you I’m observant. I know you better than you think, Rowan.” He turned back to my father, his eyes narrowing again. “I’ve had to learn to read between the lines with her, because she’s built a giant fucking wall around her heart to keep people out. Because her family is full of utter assholes who hurt her.”
“You know nothing about our family,” my father said.
“I’ve deduced enough to know that everyone has had an agenda for her—her mother, the witches, Donall, you. As far as I can tell, I’m the only one who wants her for her, not what her magic can offer me.” His upper lip curled. “Can you say the same?”
I stared at him in shock. He was right. How had I never realized that before?
“Enough!” Donall shouted. “We don’t have time for this drama!”
My father turned his rage on Donall. “And we wouldn’t have this drama if you hadn’t told Rowan who I was!”
He flicked his hand and Donall went flying backward across the room until he hit the wall and slid to the floor—pretty much the same thing he’d done to the guard earlier.
I sucked in a breath of surprise. “That wasn’t your talent. Your gift is persuasion.”
Hells, he’d been using it on me this whole time.
“No,” he said, his voice dull. “This is a gift from a druid who aligned himself with the Dark Set.” He took a step toward me, a new urgency in his eyes. “The Dark Set can give you so much, Rowan. Join us and you’ll never want again.”
“But I’ll be your slave. Donall’s wife,” I spat out.
“No, not a slave.”
“I’ll be stuck in a misogynistic horror show, where men make the rules and tell me how to live. Where I’m married to a sadistic jerk.”
“That’s not how it will be for you, Rowan. You’ll be allowed special privileges. Perks.”
“Oh,” I said bitterly. “So I’ll kick back and enjoy my perks while everyone else suffers.” I shook my head. “How could I refuse that offer? Sounds like every girl’s dream.”
“I understand that you’re frightened to hand over control”—his eyes darted to Logan as he said so—“which is why I’ll make sure you have more power than most men.”
“Of course, you’ll give me less than Donall.”
“This is how it was meant to be,” my father said. “The mage leading the witch.”
I shot darts of hate toward him. “No wonder Mom hated you at the end. She knew what a monster you really were.”
He slapped me across the face and I nearly fell to my knees from the force.
“Witches must learn their place, Rowan. I wish I could have taught you that lesson long ago so it would be less painful now, but it’s not any less true. You’re bright. You’ll find your rightful place in this new world.”
“As long as I’m a good little girl,” I said, my words full of malice. “Well, sorry to disappoint you, but not only am I not good, I’m no longer a little girl.”
That ticked him off. He grabbed my arm and dragged me to the book. “Open it before I tell the guards to hurt your lover.”
“Don’t do it, Rowan,” Logan said. “You know they’re going to kill me anyway.”
Not if I could help it. I held out my left palm and glamoured a dagger out of thin air. I’d never done that before, but, to my shock, it looked perfect. The metal and jewels were cold and hard to the touch, the blade razor sharp. My father gasped when he saw the jewel-encrusted hilt.
“When did you see the Dagger of Hillcrest?” he asked in dazed wonder. “How did you know it was the dagger to seal our fate?”
I had no idea what he was talking about. I’d only needed a sharp object to cut my hand. The dagger had simply appeared.
But now that I had a weapon to make a wound to feed the book, I was scared I was making a mistake. My gaze jerked to Logan, seeking reassurance even though I knew I wouldn’t find it there. He had no idea what I was doing. Shoot, neither did I, for that matter.
“You’re opening the Book of Sindal,” Donall said. He’d gotten to his feet and was staggering across the room with a mask of pure rage.
I’d had enough of him. Without even thinking about it, I did something I’d never attempted before: I glamoured my thoughts. Donall would only hear what I wanted him to hear.
I glared up at my father. “If I do this, then you have to swear to me that Logan won’t be killed.”
“Rowan!” Logan shouted. “No!”
My father gave me a sad look. “You know I can’t do that. He knows too much.”
“Then wipe his mind. Erase me from his head. Just don’t kill him.”
Logan jerked on his restraints. “Rowan, no!”
My father studied me. “I will spare him if you read the book. If you don’t, we’ll kill him.”
My blood turned to ice. Logan’s death was unacceptable to me under any circumstances, and in all likelihood I wouldn’t be able to read the book. But I shoved all that below my barrier and forced a confidence I didn’t feel.
I’m sure I can read it, I projected. The book is calling out to me like it did to my sisters. It’s ready to reveal its secrets to me.
