I disagreed but said nothing while waiting for him to grill me some more or dismiss me. Preferably the latter. The spot under my breastbone twinged as my thoughts inevitably drifted back to the witch. I rubbed at it without thinking.
“Something wrong, Alaric?” Dad asked with a frown.
“No, just indigestion from a burger I ate,” I replied before swallowing a large mouthful of elderwine. The liquor burned as it slid down my throat, successfully distracting me from the stabbing pain in my chest.
Dad’s eyes narrowed as he watched me before the moment passed.
“Like I said, you drink too much.” Irritation flared bright and hot.
“I’m a twenty-year-old mage. Of course I drink too much!”Judgmental fuck. Like he didn’t get drunk all the time while he was at Starfall Academy. I’d heard the rumors about his debauched activities before he dialed it back after graduation.
“You’re the son of the Mage Council leader. We have an image to uphold. It looks bad that you were busy partying while students were being murdered.”
My eyes rolled. “It was a full moon. Everyone partied that night.”
He grunted but didn’t push it any further. As much as he disliked the stories that occasionally ended up in the press about me, there wasn’t much he could do. While Starfall was closed off to the outside world for first-years, to allow them to settle in, second- and third-year students had more freedom. This meant anyone could post shit online about me, which inevitably ended up on the gossip sites.
I finished my glass of elderwine and gazed longingly at the half-full bottle my father had placed behind him on the bureau. I needed at least one more glass to relax in this mausoleum of a home.
At least my stepmother, Brianna, wasn’t here.Small blessings. The less time I spent with her, the better. She’d made my childhood truly miserable, and I would never forgive her for that.
“The lack of evidence pointing toward the damned incubus is a problem,” Dad grumbled. “Even I can’t get away with convicting him on no evidence.”
“Really? You have no problem doing it when covering up demon and feral wolf attacks.”
Dad glared at me but couldn’t deny the truth. “That’s different. Convicting lesser magicals of heinous crimes is easy. People want to believe they’re responsible for all that’s wrong in our society.”
Of course they did. Decades of insidious rumors and fear-mongering had brainwashed the populace. When bad things happened, people looked for a scapegoat. It was all too easy to blame minorities with fewer protections.
“And you see nothing wrong with that?” I asked, emboldened by my glass of elderwine.
“No? It’s better to convict a few random trolls and goblins than risk mass hysteria. If people knew demons were breaching the portal weekly, they’d panic.” He sniffed. “It’s for the greater good. It’s my job to make the tough decisions.”
My father’s unerring ability to rationalize what amounted to a shameless persecution of minority species left me speechless as well as fucking angry. But telling him so would only bring the full weight of his ire down on my head, and I couldn’t afford him looking too closely at me right now.
“Unfortunately, there is no evidence against the incubus, so you’ll have to find a different way to spin the murders.”
“Pity. I would love to eradicate that fucking incubus before he breeds. The whole damn bloodline is tainted.”
The level of venom in his voice surprised me. Xavian Vanyx’s crime had been awful, yes, but the poor male had lost his soul-bonded mate. Was it any wonder he’d unraveled? But nobody cared about that. All they saw was the bloody aftermath of his psychotic break.
Honestly, I had a lot of sympathy for Zane. No wonder he’d grown up into an emotionally constipated sociopath. He and I had a lot in common.
“Was there anything else?” I asked once Dad had finished his mini-rant about Zane.
Dad smiled.
I hated it when my father smiled. It usually preceded some awful request or gleeful announcement.
“Regina has requested you and Kinara wed immediately after the winter solstice. She’s keen to build strong family ties between our bloodlines.”
“I thought we had the freedom to decide this for ourselves?” I knew Kinara was desperate for more, but I doubted she wanted to get married this young, while both of us were still students. From what she’d told me during one of her drunken ramblings, she wanted to make it big as an influencer. If her mother was trying to move the marriage timeline forward, it meant the old hag had her own agenda.
The thought of procreating with Kinara made me ill. Sure, she was attractive, but the minute she opened her stupid mouth, I lost the will to live.
Dad shrugged, not at all bothered about my opinion, even though it wasmy fucking life.
“Regina wants her daughter to breed the next generation of powerful witches, and for any heirs to be included in the coven’s line of succession, there has to be a wedding ceremony blessed by the goddess first.”
