Chapter 24 Ghost #2
I try to explain my concerns, but when I say Mona’s name, my voice catches, thinning out like a reed.
I stare at the wall while I finally admit to my mother what it’s been like to meet my mate.
I describe finding her and Silas. And who they are to me.
I pause and take a sip of tea, swallowing it down with the longing in my voice, and force myself to tell my mother about the other sage, the Mate Finder.
My throat goes dry, and it’s not just all the words I’m not used to speaking. It’s the hitch around Mona’s name that’s impossible to avoid. The syllables get stuck in my throat, and I have to clear my voice two, three times.
She takes my hand, and when I pull away, the tears in her eyes return.
“All this time. Desi was alive and kept from her father. From her family. Mijo, you would have met your fated mate so much sooner. The priestess robbed you of this.”
I hadn’t thought about the fact that, had Mona grown up here, our paths would have crossed years ago.
Would I have felt differently about her if we met when I was younger?
I was so angry for so long. I forged that anger into a weapon, allowed it to calcify into armor that even the tenderness of a woman couldn’t penetrate.
Perhaps fate knew better than to bring us together then.
She would have been too young anyway, though the mate bond remains dormant until a shifter reaches maturity.
Still, I wonder what might have been different if I’d felt that first magnetic pull toward her before bitterness had taken such deep root.
Back in Silent Peak, Mona had taken my hand and insisted I tell her everything.
Five years ago, I wouldn’t have even allowed myself to be in that position, to let her close enough to demand such a thing.
But the moment her fingers laced with mine, something loosened in my chest. I’ve been struggling with the distance from her since the moment we met, but now, it’s so much harder to bear. To justify.
I shouldn’t have told my mother about my connection to Mona. But she’s my mother, and I can no more control my tongue than I can stop myself from sneaking into Mona’s bedroom every night in Silent Peak to watch her sleep.
My mother’s tears spill over, tracking down the lines of her face.
“You will bring her to me, yes? Bring her to meet me?” Her voice cracks with hope.
I stare at the cabin walls, at the wards etched along the perimeter, at the faded salt lines across each threshold. Decades of fear carved into her home.
And still, the prospect of my mate coming to visit her safe haven makes her fear fade to the back.
My throat tightens as I imagine Mona’s scent mingling with mine and my mother’s protective magic.
This is how I know I’ve fucked up. Because I’ll never bring Mona to meet my mother.
On impulse, I ask, “Would you ever leave the mountains?” I picture Mona’s cabin in Silent Peak, its wide porch, the balcony at the back, all the land surrounding the home.
Despite not allowing myself to bond with my pack mates—they would welcome us.
I imagine the neglected window boxes full of healing herbs, a drying rack and a full garden, where my mother could tend.
She’d get along with Hilde swimmingly. She would adore Mona, too.
Mamá doesn’t speak. Just shakes her head emphatically, no, each move more certain than the last. My heart sinks. My shoulders slump as I release the breath I was holding.
Alone is best. My mother isn’t thriving, but she’s alive. And her heart is fragile. If she lets anyone else in, she might not survive a second heartbreak. And me? I was never meant for love.
Love was the memory of sudsy dishwater dripping from my father’s forearms as he scrubbed silverware, his happy gaze drifting to where my mother twirled me around to salsa music on the radio, our laughter bouncing off the walls in our tiny kitchen.
We were invincible once. Just in that moment.
Love was the way my father shoved us into the closet the moment he realized something was wrong. It was my mother whispering a spell to keep us hidden, even as my father’s screams filled our home.
My mother’s coven, whom she’d been with since she moved to this country, banged on the door, each rapt making her shake with fear.
She didn’t let go when they accused my parents of hiding what I was.
I’d practiced magic outside mother’s protective ward, despite their warnings.
My selfishness exposed our secret. No one was supposed to know how powerful I was.
That I didn’t inherit just one of my parent’s powers, but both.
They thought I was a simple shifter, nothing more.
Love was the way my mother held me tight in that spelled closet, even as she listened to the accusations of what I’d done, that I’d brought those witches to our door, because I was an arrogant child with too much power, and I’d shown off what I was.
Love was my mother’s arms locking around me, her palm silencing my cries as the witches forced their way in, trailing the scent of our slaughtered clan.
They pinned my father to the wall and peeled away his skin while my mother’s tears burned my neck.
My shifter senses caught the sulfuric stench of their magic and the iron-rich, pungent, rotten smell of his body as they opened him up.
Love was my mother never giving me up, even as they tortured her mate, demanding to know where I was.
Love was in the way my father sacrificed himself for us and never broke.
The witches killed him slowly while my mother’s spell kept us hidden.
At dawn, when they left, and the sink was still full of cold water and dirty dishes, and the radio still played salsa music, she burned my father’s body, sending him to the Moon Goddess, blessing his remains and promising to meet him in their next life.
She packed our things with trembling hands, and as we fled our smoldering home, I knew my mother loved me because she never once blamed me, even though we both knew that I was the reason our entire family was slaughtered.
The witches came, and it was all my fault.
There is no respite from what I’ve done, from the memories.
My foolishness is a wound that never heals.
I found only a small measure of peace when, years later, my magic was steady and my shifter powers were sharpened to a blade, I returned to the coven.
One by one, slowly, methodically, I killed every single witch who had a hand in my father’s death.
And then I killed some more. They were my first mission, and it was as if a ghost swept through and disintegrated them all to ash.
Love is pain. It’s also beautiful. One, I can take. The other, I don’t deserve.
It’s growing harder to leave Mona. Each time, I feel like I’m leaving a piece of myself behind. I spend my days scouting, traveling nonstop—by shifter flight or airplane, crisscrossing the country this past week. I want to solve the problem with the witches. I want to protect Mona.
But the truth is a brutal fucking pill. When this hunt ends, so does my claim on her. I’ll have no other reason to see her. To stay with her.
I grip the book, De Medica Magica, and flip it open. My mother watches me curiously, her eyes clearer than I’ve seen in a long time. I’m glad my misery keeps her lucid. She pulls the book from my hands, and we research together, hopefully finding more ways to help Mona’s Seeker magic.
The sooner we end this, the better.
“I may have an idea to protect her, for now,” Mamá says softly.
“Okay. Let’s see.” I pull my chair closer, but she’s still eyeing me. “What is it?”
“Is Kendrick aware of your connection with his daughter?”
I almost laugh. The man has a way of knowing things. Something tipped him off because he’s been dropping little hints in his comments that he’s aware of my connection with Mona. “It’s likely he’s figured it out, but he hasn’t brought it up directly to me yet.”
She smirks. “Yes, he is the ruminative type.”
“It doesn’t really matter either way.”
“Either way?”
“If I… I mean, I’m not staying with her. And his opinion has no bearing, so it doesn’t matter.” The words are vile, but I say them anyway.
I’m ashamed of myself, but when I look up, my mother’s cheeks are glowing. She winks, like she’s got a secret. Luckily, she turns back to the book, and we spend the rest of the afternoon making a plan.