“But, first...” Her footsteps carried her closer. “Drink this. It’ll replenish the blood you’ve lost. A few sips and you’ll feel better instantly.”
She pressed a bottle to my lips, and I snapped them shut, not even pretending like I was going to drink a single drop of the mystery gray sludge I peeped in that bottle.
It was her turn to sigh. “Honestly, Charlotte, when did you get so distrustful?” She lowered me down a fraction so that I was floating just below her chin. Meeting my eyes, she drank a hearty gulp of the sludge. “See? It’s harmless.”
It took more coaxing, but when a minute passed and she didn’t crumple to the ground screaming, I figured it wasn’t poison.
I took a few sips, found it tasted surprisingly okay, and then gasped as strength flooded through my body. My brain fog cleared, my dizziness vanished, my noodle arms remembered they were held up by bones—not wet wheat.
“Potions,” she bragged, moving away and out of sight again. “Demons can create magical potions too, but they don’t. Potion-making requires patience and precision, which doesn’t suit creatures that want everything done with a snap of a finger.
“Our people have always hated demons,” she hissed. “No— We’ve hated every stinking, rotten, preying supernatural that invaded our world and made us afraid in and out of our homes. It’s because of them that my ancestors and yours were forced to trade in normal lives for a legacy of blood and pain.”
I stilled. “My... My ancestors?”
“Yes, Charlotte. You are my smart girl, so I’m sure you’ve pieced some of this together already, but you are a witch, and so was I, and so was your grandmother, and her mother, and the women before her.”
“No.” I dismissed her nonsense completely. Letting it tumble through one ear and right out the other. “You’re lying.”
“I’m not lying, baby, but I understand why you think so. It’s because the mother you know would’ve told you something so important,” she said, “and it’s true, I should’ve. I’ve had four long years in hell to rake over every wrong and every regret, and that is what I regret the most—not telling you everything.
“But I’m telling you now whether you want to hear it or not. Youarea witch, and not just any witch, you’re the sole and most powerful descendant of the Avos coven.”
I yawned loud and exaggerated. “Is story time over now?”
“Watch your attitude, Charlotte, I’m still your mother.”
Wow, this psycho was really committed to the bit. But despite her nonsense, I did fall quiet. If not interrupting hermeant she’d tell her lies faster, then that was fine with me. All I wanted was for her to shut up and take me to Dora.
“As I was saying,” she continued. There was more shuffling and clinking as she busied herself with whatever she was doing. “I was the heir to the Avos coven, but I hated it. After the foremothers banished the supernatural creatures to hell, we thought we had no more battles to fight, but we were wrong. How could our fight be over when the evils of men rivaled anything a demon could do?
“And so with our new purpose, the sisters of the Avos coven began to embed themselves in politics, government, law, and various positions of power,” she said. “I’m sure at the start, the intention was to do good, but by the time I was born, corruption was our middle name.
“Did you ever wonder why I became a malpractice lawyer even though I hated it so much?” she asked. “It’s because my mother forced me into it. She was—is—the CEO and CFO of Hart Hospitals.”
My brows furrowed. My real mother never talked about her mother. She just said they had a falling out when Mom got pregnant and quit her job, and she didn’t want to think about the terrible things her mother said to her that day.
I saw the pain in my mother’s eyes, so I never brought up my maternal grandmother again.
Somehow she knows that, so she’s filling in the blanks with lies that I can’t counter.
Clever demon.
“I was forced into malpractice so that I could use my job and my magic to squash any suit that was brought against Hart,” she said, anger bleeding into her voice. “In our coven, daughters are taken away from their mothers and raised in seclusion. Necessary, they say, so that we devote full-time to our magical study without fear of being found by the outside world.
“But the real reason is that a child’s innocent lips can pour too many truths into the wrong ears, so better to raise said child away from friends, away from family, away from everything needed to h-have a normal life.” Her voice cracked. “I wasn’t allowed to leave the secret estate until I was eighteen and enrolled in college.
“When I stepped out of the gates, a woman who hadn’t bothered to send me one letter or spare me one phone call in eighteen years told me she was my mother, and my mission from then on was to graduate at the top of my class, join a prestigious law firm, and fight to keep our family business strong and scandal-free. That is how I wouldserve herand my foremothers for the good of the coven.
“Can you believe that?” she growled. “A perfect stranger walking up to me and telling me how I was to serve her.”
I couldn’t believe that. This was all a load of bullshit, but that didn’t change the fact that my fictional grandmother was a real cold bitch.
“Even so, I did everything I was supposed to do. I did everything I wasraisedto do. That is until... I met your father.”
“Dad?” I repeated, then cursed myself. Why was I letting myself get sucked in?
“Yes, baby. Your dad.” Again that fake tenderness laced her voice. “Meeting him was like feeling the sun on my skin for the very first time. Everything before had been cold and dark, and then, there was light.
