A Little Green Magic (The Little Coven #1) - Isabel Wroth Page 0,80

flesh. She said it was the moment she realized the enormity of her mistake and admitted there wasn't a difference between your child and hers. We were both hers, and she dreaded having to choose which one of us to hand over.”

Donnatar swatted her mother's feelings aside like they were of no consequence, but Ilex wasn't looking at the table anymore. He was looking at her, and clearly, her brother wanted to know more.

“As you said, your mother was a ridiculously emotional female. Couldn't have someone like that raising my son, it would have made him weak.”

Ilex didn't appear to like their father’s answer, and though he remained mute, Ivy wanted to hear him speak. It seemed incredibly important all of a sudden.

“When our father came for you, Mom made him promise you would have a good life. Did you?”

Her brother lifted his chin and leaned back in his chair, giving the appearance of a lazy sprawl when he laced his fingers over his belly and gave a cold smirk, but his eyes... his eyes burned with banked fury.

“I've been treated like a king, sister. I wanted for nothing.”

Skating the edge of a lie, Ivy gave her brother what she hoped was a relieved smile. “I'm glad to hear that. She never told me your name. I'm Ivy.”

“I am Donnar,” his answer was just shy of clipped, but their father gave an approving nod, not volunteering his own name. Ivy smiled then, struggling not to express the triumph that filled her.

“You have not introduced your companions, Ivy,” her father reminded her reproachfully, but not even his arrogant tone could get her down.

“This is my mate, Uriah, and my coven leader, Rowena.” Ivy wrapped her hands around Uriah's thick arm, smiling up at him like the lovesick fool she was. “That's our friend, Abel, over there with her.”

Donnatar spared little more than a glance at Rowena, not acknowledging Abel at all, and he didn't bother to greet them. The look he gave Uriah, though, it chilled Ivy to the bone. Had she not been looking so closely, she would have missed the flash of impatient malice.

Daddy was definitely unhappy Ivy had taken a mate. If Uriah could sense or smell the animosity her father was putting off, Uriah didn't stiffen or react in any visible way. Not that she could tell, anyway.

Somehow, Donnatar managed to sound perfectly reasonable, almost regretful when he did speak. “I hope you understand, Ivy, not everything is as your mother explained it. I wanted desperately for you to be with your brother, with our people, but your mother never gave me the chance to catch more than a glimpse of you.

“She hid you away from me for seven years, and when I finally found you, she spirited you away like a thief in the night. I couldn't sense you as I had before, and it took me some time to realize she must have bound your magic. Was it painful? Did you suffer without it?”

He studied her now with a wide, soulful gaze. If she hadn't known better, Ivy might have bought the caring father routine. “I struggled for a long time, yes.”

“Your mother abandoned you at a school for young witches, but it must have been obvious you didn't belong. You couldn't possibly have been happy there.”

Ivy heard it for the manipulation that it was; she also heard the ring of magic meant to coax a sympathetic response from her. It made Ivy hate him, far more than she already did.

Rowena nudged her under the table, reminding her to think. To pay attention. Her father went from saying he had no idea where her mother had taken her to speaking of Ivy being abandoned at a school for young witches.

Was that information given to him by the Brownies?

Or in his arrogant attempt to sway her, had he slipped up?

Ivy didn't dare make the same mistake and assume she was winning anything or gaining any ground. She had to play the game.

“There were most certainly days at school where I was miserable, but in truth, it was because I believed I was failing to live up to my mother's legacy.

“She died when I was so young, and after that, I believed I was alone. So, I built my own family. I'm happy here. I have a home, a man who loves me, and a coven I belong with.”

“Do you belong?” Donnatar pressed, jerking his chin as he switched his focus to Rowena. “Surely, you've known Ivy