if I choose incorrectly, we’re all going to pay the price.
Chapter 49
“You cannot be serious.” I can feel myself starting to bristle as I stare at my mother with narrowed-eye disbelief. “You can’t ask them to do any of that.”
“I can, and I will,” she retorts, flicking a strand of long black hair behind her shoulder. “They’re not supposed to know the truth. It’s the rule.”
“I don’t give a damn about that!” My voice raises to a screech as I take a threatening step closer. This new position puts me face to face with her. How have I failed to see how wicked my mother has become? She wasn’t always like this. I truly believe that there was a time when she actually loved and wanted the best for me. But her need for power twisted her mind, warped her into someone entirely unrecognizable. Who is this fair-skinned woman staring back at me? What the hell happened to her to make her so bitter and jaded?
“Peony…” Karsyn begins softly, running his fingers down the length of my arm. Goosebumps automatically rise in their wake, even as I shove him off of me.
“I’m so sorry,” I whisper tearfully, turning to stare at each of them. Karsyn’s hazel eyes, the color of autumn leaves, and his pinched face. Cassian’s cocky swagger, even now still firmly in place as he gifts my mother a smile that isn’t at all pleasant. Elias’s worried gaze as his eyes flit from me to my mother and then back to me again. And then finally, Lucas, who regards the entire scene with a cold disregard. “I never should’ve brought you into this world.”
“Oh, please,” Mom scoffs. “They’ve been in this world far longer than you know.”
“Wh-what do you mean?” I stutter, even as the four Devils stare at her in confusion.
Lucas’s voice is as cutting as an icicle when he speaks next. Just as cold, too. “I can assure you, Mrs. Simone, that I’ve never been involved in this…world before.” His nose crinkles.
Always so polite, that one, even when faced with my evil, bitchy mom.
“It’s Miss Simone,” Mom corrects automatically, stiffening ever so slightly at the mention of my father. He died when I was two, maybe three, and it destroyed a piece of her. The last shred of decency she possessed. I don’t remember her at all from before, but people tell me she was kind. Funny. Compassionate. Everything she is no longer. “And you don’t need to be aware of witches to be hexed by one.”
She smiles chillingly, a smile designed specifically to give the room frostbite, and I feel my heart steadily begin to grow in a rapidly shrinking vise. I gape at her wordlessly, sure I heard her wrong.
“What the fuck do you mean?” I demand when I finally find my voice.
Mom levels a blistering glare in my direction. “Language, Peony. I taught you better than that.”
“She asked you a fucking question, you fuckity fucking bitch,” Cassian seethes, and I can tell that he’s using colorful language just to piss my mother off further.
Mom stares at him, aghast at the way he spoke, before a slow, cunning smile twists up her lips. It’s not pretty or even elegant, a direct contrast to her immaculate appearance. This particular smile makes her look…evil.
“It’s a simple hex bag,” she states snootily, snapping her fingers until Ryan scurries forward, dropping something into her open palm. To me, Mom says, “See? How can you not want a man who will do whatever you say, whenever you say?”
“Because I’m not a manipulative bitch like you,” I counter, and I take great satisfaction in seeing red blotches erupt on both of her cheeks. She tries to keep her anger in check, but it seeps out of her before she can contain it. Above us, the hanging light shutters and sparks, before going out completely. The table near the front entrance begins to rattle as well.
Reining in her emotions, Mom opens her hand to reveal a tiny brown bag. It’s tied at the top with a piece of my white-blonde hair, and a familiar symbol is painted in red across the side.
The mark of the devil.
“Is that…is that my hair?” I instinctively bring a hand to my head, as if I can assure myself that all of my hair is still firmly in place, thank you very much.
“I’ve been using these hex bags since forever,” Mom confesses, turning it around in her palm. She then glances up and spears the four