You’re the leader of the Covens Syndicate now. That wouldn’t happen if what you did was wrong.”
“Wrong?” His lips pulled back in an expression nearly feral. “No. Not…wrong.”
The woman on the couch leaned forward, apparently trying to get through to the younger Alasdair. “Your father was possessed by a demon,” she said.
A demon.
Deep cold stole through Delilah, freezing out the warmth lingering from his look, freezing her emotions at the same time. She glanced around the room more closely until she found the spot. In the corner, the plaster of the wall was destroyed in a spiderweb of cracks and blackened as though charred by a thunderbolt.
She turned her head to stare at the man. Alasdair had killed a demon that young? One possessing his own father, too?
Fuck me.
Of course it would have to be a demon.
Damn. What was her mother thinking tying her to this man? Nothing they could learn was going to allow her to help him, no matter what.
Damn her inability to See when it came to him. If she’d known…
She’d assumed, when she’d first realized her blind spot when it came to Alasdair, that it meant their futures weren’t linked. Now, with one fell swoop, her mother had changed all that.
“You had no choice,” the witch said to the boy. “There’s no shame in it.”
“You think I’m ashamed?” the boy asked in a tone of voice so like the man, Delilah’s lips parted in a silent gasp. “I’m not ashamed. I’m—” He shook his head, then gave the woman the same cold stare he’d just given Delilah. “My family is dead.”
The witch got to her feet, stepping back, expression saying even more than the distance she put between them that she had no idea how to react to that. “I’m sorry,” she said after a brief hesitation.
Both boy and man scoffed. “I’m sure you are,” the boy said. The electricity wrapped around his hands crackled and snapped.
“Oh, Alasdair,” Delilah whispered.
She may as well have yelled it, the way he flinched. Then he snapped his gaze to her, brows lowered in a fierce glare that didn’t fool her one bit. “I don’t need your pity or your apologies. You had nothing to do with it.”
Despite the horrible scenario playing out before them, Delilah couldn’t help the stupidly inappropriate twitch of her lips. “Pity is the last thing I’d ever feel for you, Alasdair Blakesley.”
Not even for the child on the couch. Heartache, maybe, but never pity.
The way his stiff shoulders eased minutely told her he’d understood.
“These people are fools,” she said, shocked at the vehemence in her own voice. “Please tell me someone knew enough to give you a hug that day, help you through this.”
He turned his head, searching her expression. “Is that what you would have done?”
Delilah bit her lip, but that didn’t stop the truth from spilling out anyway, because deep down she sensed he needed to hear this. “I’d hug you now if you’d let me.”
Breath punched from him in an audible puff, though his expression didn’t change. Then he gave his head a shake, as if deciding what to believe. Part of her hoped he’d relent. That he would allow himself to take some belated comfort, even if he didn’t like her. That all-consuming kiss notwithstanding.
He didn’t do that, though. Instead, Alasdair tipped his head back to shout at the ceiling. “That’s enough.”
Nothing happened.
Was there more her mother wanted them to witness? Wouldn’t he know if there were more?
A spot over her heart, where no doubt a mark matching the one Alasdair bore, warmed until it became uncomfortable, and Delilah silently cursed her parent.
“I think you have to take my hand,” she said, and held hers out.
He stared at her as if she’d grown a few extra heads, then reached for her.
But Delilah jerked away with a gasp.
“I’m not going to hurt you—”
She waved him off, still staring at what had caught her attention. Leaving Alasdair standing there, she walked closer to the boy on the couch, right up to him, and bent over.
There.
In the center of his forehead, a slight red glow that faded even more as she watched. Delilah squeezed her eyes shut for a second. Holy hells, had none of the witches and warlocks in the room seen this mark that night?
She blinked, then froze as the younger Alasdair had lifted his gaze. This was the past, and she couldn’t influence it, but she swore he was looking directly at her. Impossible.
Giving herself a shake, she straightened and turned