“Donall?” my father asked. “What is she thinking?”
“She’s certain it will be different this time,” he said, his eyes sparkling with excitement and malice. “She says the book is calling out to her.”
I anchored my blooming excitement below the barrier in my mind. It had worked! If I could hide most of my thoughts from him, then I could surely hide the rest. Which meant Logan and I had an actual shot at escaping.
Before I could stop myself, I turned to face him. The concern in his eyes stole my breath. I knew in my heart I could love him. I just needed to get us both out of this alive.
Taking a deep breath, I picked up the dagger and sliced a one-inch gash into my left palm. At first I didn’t feel the cut, but then the wound began to throb as blood began to pool in my palm.
“Rowan!” Logan called out. �
��What are you doing?”
I set the dagger on the table, then grabbed the book with my good hand, turning it so the spine touched the table and the edges of the pages faced upward. The first drop of blood struck the paper, and an electric shock shot through my body, unleashing something. The pages fluttered, and a fine mist wafted up from them.
Everything suddenly became clear to me.
“Your mistake was feeding it so little of my blood,” I said as I cupped my hand, letting more blood collect. The pain in my palm was becoming more intense. “Then again, maybe it wasn’t a mistake. You kept giving it my blood, letting it build up in the pages and the binding so that it was finally reaching the level of sacrifice my sisters had given.” I looked up at my father. “The one who gives the most wins.”
My father stared at me as though I was speaking in tongues. In a way, I supposed I was.
“You were right about needing a Whelan,” I continued. “The book belongs to the Whelans. It always has and always will. The Small Council was stupid to take it from us.” I shot a dark look to Donall. “But then that was your decision too, which makes you just as stupid.”
“Women are to treat men with respect!” Donall shouted.
The blood was filling my hand now, becoming difficult to contain. “I might be able to treat you with respect if you actually deserved it.”
“Why was it stupid to take the book from you, Rowan?” my father asked, genuinely curious.
“Because the book will never reveal its secrets to anyone but a Whelan.” I lowered my hand and let the blood spill along the edges. The paper immediately soaked it in. It felt greedy for more, so I kept my hand tipped over it, letting the blood drip, feeding it.
“Surely the book will open now,” my father said, not sounding as confident as his statement. “You’ve opened it with far less blood.”
“Not yet. I haven’t given it enough.”
“To open it?” Logan asked.
My gaze lifted to his. “To possess it.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Alarm filled his eyes, but I looked away as a feeling of rightness washed through me. Celeste had been mistaken. The book was mine, or it would be as soon as I fed it enough blood.
Donall sidled up to me, but I gave him a feral look. “Back up.”
“Do as she says,” my father ordered, his gaze on the book. “Let her work.”
The blood flow from my palm had begun to slow down. I considered adding another gash to speed up the process, but the energy of the book began to shift. It was telling me it was ready.
I set the book flat on the table and opened the front cover, feeling a bite of anger when I saw my father’s note. I now knew the truth of how Donall had gotten the orb from the book. He hadn’t needed me to read the spell. Celeste had fed the book her blood, and it had shared its secrets with her because it found her worthy.
And my little sister hadn’t told any of us.
So why had Phoebe found her bound to a pentacle, bleeding out, when she’d obviously already fed the book her blood? If she had cooperated, why had they hurt her anyway?
My answers would have to come later, because the book was eager to get to work. The pages began to turn on their own, the flutter of the paper clearly audible in the deathly quiet room. Mist puffed from the pages. Magic. Power.
“Did you tell the book what page to turn to?” my father asked.
“No,” I said, equally awed and baffled.
“It’s sentient,” my father said, looking over at Donall. “Did it behave like this with you and Celeste?”
“No,” he said, sounding hoarse. “She only knew what to do because it spoke to her. The pages didn’t move like that.”
“She shouldn’t have been able to open the book at all,” I said, watching the still-fluttering pages.
“Like I told you before, she’d given it your and your sister’s blood before. She said the book has a memory.”
Was it like a bank? You paid it enough blood and it gave you a line of credit?
I turned to look at him, the power from the tome filling me with a confidence I’d never felt around him. The book assured me he was nothing we couldn’t handle together. “So why did you try to kill my sisters?”
Donall seemed surprised by the change in my demeanor. “Celeste refused to do anything else for me. I didn’t plan to kill them, but the book demanded a blood sacrifice,” Donall said, “and when Phoebe showed up…”
More mist poured from the book. It sent a surge of power through me with the whisper of a word. Lies.
