Chapter 30 An Ocean-Tossed Night
THIRTY
An Ocean-Tossed Night
We talked a little more, but it was getting late, so we called it. I’d contact Osso in the morning to see if he could get me into the morgue again. Declan and I cleaned up, then headed for the bedroom.
We got changed and met in the middle of the huge bed. He wrapped his arms around me and I snuggled in, already starting to doze.
“I wanted to ask a question at dinner,” he said, “but I didn’t want to offend your mom.”
I did my best to surface. “What’s that?”
“Catherine had to have had that baby—what—forty-six years ago? Your mom said William hit on her, and she didn’t say he was a little kid when he did it.”
“Okay?” I had no idea what he was getting at. My brain had probably already fallen asleep.
“Wasn’t it a scandal back then to be an unwed mother?” he asked.
“Oh. That. Probably in human society. Wicches don’t have that issue.
We’re matriarchal and celebrate new life.
We also mostly keep to ourselves. I mean, we share the same world, but we only associate with our own kind.
” Sighing, I looked up at him. “For safety’s sake, we try to live as separately as we can.
We don’t forget how we were hunted and killed by fearful, hate-filled humans. ”
I wrapped my arm around his waist. “Did Mom deal with whispers when she was pregnant with me? Probably. Mostly that was because she was clearly the most powerful and the next in line. There were whispers when she did anything. In royalty, there’s a hierarchy and a specific order of who’s in line for the throne.
Wicches are like that, except our order is based on power.
Gran was on the throne, not because of who her mother was or her birth order.
She was there because she was the most powerful of her generation. ”
“Okay, but how do they know? How do they measure who’s the strongest baby?” he asked.
I huffed out a laugh, picturing babies flexing on a dais.
“We feel it. When a baby is born, we feel it, almost like a sonic boom. Or a squeak. The Goddess bestows her gifts, and we feel it like a shock wave in the family. It’s sacred.
We celebrate and give thanks, vowing to cherish what She has given us.
“Later, when they’re old enough to begin lessons, those with stronger innate magic are again recognized immediately.
It’s happened that those with great potential at birth don’t know how to harness it and therefore drop in the ranking.
I mean, the difference between numbers six, seven, and eight is pretty small, but that far down the line, it doesn’t really matter.
What matters is number one, and that was Great-Gran, Gran, and now Mom. ”
“And soon you,” he murmured.
I shook my head against his chest. “Not soon. Mom isn’t even fifty.
Wicches live longer than humans. She has decades to go.
As for me, I don’t know. I’m only half wicche.
We kept that secret most of my life, but they all wondered and theorized.
With my dad back in my life, it won’t be long before everyone knows why I have this ribbon of scales on my body, why my hair looks almost indigo in the ocean.
Yes, I’m number one in my generation, but I’m different enough that when they whisper, it isn’t only envy.
It’s suspicion. No. It won’t be me. They’d never accept me. ”
“Does that bother you?” he asked.
“Only if I think too much about it.”
He rubbed his hand up and down my back. “Let’s think about something better, then. Have you been considering any names?”
Grinning sleepily, my body lost some of the tension that had built during the last conversation. “Not really. I mean names pop into my head and I almost immediately rule them out. How about you?”
He kissed my temple. “Kind of the same. I haven’t found one I love yet. I considered Alexandra for my dad Alexander. Alexandra Quinn has a ring but—”
He stopped talking when I pushed up on my elbow and stared down at him, my brow furrowed. “Quinn?”
He looked confused. “Yeah. She’s my daughter.”
“She’s my daughter. That makes her a Corey. End of story.”
He sat up. “We’re supposed to be partners. Why are you acting like this is all up to you?”
“Because it is. I’m the one who’s pregnant.
I’m the one who’s going to give birth and raise her.
You could walk away at any time and be completely free to start over.
This is my life now. How would it not be my decision?
” I got out of bed and stood beside it. “Why are you acting like this is some sort of human relationship?”
“Mates make decisions together,” he growled. “You’re my mate and that’s my child. You can’t erase me from the equation because compromise is difficult.”
“I’m a Corey! One of the oldest and most powerful line of wicches in the world. I’m on the Corey Council. If this baby isn’t a Corey, it will look to the whole wicching world as if I’m turning my back on my family, on my wicche heritage.”
“The wicching world that’s been so kind to you? Faith and Frank aren’t Coreys,” he countered. “They took their dad’s last name.”
My hands flew out from my sides. “And they’ve been viewed as lesser in the family because of it.
The family will be shocked when they learn that Faith is on the Council.
There’s going to be angry pushback when Mom announces.
” I rubbed my forehead. “Besides, Robert’s a Bishop.
They’re an old and respected family. After Bridget ran away and Elizabeth started to fade, she was happy to separate even that much from the Corey name.
Gran didn’t throw a fit because Elizabeth wasn’t seen as being powerful enough to fight over. ”
Declan pushed out of bed too. Hands on hips, he stared at me.
“Do you hear yourself? This family has been nothing but horrible to you. They judge their own family members’ worth by their magical strength.
And even though you’re the most powerful one of all, they’ve been cruel to you since you were little. ”
He ran his hand through his hair, looking like he wanted to tear it out.
“Your Aunt Elizabeth, who’s one of the nicest Coreys I’ve met, wasn’t deemed important enough to fight over because she wasn’t powerful enough for anyone to care.
” He stared up at the ceiling a moment, then back at me.
“This is the family you cling to? This is the name you’ll brand our daughter with?
