“Why the rush?” I suspected there was something he wasn’t telling me.
Sure enough, he sighed and pasted a sad expression on his face.
“Regina’s sick, which means she wants to ensure she has a magic heir before she passes.”
Witches, like most magicals, rarely got sick like humans, but witches who abused dark magic were at risk. I suspected her use of dark magic had caused Regina’s terminal illness but thought better of saying this out loud.
Dad rarely appreciated it when I offered him my opinion on such things.
“I’m sorry about Regina,” I lied. Like Brianna, Regina had always been power-hungry and vicious. Most high-ranking witches were. They had to be to hang on to their seats as coven heads. At the first sign of weakness, their fellow witches cast a vote of no-confidence.
Magical society had always been about power. The more power a magical had, the more ruthless they were. The notion of a welcoming, inclusive coven was so far from the truth as to be laughable.
Being utterly ruthless was how my father had become the Mage Council leader, even though his older brother, Adam, had ostensibly been the more powerful mage. I had no clue what had happened to Uncle Adam, only that he’d disappeared before I was born. Knowing my father, he’d murdered the poor bastard. I’d spent a lot of time trying to find Adam, but either he was dead, or he’d gone off-grid and stayed there.
“Yes, yes. It’s all very sad,” my father said with a dismissive wave of his hand, uncaring that my future mother-in-law was at death’s door and likely to pass over within six months.
A tiny twinge of sympathy shot through me. As much as I disliked Regina Blake, she was still Kinara’s mother. Seeing her mother literally waste away would be horrific for Kinara.
Still, it didn’t make me want to marry her any faster. Or at all.
I didn’t havethatmuch empathy for her situation.
“Unless there’s anything else, I’ll leave you to it.” Any more of his bullshit, I’d need more than one glass of elderwine.
“That’s all.”
I glanced at my watch. There was just enough time to visit my mother before I returned to campus.
Mom lay on her bed, eyes closed. Heavy drapes drawn tightly across the small window up high hid the thick iron bars Dad had installed to stop her from escaping. Not that she was in any fit state to stage a prison break.
The thick silver collar around her slim neck prevented her from doing anything rash. It also blocked access to her eagle.
“Mom?” The figure huddled beneath a thin sheet stirred.
“Alaric?” Mom’s raspy voice had grown so weak I could barely hear her. How long had Dad kept her locked in her room this time? From the plates of uneaten food, a few days at least.
In the early years, Dad used to allow her some freedom, but she’d tried to escape too many times. After the last attempt, when she made it as far as the forest, he had Brianna spell a collar to block her from shifting. That was fifteen years ago.
Since then, she’d slowly deteriorated, both mentally and physically. Blocking a shifter’s access to their animal was inhumane, but Daddidn’t care. All he cared about was keeping his soul-bonded mate alive while ensuring nobody knew fate had given him a mate from a lesser species.
In his mind, our family’s public image was everything. If other mages found out his mate was a bird shifter, his image would never have recovered.
But as long as my mother remained alive and lived in the same house, the bond didn’t affect him. He carried on with his life, and nobody knew the woman he paraded as his wife was not his true mate or my birth mother.
It was lucky for me I’d been born a mage. If Mom had birthed another shifter, my father would have murdered me in my cradle. Thankfully, my father got the male heir he needed first time. Job done.
I picked up a glass of water from the table and handed it to my mother. She took it with shaking hands, swallowing a few sips. The gauntness of her cheeks and arms showed she’d lost even more weight. I could see every vein beneath her paper-thin skin, and her once vibrant blonde hair had faded to white.
She sank back against the pillow. When I looked closely, I saw fresh scratch marks around the collar.
“I wish I could break the spell, Mama,” I murmured so only she could hear me. My father’s servants loved to hover outside, listening for anything they could feed back to my father or Brianna, hoping to earn favors for tattling on me. I hated them all. One day, karma would come for the people who’d stood by and done nothing to help my mother.
“I can’t feel her,” Mom whispered as tears slid down her cheeks. “She’s gone.”
“She’s still there, Mama.” I wasn’t sure what happened to a shifter’s animal after all this time without access to them, but I fervently hoped Mom’s eagle was there, waiting for her chance to break free.
Mom grabbed my shirt in an unexpected show of strength. “You must end this, Alaric! Kill me and he’ll die too.” I shook my head.