The pages had continued to flip forward, but they slowed, then lay still. I leaned over and watched in amazement as the letters began to rearrange across the page. When they stopped, the title “Controlling a Witch or Mage” appeared above what looked like a spell. Mist tickled my fingers, my face.
Spells were a foreign concept to me. My mother had taught us that magic lived within us and that the magic created from potions or spells was abhorrent. Dangerous. Unpredictable. But there was no denying that Donall and the Dark Set were parasites who needed to be stopped.
The Book of Sindal could help me do that.
“You see something,” my father said, his voice tight with eagerness.
I didn’t respond, instead attempting to turn the page to see the other spells. The book refused me.
“Don’t do it, Rowan,” Logan called out, drawing me out of my thrall. I’d forgotten he was here.
I jerked my gaze up to him.
His eyes held mine. “If you read that book, they win, Ro.”
I shook my head. “They’re already winning, Logan.”
“There’s another way,” he pleaded. “There has to be, because you haven’t even used one of those spells and you already seem different.”
I did feel different, but this was good different, not bad different. I felt as confident as I always acted—no, more—and I wasn’t going to let Donall get away with his shit. The book would help me. That was good.
“Rowan,” Logan said with more force when it was obvious he hadn’t swayed me. “You told me that book was evil incarnate. You can’t use it.”
“But I can—”
“No. There’s another way.”
“Silence him,” my father said with a wave of his hand.
Donall made a move toward Logan, and I shot him a deadly glare.
“If you do anything to him, I will never tell you what’s in this book.” I turned to my father. “That includes you too.”
Donall’s eyes bulged and his face reddened. “Where the hell do you get off telling me what to do?”
I released a humorless laugh. “I’m the keeper of the Book of Sindal. It belongs to me.”
I knew deep in my soul it was true. The book wanted me.
“Arthur!” Donall shouted. “You said your relationship with her would make her malleable.”
My father shot him an angry glare, then turned to me. “Rowan. Don’t listen to him. I love you. My plan was for us to rule together.”
“No, your plan was to marry me off to him so you could both benefit from my power over the book.”
“That’s not true,” he insisted emphatically. “I was trying to find a place for you in our new world. I’m trying to protect you.”
“And what about my sisters—your other daughters? What happens to them?”
“Phoebe will be safe with Brandon. Donall now has him under control, and his position as the captain of the Protective Force will serve us well.”
“And Celeste?”
He hesitated. “I’m not certain.”
“What do you mean you’re not certain? She’s your daughter, for gods’ sake!” I shook my head in disgust. “Why would I expect any more from you? You disappeared from our lives for six years. Why would you suddenly care now?”
“I care, Rowan. I’ve cared the entire time. I let you girls think I was dead to protect you.” He pushed out a breath in frustration. “What would you have done if I’d t
old you that Xenya tried to kill me?”
“I would have brought her before the Small Council.”
“Lucia was in charge of the Small Council. Do you think she would have taken the charge seriously? She likely ordered it.”
“That is not the Valerian way!” I protested.
My father released a bitter laugh. “Oh, Rowan. It’s all about power—who has it and who doesn’t. Those who have it want to keep it, and those who don’t, take it.” He paused. “The bottom line is that letting you girls know I was poisoned would have put you in mortal danger. It was better to let things unfold organically.”
“You mean until you stole the book and kidnapped Celeste, leaving Phoebe and me unconscious for twenty-four hours.”
My father cringed. “I planned to come to you and tell you the truth, but Donall grew impatient.”
“Donall was grooming Celeste for months. Telling her he could help her with her magic. Was that part of your big plan to tell us the truth? Deceive us first?”
“There was no deception,” Donall said. “I truly intended to help her.”
I turned to face him, my fury growing. “You planned to help her so she could help you, you fucking asshole. Don’t you dare try to act like you did it out of altruism.”
“No one does anything out of the kindness of their heart,” my father said. “You know that from personal experience. Don’t play stupid.”
“You’re not supposed to expect favors and sacrifices from your own children. It’s called unconditional love, something you obviously don’t comprehend. Parenthood is not a quid pro quo arrangement, you shitbag.”
Mist curled around my fingers. The book was growing impatient, calling out to me to teach these mages a lesson they would never forget. To show them who was in control.
I liked the sound of that.
“Rowan,” Logan said in a calm tone. “Look at me.”
How had I forgotten again that he was here again?
