31. Matilda
31
MATILDA
Their stares make my skin crawl, but it’s the weight of my pendant that suddenly feels heaviest. The pendant I’d taken off in Advanced Dark Magick when I felt the force of whatever this is.
“You felt it in class,” Vex says. “When you took that off.” He gestures to my throat. My hand instinctively goes to the pendant. “The Praxian force reached for you the moment you removed it.”
“Wait,” Draven says. “What has the necklace got to do with any of this?”
I know I have to tell him. Tell them. Him and Luc. Whatever is going on here is bigger than my secrets. “They suppressed my magick. My family have been suppressing my magick. My older sister gave this to me when I was younger. She said it was protection from my parents’ abuse. But I haven’t always had it. I was ten, I think, when she gave it to me. So why then? And why have I never been able to do magick properly? Not even before the pendant?”
Luc shifts uncomfortably, and I know he’s thinking about what he saw in my nightmares. The truth about my family. The abuse they didn’t stop. But he doesn’t know the half of it. His gaze drops to the floor, unable to look at me directly.
“It’s possible that you couldn’t practice your magick because there were no guidelines. What you were trying to do, it didn’t respond to. Or you were just too young for it. Or any number of other reasons. We don’t know for sure. When your sister gave it to you, think back. Why then? Did something happen?” Vex asks.
“It wasn’t Janice who bound me,” I snap. “Yes, she gave this to me, but it doesn’t make sense. She was always on my side. She told me to come here. Gave me the opening to run. It was my parents. It had to be.”
“Okay,” he says, hands up. “But think, sprinkles. Why then? If the abuse was going on all your life, why give it to you ten years down the line?”
I stare at him, hands clenched. “I have no answers for you. I don’t know.”
“Something must’ve happened,” Draven says quietly, his intense stare boring into me as I turn to him. He is upset that Vex knew all of this about me, and he didn’t. “Think, Tilly. Some event forced your family to enchant a crystal with enough binding magick to suppress yours, almost completely snuffing it out.”
“I can’t remember!” I yell, suddenly overwhelmed by all of this. “Okay? I don’t know. Does it even matter?”
“It might,” Vex says.
“I can try to find it,” Luc says quietly. “In your dreams.”
“My fucking nightmares, you mean,” I spit out.
“Whichever,” he says, not rising to my anger. “It might be the only way. If it helps or not to understand this hotspot under the academy, isn’t it better to know, just in case?”
I scowl at him, but I know he’s right. “I’m not tired,” I say insolently.
He chuckles. “I can fix that.”
Draven growls at him, but he holds up a hand. “Innocently, if you insist. It’s more boring than wearing you out by multiple orgasms.”
“Luc,” Draven warns.
But my eyes are on Vex. He is frowning, glancing at the two brothers, probably wondering what the hell is going on.
“You’re right,” I say, ignoring Draven’s growl of protest. “Okay.”
Luc nods, but his usual cockiness is gone. He knows what he might see in there. “I’ll be careful,” he promises.
“I’ll watch over you both,” Draven says, moving closer. “Make sure nothing goes wrong.”
Vex’s runes pulse brighter. “Dream walking is dangerous,” he says, his voice tight. “Especially with suppressed memories. They’re suppressed for a reason.”
“I know what I’m doing,” Luc snaps at him. “I’ve been in her head before.”
“And how did that work out?” Vex asks coolly, his eyes flickering between us.
I catch the sharp look Luc gives Vex. It’s territorial, warning and makes my insides go gooey. But I can’t go there with him. Between Draven and Pestilence, I’ve got enough red flags waving at me to avoid falling into that rabbit hole.
“Just do it,” I say, sitting on Draven’s bed. “Before I change my mind.”
Luc sits beside me, careful to keep space between us. “Lie down,” he says softly. “Try to relax.”
I do as he says, my heart pounding. Draven stands at the foot of the bed, his presence reassuring. Vex stays where he is, watching with those intense eyes, his runes still glowing.
“Ready?” Luc asks, straddling me, but keeping his weight off me. I gulp at his close proximity, but nod. He places his fingers on my temples.
Closing my eyes, I feel his power wash over me. It’s controlled, careful and fucking powerful. I feel warm and aroused. I squirm under him and hear his dark chuckle.
“Drift on that sea, my sweet. Relax under my touch, under that heat.”
I do as he says and relax fully.
“Think about falling asleep on a white sandy beach after crazy hot sex under the warm sun.”
“Luc…” Draven’s growl enters my thoughts, but I ignore it and focus on what Luc wants from me.
