I go to lift my hand, but I can’t.
Even when I open my mouth to speak, nothing comes out.
“It’s okay, it’s okay. Grand-mère is here. I’m going to make everything right again.”
I stare at her. The feeling of tears running down my face feels foreign, almost like I’m disassociated from my body.
My grandmother pets my face. “Don’t worry, you won’t remember. Now that I have this,” she says snidely, pointing to my necklace that hovers above her work table. “I can make you what you were always supposed to be.” She grabs my chin, tilting my face to the side, the tip of her wand pointing right at my bond mark. “It will only hurt for a moment.”
She whispers an incantation, and the scream that wants to rip out of my throat is constrained. There’s nothing I can do but sit here in painful silence while she breaks me apart. It feels like my skin is being burned off. It feels like she’s stealing a part of me that I love.
It feels like she’s erasing Silas.
There’s a scent of burning flesh, and I’m close to passing out again when she puts a salve on my throat, petting my hair back.
“It’s okay, Violet. It’s okay. Now everything will be how it was supposed to be.”
She turns her back on me, going back to whatever magic she’s doing to my necklace, and I mourn in silence. What if she destroys Azure? What if she just ruined my mating bond with Silas?
What if…what if she makes me forget?
That has me attempting to move, with no success.
“At least Lavender came to her senses and ripped this out of you,” she mumbles. “It’s unnatural. You were never meant to be this. You’re a witch, that’s all you are. You’re my granddaughter, my progeny. You’re not one of them.”
But I am. Half the pack may hate me, hate that I’m mated to Silas, but I’m still one of them. I’m both. I’m a witch and I’m a wolf shifter and I don’t want her taking away this part of me. I hardly even got a chance to know.
“It’s alright, darling, you won’t remember the pain. Being a High Priestess means sacrifice. I sacrificed having my daughter so that you could be what you need to be. The Celestial Coven needs to stay in the hands of the Delvaux family. It can not be tarnished.”
She sounds nearly manic as she speaks to herself, while I’m forced to be here and endure.
I look as far to the right as my eyes will allow. At that moment, she drips my necklace into a bubbling cauldron. The pain I feel as she pulls out only the top of the chain, the rest of the necklace destroyed. It’s like a piece of me dies.
My grand-mère takes a sigh of relief, inhaling deeply and looking at the ceiling before coming back to me. She wipes my tears from the sides of my face.
“I’m sorry your mother did this to you. But don’t worry, everything will be as it always should have been,” she says, bringing her wand up to my temple. She kisses my forehead as she begins the memory spells, and I’m pretty sure a piece of me dies right then and there while I lay paralyzed in her shed.
Chapter 42
The seance proves less than fruitful. Iris looks pissed and Ember looks like she’s about to cry as I wince, and clamp a hand over my neck.
“What the fuck?” I hiss, and Ember approaches me with her head cocked to the side.
“Move your hand,” she tells me, and I do.
She gasps and clamps a hand over her mouth, looking at me with tear-filled eyes.
“Your mark. Your mark with Violet. It looks like it’s been burned off.”
I stare at her a moment before going to the powder room. I click the gold plated light and look into the oval filigree mirror and my mouth drops. It looks just like someone took a hot rod and removed my mating mark.
I search deep into myself, and I don’t feel her at all. The connection has been severed.
My grip on the porcelain sink is so tight I worry that I’ll break the lip of it. What is she doing to Violet?
What has she done to my mate? Who is no longer my mate? My hands shake against the white sink, as I tremble with fear,Thorin whining in the back of my mind. I look into the mirror and the man staring back at me is a disheveled mess.
My neck looks burned and a harrowing sense of dread fills me.
