Little Crane (The Morrígan Secret Society #1)

Prologue

DIORA

A deadly tea party is the perfect way to go out.

Too bad it’s not my time.

I watch her, as I always do. This woman’s wrinkles are deeper than when I first met her four months ago.

Her eyes appear sunken in, despite the worry clouding them now.

Her fingers shake with each rise of her cup.

This last sip has her coughing. Her cheeks begin to grow a reddish flourish while she tries to sip down her drink.

I’d put quite a bit of crushed up angel trumpet on her napkin. A beautiful plant, incredibly poisonous to the touch.

“What’s wrong with me?” she rasps, looking at me. Like she knows it was me. The only possibility being me. There being absolutely no way one of her Sons, sitting at this dining room table with us, could try to poison her.

She’s right, of course. I couldn’t let them, her sons, kill another parent. Even one as evil as her.

I had to do it.

That was the only way he’d be free.

“I didn’t lace your drink with anything,” I murmur, continuing to sip mine.

She coughs, her hands gripping the table as her confusion settles in. Her brows furrow and her eyes close, probably as the photophobia starts to affect her.

Sweat dribbles at her forehead, and once I know she is too far gone for any of the boys to do anything, I speak.

“I crushed an angel trumpet in your napkin, poisonous to the touch, deadly by consumption.” I lick my lips as she falls back in her chair.

Her breathing slows and her skin appears dry on the backs of her hands and high points of her cheeks.

“You won’t hurt another kid,” I shrug as she tries to glare at me. I watch as her eyes narrow and her nose twitches. I can’t help the glimmer of happiness I have covering my skin. “You can’t now.”

She isn’t someone I ever thought I’d have the skill to kill. The fact that she’s dying in front of me, at my hand, is unreal. So unreal, that it seeds in my mind that maybe… she wanted to die.

“She has minutes left. If you have anything to say to her, say it now,” I murmur while drinking my tea.

“Sons,” she cries. I watch her eldest son, Enyo, first. I watch as his shoulders remain stiff and squared as he watches his birth mother die.

I don’t find a sign of anger, regret, or vengeance from him.

In fact, I sense close to nothing. Nothing besides the tilt of his head.

The soft tilt to the left as he watches the mother he never truly knew die.

Elliot, her second son, doesn’t watch her.

He watches me. I think he knows this isn’t just about the human trafficking.

I think a sliver of him knows I did this for him.

Like Juliet, Elliot is now a part of my family.

A person I would do absolutely anything for, including killing the person he calls Mother, if it means he will be free.

His hand is resting on the back of my chair, and his eyes are glued to me.

“Diora.” My name falls off his lips and leaves him speechless. I watch as his brown eyes light as his newfound freedom washes over him.

I grab Elliot’s chin and pull him closer, gazing into his honey brown eyes as she dies beside me. “I hope you know, when I say you’re mine, I mean it.” I kiss his cheek and lightly slap his face. Smiling. Mm. Protecting my man feels fucking amazing.

I hear her head hit the table, but I don’t flinch or jerk away from Elliot. I don’t look at the new threat in the room that could have feelings about me killing his mom, despite the hate he seems to have for her.

“Well,” Enyo, Elliot’s brother, says, and I snap my attention to him. His buzz cut is slightly grown, and he rolls his lips as he tries to think of something to say.

I lick my lips and tuck a stray, frizzy hair strand behind my ear. I’m so tired. I’m so fucking tired.

“So, what do we do now?” Enyo asks me, raising his brows. His shoulders are loose and so is the rest of his body language, so I don’t sense a threat, but I can’t quite be sure.

“What?” I ask.

“What’s the rest of the plan?” Enyo asks, like I’m the slow one.

“Diora doesn’t think that far,” Elliot chuckles, shaking his head, but I find nothing amusing. “Let this be a message. Call the Strays in the clean up department. I’ll call the Society to let them know of the deceased member, and Diora…”

“I’m going to take a shower,” I say, walking upstairs.

Killing two people in one night is exhausting.