You want her to grow up like you did? Are you insane? ”
“You don’t understand!” My head—or maybe it was my heart—felt like it was going to explode.
“No,” he said, dropping back down to the bed, his head in his hands. “I don’t.”
I went out to the living room, slamming the bedroom door after me. I stood in the middle of the dark room, my emotions ripping me apart. I wanted to cry but couldn’t. Crying required release, but I was tied up so tight, it felt like the binds were cutting me into pieces.
I had to get out of here. I couldn’t go wandering around in one of Declan’s old t-shirts, so I flicked my fingers and my sleep shirt was replaced by the dress and shoes I was wearing earlier.
I didn’t want Declan to follow me. I needed space to think, so I lay down in the couch, threw the blanket over me, and waited. I knew he’d hear me and assume I was sleeping on the couch. Instead, I cast a muffling spell, got up, folded the blanket, and walked out the door, all in silence.
I couldn’t make myself invisible—or, at least, I didn’t know how. I’d have to ask Dad about that. No invisibility, but I could glamour myself to blend with the night, making it far more difficult for anyone to see me.
The moon sparkled on riotous waves. They were no longer covering the road, but they were hitting the rocks with a great deal of force. We were all having a rough night.
When I passed the ward on the property line, I was hit by a wave of nausea. I almost fell on my butt, but then I smelled something foul, something dead, and I forced myself to stay alert.
It only took a moment to see the grey and red crumpled mass.
My stomach turned. It was a gutted seagull.
This wasn’t a natural death. Its intestines had been staked out and an unlit black candle lay on its side beside the poor bird.
Running water can often douse a spell. When Dad left and the ocean swamped the road, it looked as though it had also cleansed the black magic that had been dropped at our doorstep.
I had no idea what the spell was intended to do.
I was glad it had been neutralized and that Dad had left first, sending the ocean to our fence, so none of our guests were cursed.
I flicked my fingers and a wadded up plastic bag appeared in my fist. Out in the open like this, I couldn’t make things disappear in case there was someone nearby who saw.
I scooped the bird and candle into the bag and jogged across the street.
I’d study the remains once I was safe at the gallery.
Peering up and down the dark, deserted road, I kept an eye out for a car hell-bent on running me down. Thankfully, none appeared.
When I got to the gallery, I dropped the glamour as I walked back to the deck. I normally would have gone for a swim to relieve the horrible pressure behind my eyes from the fight, but the ocean was too angry tonight.
I went through the gate and startled. Someone was already sitting on a bench.
Bracken looked up at me. “I see we had the same idea.” He glanced down at the bag in my hand. “What’s that?”
“The Swans again.” I put the bag under the bench closest to the gate and hid it behind a spell. I didn’t want my raccoon friends to discover it.
Bracken patted the bench beside him and I sat.
“Are you okay?” I asked, happy to think about anything other than the look of betrayal in Declan’s eyes.
He nodded slowly, watching the waves. “I could ask you the same.” He paused a moment. “Your father is quite angry tonight.”
“Yeah. Me too. Declan and I had a fight.” I wanted to take the words back immediately. Saying them made them real and I didn’t want it to be real.
“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked.
I shook my head and he patted my knee.
“I’m sitting out here wondering about something your father said.”
I turned in my seat and took his hand in both of my gloved ones. “I heard it too.”
He let out a sigh. “That makes you valuable to me, so I help you,” he said, echoing Dad’s earlier words. “Help you,” he said again. “Not helped. Help. Is it ongoing?” He was silent, considering. “I’ve been sitting here contemplating what he meant, though I believe I know.”
He let out a huff that in other circumstances might have been a laugh. “I’ve come to realize that there is nothing more terrifying to me than not being in control of my own mind. Was my mind perfect? No, but it was imperfectly mine.”
He shook his head. “Do you remember when you first met me? I was trapped in a mental spiral, shuffling through tea leaves and glass shards scattered in your mother’s tea shop, unable to pull myself out of a hyperanalysis of what I was seeing.
You, though.” He looked up at me with a sad smile.
“The utter perfection of your face broke the spiral and helped pull me out.”
“I remember,” I said, squeezing his hand.
“I’m not like that anymore,” he said. “I haven’t had an episode like that since I came to your gallery.
I still fixate on topics and research exhaustively, but I haven’t been trapped like that again.
I even drove to San Francisco, met your cousin Sam, fought a monster, and interviewed some vampires.
” His lips kicked up for a moment. “And at every turn, in the back of my mind, I worried this will be what traps me in a spiral. This will be it. But it wasn’t. ”
He squeezed my hand back. “I thought being here, being near the ocean, having family—real family—was what was helping me come back from the dark, suffocating place I’d gone, but now I wonder if it was your father. Is he doing something to my mind?”
I leaned my shoulder against his. “I had many of those same thoughts throughout the evening. Do you want to hear what I think?”
He nodded. “I must or I wouldn’t have told you all of that.”
“My dad can be a lot.” I gestured to the violent waves.
“But when Mom was forced to leave him, he didn’t slip into her mind to make her stay.
He desperately wanted to have a relationship with me, but he didn’t go behind her back to approach me.
He didn’t go into either of our minds to get what he wanted.
He understands the importance of free will. ”
I watched the waves a moment, hoping I got this right.
“You are exactly who you have been since I met you, before Dad would have known about you. My guess is he helped silence the spiral before it could pull you in again. You’re you.
Your mind is your own. It’s more your friend now and less your jailer. ”
His eyes filled with tears. “Do you believe that?”
I nodded. “I do.”
He blew out a long breath. “Then I will too.”