9. Elsbeth
ELSBETH
The limerence-inducing spell was probably overboard.
By the look on Maddox’s face, I could have subdued him with a single wink and flirtatious compliment.
But I want him running back to the others scared.
I want the four of them to wonder who I am and where I came from.
They won’t figure it out until it’s too late, but that’s all part of my plan.
Alric wants me to remain subtle. Docile. He wants me to be as malleable as my mother has been. For him and the legacies, it’s how they want their faithful disciples: willing to fawn at their feet and eat up their patriarchal rhetoric on the platinum spoons they dish from.
I watch Maddox scramble into his driver’s seat and start up his engine.
Sweat and distress settle on his brow as the magic I wielded against him minutes ago leaves him and the realization that he was in danger fills him with dread.
There is no mystery in how he’s feeling.
Being prey my entire life has made me all too acquainted with the deeply ingrained feeling of knowing you’re being hunted for sport.
Instilling that fear into one man, knowing he’s about to infect the others is satisfaction I’ve been dreaming of for years.
Thorne will realize that he and Maddox have both had the pleasure of meeting me.
But the other two will talk them down. Explain away the sudden onset of obsession as me being a pretty girl who didn’t offer to bend over for them the second we met.
Asher and Fox will need proof that I am the threat that Maddox claims. Lucky for Asher, we have class tomorrow.
Hours and a full class day later, I stroll into my apartment off campus, holding my head a bit higher than usual. Thorne and Maddox have texted me, obviously figuring out that they both have my number.
Maddox Elwell
Italian or Japanese for dinner on Saturday?
I haven’t answered. It’s a trap made only more obvious by the text I get an hour later from Thorne.
Hawthorne Bishop
Coming to the gym tonight? I could use a spotter.
Another text goes unanswered. They likely want to nail down my location and confront me, proving they have become too comfortable at the top of their perceived food chain.
I drop my bag on the counter and lift the lid of the pot my roommate has on the stove.
It would typically be my turn to cook, but tonight is special.
I take another deep whiff, relishing the smell of what I’m sure is directly from heaven.
Who knew that a biological engineer major would be such a phenomenal chef?
The luscious stew bubbles away, wafting the essence of garlic, thyme, chilis, and melt-in-your-mouth beef.
I would marry her if she wasn’t already engaged.
I grab a spoon from the drawer and dip it into the thick gravy, but before I can bring the piping hot liquid to my lips, I hear: “Don’t you dare! ”
Anissa steps out of her bedroom in a fluffy robe. “Eileen is on her way over and expects us both to be hungry for dinner. She’s bringing cake and ice cream.”
“I won’t fill up from one taste,” I whine, inching the spoon closer to my watering mouth.
She eyes me, her brow lifting in a scolding scowl that not even my mother could have pulled off better. “One taste . . . for salt. Then you have to wait.”
“You’re being awfully bossy on my birthday. Shouldn’t I get to do whatever I want?”
Her eyes roll, and I slurp at the rim of my spoon.
“You’re spoiled and you know it.”
“Thanks to you and my other-other mother.” I give her a wink and put the lid back on the pot. “It’s perfect.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to go out after dinner?
We could go see a movie. Or there’s supposed to be a really terrible improv show on campus tonight.
” She meets me in the middle of the living room and holds out a hand for me to take.
“It seems wrong to celebrate just the three of us. I’m already packed and don’t leave until tomorrow afternoon. ”
Anissa and Eileen got together years before I met them.
But no matter what the bigots say about homosexuality, Eileen was raised Catholic and refuses to live in sin until after their big gay wedding in June.
Anissa, on the other hand, works for a local lab as a night-shift tech as well as taking on a full class load and sees no reason to impose that lifestyle on her fiancée before she has to.
“I’m sure. I just want a quiet night at home so we can binge watch a terrible show that should have gotten the second-season chop.” I squeeze her hand, and she turns back around to her room.
“That sounds perfectly elderly. I’m here for it,” she says over her shoulder.
We might be staying in, but knowing my roommate, she’ll still get all dolled up for the fun of it.
When I transferred in at the start of last year, I answered a roommate request on the student forum.
I’ve never felt so at home as the moment I met Anissa.
She’s smart—of course—but also witty, charitable, beautiful, and everything I wish I could be if it weren’t for the damning prophecy lingering over my head.
Then I met Eileen, who’s on the school’s basketball team, president of the international women’s debate team, and on track to be at the top of her class at Harvard Medical School.
I’d marry her, too, if she weren’t so perfect for Anissa.
Both of them have showed me that female friendships are the most important ones we can have.
Which is the only reason I’m willing to participate in any birthday shenanigans.
It’s a reminder that I am one year closer to being the downfall of one of the oldest covens in the country.
I wish I could say that I don’t believe any of it, that it’s all a lie made up by Alric to weaponize me and my mother’s thirst for prolific drama.
But my long departed ancestor, Sarah Noyce-Hale, wrote of our reemergence in one of her last entries in the Hale grimoire.
Our line will not only merge the most powerful bloodlines, but I will become the reigning legacy.
She was a powerful seer, so who am I to deny her prophetic vision?
I have no intention of merging the bloodlines, though.
My body carrying any of their spawn sounds like a fate worse than the impending death hanging over my head each year.