“Do you see it, my sweet?”
“Yes,” I murmur, but I’m not sure if I said it out loud.
“Am I there with you?” he purrs.
“Yes.”
“Good girl,” he murmurs, his voice drifting further and further away. “Think about when you were ten. Think about your sister giving you the pendant.”
The world fades, and then darkness takes me, and I’m ten years old again...
The memory slams into me with force.
“Worthless little bitch!” Dad’s hands are around my throat. I’m ten years old and so small, my feet barely touching the ground as he pins me to the wall.
Can’t breathe. Can’t think.
Mum is watching from the doorway, smiling as she sees me punished.
Something breaks inside me at the sight. She shouldn’t be happy. She should stop him. But she never does. She is usually the one to hurt me most.
Heat rushes through my veins, like liquid lightning. Power explodes out of me in a wave of pure force. Dad stumbles back, howling, his hands smoking. The curtains catch fire as I drop to the ground.
“What did you do?” Mum’s voice rises to a shriek. “You stupid bitch!”
Pain explodes in my head as Mum backhands me. I hit the floor hard. She hauls me up and yanks my hair hard as Dad tries to put out the fire. She pulls my hair so tightly that I feel it ripping out of my scalp. She slaps me and kicks me, dragging me up the stairs by my hair, my frail body bumping on the stairs one by one as she hauls me up. She throws me into my room and locks the door, screeching obscenities and insults.
“Matilda.” Luc’s voice cuts through the haze of the memory I had suppressed. I don’t remember it at all. “Matilda?”
The memory shifts to something I do know. Janice’s hands are shaking as she clasps something around my neck. “You have to wear this. Always. Never take it off. It’ll protect you from the worst of it. It’s the best I can do.”
The pendant touches my skin and ? —
I snap back to the present with a gasp, Luc’s hands still on my temples. But something else came back with me. Something that’s been locked away since that day, trapped behind the pendant’s power.
And it remembers how to fight.
Dark spots dance in my vision as I surface from the dream, the memory, but the power is there now, bubbling under the surface, familiar and strange. It burns through my veins like that day, like liquid fire seeking release.
Luc is breathing heavily as he draws his hands back, staring at me with a look that nearly breaks me. “Matilda?—”
“Get off,” I rasp and push him away from me.
I catch his hurt expression before the pendant burns against my skin, trying to contain what’s awakening, but it can’t any longer. The crystal explodes, and I put my hands up to shield my eyes from the blinding light, but it’s gone in the next second. I drop my hands and stare around the room.
The lights flicker. Objects rattle. The guys try to move in closer, but they can’t.
The power pushes everything away, creating a barrier of pure energy.
The power wants to be unleashed. It wants to protect me like it tried to do that day. It wants to hurt anyone who might hurt me.
And then, just like that, the power level drops. I feel it seeping into my blood, my bones, my muscles, my soul.
The air shimmers with residual energy as everything settles. My entire body hums with power, but it’s different now. Controlled. Cold. It’s like the magick has found its home, melding with every part of me.
Draven recovers first, taking a cautious step forward. The barrier is gone, but he moves like he’s approaching a wounded animal. “Tilly?”
I flex my fingers, watching tiny sparks dance between them. “I’m okay,” I say, surprised to find it’s true. “It’s settled.”
“Settled isn’t exactly the word I’d use,” Vex says, his runes pulsing erratically. “That was probably pure Praxian energy. It is something we have absolutely no fucking clue about. It predates anything written.”
“That we know of,” Draven says, glancing at the book. “That wanted us to find something… we just need to look.”
Vex nods, his eyes still on me.
Luc hasn’t moved from where I pushed him, his eyes dark with understanding. “Your magick was triggered that day. Was that… was that the worst time?”
I close my eyes, remembering the feeling of that first surge of power and how it had responded to my fear and rage. “Yes, but you’re wrong. The magick wasn’t triggered that day. It happened before. I remember now. I hurt my mother. I set her dress on fire when I was really young. She was badly burned. That’s when they started treating me badly. They thought I was evil and should be punished.” I gulp as the memories come flooding back. I was maybe five years old, if that.
“Fuck,” Luc mutters. “I’m sorry we had to make you remember.”
“No, it’s good that we know,” I say, trying not to let the tears spill down my cheeks. I’m so over crying because of them.
The power vibrates under my skin, responding to my turbulent emotions. But this time, I don’t fight it. This time, I let it flow. It makes me twitch, but I’m not setting anything on fire, so that’s a good sign.
For now.