Page 26 of Enchanting Her Monsters
Osen leads us in that direction, but he sits down to watch the water instead of chasing down his phoenix.
“Letting him come to us in his own time?”I ask.
“Yeah. I don’t know if it will work being in your body, but that’s how we used to connect. I would have to wait for him to come to me. Especially since his last death.”
“Are you okay?”
“As much as a dead guy can be,”he chuckles, but I can sense his joke is forced.
He’s not alright.
“It’s okay not to be okay,”I let him know.
“Same goes for you. This can’t be easy, dealing with all of us. Your life turned upside down.”
“No. But it’s weirdly easier than I thought it might be. The biggest hurt has been that my life was a lie. My abuela squashed my magic. She was an ASO spy, and who knows whatother awful things she did. I need answers from her. I want to know what I am.”
Just as I say this, I fall back against the boulder we are sitting on. I feel Osen being forcibly shoved deeper in my body and another presence appears in my mind.
Abuela.
“What are you doing?” we both demand at the same time.
“No.” I throw my hand up for her to hear me. “You don’t get to demand things from me until you give me some damned, long overdue answers.”
Her mouth purses with irritation, but then she slowly nods. “I suppose you deserve some… after everything.”
“Let’s start with why you mentioned the mistake you made when I bonded with Arran. Am I part supe?”
“Yes.” She glances down at her hands, avoiding my eyes. “I’ve kept far too much from you. But know this: I never meant to harm you. I thought…” Her voice cracks. “I thought I was protecting you.”
“From Galiana?”
“Yes, and others.” My grandmother straightens her shoulders. “I’ll start at the beginning. I was a powerful lust witch. Galiana told me that supernatural beings had killed my parents. Right away, she recruited me into the ASO, using my hatred so she could manipulate my magic. I worked various jobs for Galiana and the anti-supe cause. During that time, I conceived Jadeana Ruth with a mortal male who I met for a one-night stand.”
“Wait, if my mother was half mortal and half witch… where does my supe blood come from?”
“Ruth isn’t your mother… I am.”
I stagger back, and my world spins.
“Ruth is your older sister by almost twenty years. We put a spell on her mind to make her believe she was your mother. Although the spell faded quickly once I died.”
Thinking back on the time of my grandmother… mymother’sdeath. Ruth had suddenly shifted in her personality. Not for the better. She was angrier than she had ever been and was harder on me. I had chalked it up to the loss of her mother. It was, but not in the way I had thought.
“So,you’remy biological mother?” I shake my head and frown. “Why did you do that to us? To Ruth?”
“For your protection, I could hide you with a normal human like Ruth, since she didn’t inherit my witch magic. I put a spell in place to mask your presence to those searching for you. If I didn’t, Galiana would have killed you as a baby.”
“Why didn’t you just tell Ruth or me the truth?” I ask.
“I was going to do that when you came of age. But I was murdered before I could—tortured to death by Galiana in her attempt to get information on you and your whereabouts. Unfortunately, a couple of decades later, she found you anyway.”
My heart sinks. She died to protect me. “I… I didn’t know.”
“How could you know, mija?” Her voice softens. “I wanted to teach you about your powers when they developed when you came of age. When you were born, I had hoped I could kill Galiana right away and we could be a true family. But it wasn’t meant to be.”
“And my father?”
