She wiped at a tear. Why did he have to die? Why couldn’t her magic have killed Jason instead of Charon?
Laura’s heart thudded in her chest when she spotted the door to her flat still hung precariously on its hinges. The memory of Ben trying to pull her into the car was one she knew she’d have the rest of her life. Yet it faded in comparison to Charon striding through the door and lifting her in his arms before taking her to safety.
He hadn’t wanted anything other than to keep her safe. He’d been gentle, his touch soft, as if he were afraid she might shatter into a million pieces.
And through it all, she felt his rage at what had been done to her.
Laura touched her cheek where the bruise was. Ben hitting her was nothing to what she had endured over the last few hours. Even then she didn’t want to think about magic.
It was inside her, flowing through her veins just as her blood did. It pulsed bright as the sun just beneath her skin. Laura had no idea what to do with it, nor did she know how to use it.
Where had her magic been when she’d fought helplessly against her sister and mother? Where had that magic been when Ben had tried to kidnap her?
Was it something that would come and go, or was the magic something she could count on from now on? And did she even want to know?
“Charon, I wish you were here.”
Any time she had a question, he always gave her a truthful answer, even if it hadn’t been what she wanted to hear. Had he known she had magic? Was that why he had hired her?
She exhaled and shoved the thought of magic and Charon from her mind as she pushed the door open a crack and stepped inside. Laura turned to her bedroom and stopped in her tracks when she saw her sister standing in front of her.
“Lacy.”
Her sister smiled tightly and took a step toward her. “Hello, little sister.”
“How did you find me?” Laura demanded.
There was only one reason Lacy tracked her down, and Laura knew it had nothing to do with sibling love and everything to do with controlling her again.
Lacy laughed, the sound too loud in the quiet of the flat. “We’ve always known where you were, silly goose. We’d have liked you closer to home, but I made things work.”
“What are you talking about?” Why was Lacy suddenly there? After two years, why show up now?
There had never been any love lost between the sisters. Lacy was their mother’s first child, born when she had been just seventeen and unmarried. Laura hadn’t come along until ten years later, after their mother married.
Lacy hadn’t been cruel exactly, just controlling like their mother. Or at least that’s how Laura had always seen her. Now, however, Laura was seeing her with new eyes, and she didn’t like what she saw.
“How did you do it?” Lacy asked, and took another step to her. “How did you get your magic back?”
The room tilted around Laura so that she reached out and grabbed the back of the sofa to keep herself upright. Magic. How did everyone know but her? “You knew?”
Lacy rolled her eyes. “Well, of course, we knew. We come from a long line of Druids. But our magic was running out. There was hardly any left to even make a plant grow. Then you were born.”
“You knew,” Laura repeated, her mind still trying to wrap around the notion that her family had kept what she was from her.
“My perfect, beautiful little sister didn’t just get the great hair and body, you also got an incredible dose of magic. Mom and I could never figure out how,” Lacy said nonchalantly, a sly tilt on her lips as she fingered a dish towel. “It infuriated both of us. It was quite by accident when I stumbled across a way to syphon your magic.”
Laura thought she was going to be sick. Her stomach roiled viciously. “You took my magic?”
“Oh, that first taste of your potent magic was … addictive,” Lacy said with a laugh. She grabbed an apple from the basket on the kitchen counter and tossed it up in the air before catching it. “Once Mom and I had a taste, we couldn’t stop taking it from you. And you never knew.”
“Why are you here now? Was my magic not enough? Do you want my life now?” Laura glared at her sister, anger and hate threatening to swallow her.
Not even when she had been locked in her bedroom had she felt such impotent rage. She had thought she escaped her family, when in truth they had simply let her leave. How infuriating after it had taken her unbelievable amounts of courage to make her break from them.
“You always were so dramatic. If you’d only grown a backbone, we might have let you have some of your magic.”
Laura curled her hands into fists. “Let me?” she repeated, fury causing her voice to shake. “You might have let me have my own magic. How very generous of you. And here I always thought you such a bitch.”