Page 59

“A fuck ton. But not as much as it should, I guess.”

She nods, kisses my chest. “I met your mom.”

What the fuck? “And you didn’t think to mention that earlier?”

She gazes at me with big, innocent eyes. Yeah. She’s about as innocent as me. “Well, I did say we had to talk,” she responds. “You’re the one who slung me over your shoulder and carried me back to your cave.”

“You were not over my shoulder … but okay. True. And I don’t regret it. Now, tell me what happened.”

“Oh, you know, the usual bullshit. Spells, magic, more questions than answers. I touched those signatures on the Bargain, and I went right to the place you went to. Except I wasn’t a kid, and I knew what was going on. It was her. She did it.”

“She did what?”

“It was your mom who was responsible for the blood spell that bound us to each other.”

I frown. That sounds impossible, but Rosa wouldn’t say it if she wasn’t sure. We’ve been working on the assumption that it was one of the witches responsible for sealing the Bargain who tied our lives together. This makes no sense.

“Also, Luca, sweetie, she was a witch. As was your dad. From, like, the greatest witch family ever known. And, um, you’re probably one too.”

I sit up abruptly, pushing her off me. What kind of crap is this? I hate witches. Always have. “No way. That can’t be true. Somebody is lying to you, Rosa.”

She reaches up, takes my hand in hers. “It is true, baby, and I think you know it. Your high tolerance to silver. The way we can communicate, be together even when we’re thousands of miles apart. Your eyes. Everything about you is extraordinary. Because you’re not just a vampire, you’re a witch. From what she said, a pretty powerful one too. Minnie says she can help, that she can train you, that⁠—”

“No!” the word comes out as a yell, and she looks shocked. “I’m sorry, bella, but no. This cannot be real. You’re sure it was her, my mother? Not just some kind of fucked-up illusion?”

“I really am. She loved you so much.”

That sucks the air out of me. Reduces some of my defiance to rubble. I shake my head, not knowing what to do with all these feelings. Fuck. I don’t have time for this. I wipe my face with my hands, ignore the screaming inside my mind.

“I have some stuff for you too, if you want it?” Rosa adds, her voice gentle.

No, I fucking well don’t. I hate all this shit. As if life isn’t complicated enough without an extra layer of bizarre. “Is it important?”

She sits up, leans into me. Drops a sweet kiss on my shoulder. “Yeah. I think it is.”

She rises, naked and glorious, and strides over to her bags. She must have dropped them here earlier, guessing, correctly, that I’d have her in bed within minutes. She crouches down, and even now, even with this going on, I find time to admire her perfect heart-shaped ass. The wonders of the male brain.

“Stop looking at my butt,” she says, without even glancing back. I grin. The female brain is pretty wondrous too.

“Why would I stop doing that? It’s one of my favorite things to look at.”

She stands up, gives it a little wiggle, breaking the tension. She comes back to the bed carrying a jute bag. It looks like any normal kind of bag, something you’d use for groceries or, in Rosa’s case, possibly a collection of stakes of varying sizes. But somehow, I know that nothing inside that bag is normal.

First, she passes me a book. It’s leather bound, fire stained, most of the pages bearing at least some damage from flames or smoke. It looks old as fuck. I know where it’s from, and I don’t want to touch it.

“That’s the, uh, big book of d’Argentos, I suppose. Your mom was called Caterina, and your dad was Valentino. He was a harvest witch. Your mom was a little more complicated.”

Witches. No, I still can’t wrap my head around it.

Rosa turns to a page that features a complex family tree and points to my name, or at least what remains of it. I stare, dumbfounded. I can see that it’s real, that this is all genuine, but I still can’t really believe it. None of it feels true.

“Nothing?” she says, watching me as I read. I even reach out and let my fingers run over the faded ink. Maybe she was hoping it would trigger some memories, shake something loose. Maybe that’s exactly what I was scared of.

“Nothing,” I reply. I feel suddenly guilty for not remembering more. For forgetting my whole life, my whole childhood. The family I never knew I had.

“It’s not your fault,” she says, comfortingly. “That was also your mom. She spelled you, so you’d forget. She didn’t want you to spend the rest of your life tortured by those memories. She wanted you to at least have the chance to be happy. They promised her they’d let you live if she did what they wanted.”

“Who?” I ask. “None of this makes any fucking sense!”