broken the binding on your magic, and apparently, you’re fucking anything with a dick in that town, so don’t act like you’re shocked by my words. Magic is what destroyed our family in the first place, and now look at you. You’re trying to bring us down once again. Nothing is ever good enough for witches, is it? You have to try and have more, do more, but never based on your given talents, always using magic. Twisting and turning until you’re barely even human anymore.” I could feel the fury radiating down the phone line as I tried to keep myself in check and not lash out at my father.
As we sat in silence though, something occurred to me and I voiced it before I could stop myself. “You hate being a witch, don’t you? You wish you were completely human. Is that why you never let anyone teach me magic? You bound my powers and hoped that the magic within me would wither and die, leaving me nothing but a shell of what I was intended to be?”
“Of course I wish you were human. Have you not been paying attention, or are you really that airheaded? Humans don’t have to worry about accidentally killing themselves with magic, or worse, someone else. The only time I’ve used magic since you were born, that wasn’t to fix one of your mistakes, was to bind your powers.
“Magic corrupts, gives you power that no one should have, allows you to do things you shouldn’t be able to, and gives you an unfair advantage against everyone else. Yes, I bound your magic, because I believe it will save your soul. Now you’ve damned yourself through not just your magic use but those supposed mates that you’re consorting with. You think that having multiple mates is natural? No. It’s a perversion of an already perverted thing.
“You think shifter’s having mates is romantic, I’m sure, but it’s not. A relationship is something that is meant to be built, worked on over time, something to keep the family line strong and moving forward, not creating half-breeds, not instant love. That is ridiculous. How can you know that you are meant to be with someone just from eye contact? Preposterous. Their notion of mates is an insult to the rest of us who have to work for our relationships. The fact that you believe you now have multiple mates is a disgrace to you and our family name.
“I want you to think long and hard before you contact me again. If you don’t drop this magic and mates nonsense, then I will disown you. You will be left with nothing, and the Astor last name will be stripped from you.”
Tears were streaming down my face. I wasn’t even sure when they started, but I knew that they weren’t going to end any time soon. I took a deep breath and got them under control enough to ask, “And the paper?”
“Keep it, for all I care. You come back to me with this nonsense again, and I’ll sign it over to you and you’ll be cut off from the Astor family.”
“What family, Father? It’s been just you and me for as long as I can remember. If you shut me out, then you’ll be all alone.” I wasn’t asking him to change his mind. Hell, a large part of me didn’t want him to, but he was acting like he had an army at his back, but if he pushed me away, then he would have no one.
He didn’t reply, just hung up.
“Well, that answers that, I guess,” Niklaus said after a while.
Someone shoved a box of tissues into my hand, and the guys all gathered around me, putting their hands on my shoulders, legs, waist, wherever they could reach. Their touches were surprisingly soothing. I wasn’t used to having anyone to rely on, to help me when I fell apart, it had always just been me. Now that I did, I understood why people fought so hard for relationships. Sex wasn’t the only physical aspect, there was the general comfort too.
Having someone there when I needed a hug was a new experience for me, especially when you added that it was the first time I’d ever really wanted a hug from a specific person, or rather people. In that moment, a hug was all I wanted though. The hugs the guys gave were so much more than their arms wrapping around my shoulders, waist, and legs though.