Rage pulsed from Mal. Maeve took a step back as it flared towards her. He stepped towards his father, who was crawling towards the bodies of his dead parents, gasping. Mal stood in his path.
“Did you know she was a Witch?” Asked Mal.
His Father made to nod his head. “That is why my parents purchased her. I beg of you, believe me, I had no choice. I did what I was told-” His Father looked up at him shaking with fear. “Please, my son.”
Mal pointed his finger down at him. “I am no son of yours.”
“Wait!” He wailed. “Do you have the locket?”
Mal didn’t move. “Locket?”
“The locket I gave her-the-the locket!”
Mal took a deep breath. “She had nothing of value on her when she died giving birth to me.”
His Father’s eyes sparkled over. “You-you don’t have it?”
“No,” said Mal darkly. “What significance is that to you?”
“I gave that locket to her, to protect her,” he said softly. Blood pooled on the floor beneath him. “To protect you.”
Mal crouched before him, their faces nearly touching. “What would you know about protection?”
Maeve couldn’t tear her eyes away from Mal’s father. Mal would look just like him in twenty years. Same chiseled jaw. Same sharp cheekbones. She almost hated to see his stunning and dangerous face brutalized in such a way. He looked too much like Mal.
“That locket was a Peur heirloom. For hundreds of years, that locket guaranteed safety and fulfilled lives. It was my only chance to. . .keep her alive.” His gaze traveled to a portrait that hung above them.
Maeve followed his gaze up to the painting of a dark-haired man with a long beard and dark eyebrows. Around his neck was a gold ornate oval locket.
Magic speared through her. She grabbed her chest and her eyes snapped shut.
“Maeve,” said Mal.
Maeve’s eyes shot open. Something called to her. Something old and ancient and forgotten. Her head whipped to Mal’s father, who was on the verge of dying.
“Like calls to like,” she whispered.
“What is his name?” Asked Mal, pointing to the portrait above them. The man with the dark hair and beard and eyebrows frowned down at them. He wasn’t a moving portrait like some at Vaukore or Sinclair Estates.
“Orion,” wheezed Mal’s father.
“Artemis Orion The Dread,” said Maeve.
“Yes,” said his father. “My ancestor.”
“The last ruler of the Dread Lands,” said Maeve weakly as all heat drained from her body. “Before the plague.”
“The what lands?” Mal’s father asked. They ignored him.
The hairs on her arm stood up straight. The words slipped from her without a second thought as she looked at Mal and realized-
“You’re the Dread Descendant.”
Maeve flinched as Mal’s hand jerked to one side, and a loud snapping noise came from his father’s neck. Malachite Sr. lay dead. Mal stared at him blankly. He didn’t look at Maeve.
Thoughts barreled across her mind. She couldn’t stop them as they blurted from her mouth.
“Peur. At the root of your name. I’m so bloody stupid,” said Maeve. “It’s French. They came to France and made a new life. In hiding. Of course- the name broken down means-” She was shaking her head quickly, as though the thoughts were impossible.