There’s no reason to continue their lines in my eyes.
Seducing them into a power transfer, then killing them painfully slowly sounds more like my style of revenge.
I could send Thorne a scandalous picture. Or answer Maddox with a flirty text. But instead I finish showering, wrap myself in a towel, and head to my room to dress.
When I reach for my doorknob, it heats at my touch then becomes so cold it sends a shock of ice down my spine. An unwanted guest is lying in wait on the other side. Swinging the door open, I flick on the light and find Alric leaning against the far wall near my window.
The corner of his crooked smile pulls into his cheek, bringing out boyish dimples that have never aged in the time that I’ve known him.
Standing among my books and belongings, he almost fits in.
While some women my age whisper about the young professor that distracts them during his lectures, all I can see are his unwavering features that I’ve known for twenty years.
My mother isn’t here to add to her collection of pictures she’s taken of the two of us through the years.
To her, they are proof that I am, indeed, his dearest asset.
But to me, they’re a testament to his vile, unnatural existence.
In them, I get progressively taller, my cheeks thinner, and my breasts grow little by little until we could be mistaken for classmates or worse . . . friends.
Anissa wouldn’t have let him in. Her door is still shut and the living room is quiet.
I step inside and wait for the click of the latch before addressing the serpent in my den. “What do you want?”
He chuckles, the lazy sound making my skin crawl. “Can’t I wish you a happy birthday?”
I should know better than to think that he’d miss his chance to ruin the one day that belongs to me. But Alric’s views on birthdays are just as twisted and fucked up as he is. Why would he miss such a special occasion when I will have so few of them?
I’ve wasted too many birthday candles wishing that I’d never have to see him again, and this year will be no different.
“Thanks. Now, get out before you’re seen. A faculty member breaking and entering into a student’s home will be hard for the coven to cover up.”
Dropping my gaze, I rummage through my drawers for a clean set of comfortable pajamas. Alric showing up unannounced, likely to drill me about why I haven’t done what he’s set me out to do, isn’t how I want to spend this evening.
“It’s your last birthday as a nobody.” His calculated words are meant to reward me with another promise, but fail. “Your next will be celebrated with feasts and a proper coven celebration.”
I’d argue that it’s highly unlikely that I will live to see my next birthday, but agreeing with him means he’ll leave sooner. “The cake better be good.”
He hums and it’s a sound between amusement and pity.
I can feel his eyes trailing down my backside, the slither of perversion along my spine to my ass.
With clothing clutched in hand, I turn around and drop my towel.
Surprise then anger flash in his eyes. I smirk, shimmy my sweatpants up to my hips, then pull the cropped tank top over my head.
The man hates to be caught off guard—a reminder that he isn’t always the most cunning creature in the room.
What he hates more is being teased with what he knows he’ll never have.
But for someone to not only deny his rare affection, but show him that even invincibility and immortality won’t satisfy his every craving? Devastating indignation.
“I’m assuming since you’ve chosen to bait me, you haven’t infiltrated the legacies?” His brow slumps, hooding his deadpan eyes.
“Do you want it done or done right?” I’m far too smug tonight, but my earlier triumph and determination to not allow his presence to ruin my birthday are giving me perceived superiority.
I gather my hair into a scrunchie at the top of my head, letting the rogue ringlets fall to the back of my neck. His attention drifts to the one just behind my right ear and he takes damning steps across the room until he’s standing over me.
My mother used to spend hours curling my hair for my birthday parties.
Not for the kids I’d invited from school or the neighborhood.
Not for pictures, presents, or cake. But to look presentable for him.
Up to my sixteenth birthday—when it became too obvious I’d started to become a woman—she would dress and primp me to be his living doll.
Staring up at him now, I’m taken back to the first time he showed up after the children had all gone home and the wrapping paper still littered our kitchen table.
Seeing the same haunting and vicious look in his eyes, I feel like I’m four years old again.
Except this time, my mother isn’t here for me to cling to as he stares down at me like my soul is on display for him to read.
I hold myself steady, refusing to flinch as two of his fingers weave around the loose curl and tug gently before letting it go.
“And when did you decide that your plan is the correct way to go about the new world order?” he whispers far too close.
His hand takes hold of my bicep and squeezes, hard.
I refuse to acknowledge the pinching pain even as his grip tightens until I can feel the blunt bite of his short fingernails digging into my flesh.
He never breaks skin. But he’s a master at knowing the difference between inconspicuous and suspicious bruises.
“Your patience is thinner than mine. Your plan deserves to be done with care, and rushing into any part of it could leave room for missteps.” I’m feeding into his ego, and we both know it, but he releases me, nonetheless.
“Your forbearance, loyalty, and . . .” He pauses, taking a moment to emphasize his final point. “. . . tenacity have always been your most admirable qualities.”
What he wants to say is that I’ve always been a thorn in his side. But I’ve been firmly embedded between his ribs for the last twenty years, and only he would see a constant source of discomfort as a sign of fealty.
“I’ll be in touch,” he says, walking around me to the bedroom door and stopping before opening it. “I left you a gift. Use it well.”
I look over to my bed. Perched on top of my pillows is a dark blue box with silver ribbon tied around it. When I turn around to give him my obligatory gratitude, he’s gone. It leaves me with a chill and unease in my stomach.