the fact that Devinshea Quinn would come for me. Erna knew that if I got captured, I wanted her to protect Dean. He was more important. He had a whole plane to save. “You have to talk to my father. Make him see reason.”
“Reason will tell him to save his daughter.” His eyes went to my throat. “Summer, I think it’s time you tell me why you wear that charm.”
I went silent. I hadn’t thought he would see so much.
“It’s obvious to me your reluctance to care for yourself comes from some terrible deed you think you’ve done, and you seem to have put all your guilt into that charm around your neck. Is it chaining your magic?”
I touched the charm. It was a habit, though not because it gave me comfort exactly. I did it almost out of panic even after all of these years. “It’s binding my magic.”
I felt him reach out to touch me, his big palm going down my back. “Why would you do that? The way I understand it, you are that magic. You could take human form without binding what is essentially your soul.”
“I killed my people.”
The hand on my back stopped its soothing progress. “What?”
Yes, there was the shock I always heard when I told this story. I was glad I wouldn’t have to tell my parents. I’d already decided I wouldn’t be traveling to the Earth plane. I would let Kelsey take Dean. I didn’t want to face the two people who had created me from the love they felt for each other. They would be wretchedly disappointed in what they had wrought on the planes. I turned and faced my lover, who probably wouldn’t be my lover for long. “They call me the Destroyer for a reason. I was a gift from an Unseelie tribe on a far-off plane to a tribe on a plane called Tír na nÓg. It’s the largest of the Fae planes. I was taken in by a tribe near the southern sea. It was a beautiful place to grow up.”
“How old were you when it happened?” He tossed off the covers and scooted down the bed, coming to sit beside me. Neither of us was dressed and it felt right to be naked with him. For a vampire his skin was beautifully tan, a gorgeous olive tone lighting him.
“I was seventeen. I was fascinated with magic and wanted to learn all forms of it. My adopted mother was a woman named Haweigh, and she always found ways to satisfy my curiosity. I think she believed if she gave me enough of what I wanted, I wouldn’t go too far with it.”
“Too far with the magics? Do you have to have spells?”
“There’s a reason for the spells. Spells direct magic. All spells really do is use the power a witch or Fae has to manipulate the world around her. Or him. On some planes they call it science. We just go about it in a different way. But the spell is to ensure you’re doing it right. It sets parameters.” I’d always known I had magic, but when I was very young, Haweigh had bound the majority of my powers. I’d understood even then. I hadn’t been in control. Despite the fact that I hadn’t truly been a baby as Marcus would have known one, I’d still been volatile. My emotions had clouded reasoning. I could take in knowledge, but not wisdom. “Even with the majority of my powers bound, I was still able to work spells. I quickly moved past what our own magic workers could teach me, and that was when Haweigh decided to bring in a trained witch.”
“Your mentor?”
I had mentioned Erna a bit. “Yes. She was from a family on the witch plane. They don’t often leave their own plane, though they do allow immigration to theirs. Only if you can prove magical powers, and even then only if you’re female.”
“Why did Erna leave?”
“From what I understand she didn’t get along with her sisters. They considered her to be minimal, which means she didn’t have a lot of power.” I remembered Erna in those days. She’d seemed bitter and angry, but she’d been kind to me. She’d seen tutoring me as a second chance to find a place in the worlds.
I’d let her down, too.
“How could she teach you if she didn’t have power?” Marcus asked. He leaned over and his lips brushed my shoulders, an intimate gesture that made me long to