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My smile softens. “Okay, I’m leaving you now.”
“I know, vodka and ice—” I hang up on him, chuckling while tossing my phone onto the counter with my clothes. I rush through the shower, scrubbing up in half the time before stepping out and into my shower slippers. I scroll through Instagram on my way back, flipping through Ben’s story. He’s a ho. A different girl every week will have his attention, but does he ever talk about them with me? No. So who is this one and what makes her different? Maybe he’ll finally settle down. God can only hope.
Kicking the door closed, I toss all of my things into my room and shuffle into one of Ben’s oversized shirts I’ve officially claimed as my own that stops above my knees and some knitted socks. Ben won’t be back for another hour, so I grab my laptop and open up my assignment.
School sucks. I’m here because I’m doing what every other person does at my age, but there’s a lingering ache that continues to pound deep in my gut anytime I think about the future. I can never see it. I’ve tried, but all I see is nothing.
Flipping my laptop closed with a harsh clap, I sigh, throwing myself back on the bed. My head turns and I look to the door and before I can talk myself out of it, I jump to my feet and rush out into the kitchen area.
I bite my lip as I stare down at the envelope.
Uncle Marcus isn’t here to talk me out of opening it this time and I mean ithasbeen a year since one has shown up. I always wondered if I’d be like other Gifted and get my ‘invitation’ to attend Rathe U, the school for the Gifted here in Daragan. The school Justice goes to, and if I had my guess, those guys from the diner this morning. Not that I could accept it if I had, and if I had ... I wasn't made aware of it.
As far as I knew, my living in this town was a secret, just like my existence is supposed to be. My uncle tried his best to get me to stay back home, but he knew it was a losing battle the moment Ben decided to go to school here.It's almost like it was ... fate. My best friend and the only person I can’t live without choosing the one school that would bring me closer to my past. To the me I was supposed to be instead of the one I pretend I am.
A basic human girl without a clue to the magic that walks these worlds, but I do know of the darkness that hides out there.
It lives inside me, flows through the very blood that fills my veins.
I open the fucking letter.
My eyes scan the header, and staring back at me in large bold ink, the letter R pops from the paper, lighting, a shadow forming and twisting around it.
The letters R A T H E slowly forming until the name of the realm I was born to stares back at me.
Rathe. My home.
A hint of sorrow for the life I lost washes over me, but I push it away and read what they have to say.
“Dear, London Crow,
The King is dead.”
“Oh shit...” I break, wondering if that should make me feel sad or not, but it doesn’t. I continue. “And a new King is on the horizon. By strike of daylight, we wish for you to join us here at the Faelific Fortress in Rathe where a courtship for his hand is underway. Your future King seeks his Queen, so accept this invitation, and join us.Acceptthis offer and come home once and for all.”
My lips clamp together and a chortled laugh bubbles up before it breaks free.
Smiling, I shake my head, staring at the page as if it’s grown horns, and honestly? It could.
“Go home,” I muse. “Are they fucking crazy?”
I heard all the stories.
My dad? He was a fucking cold-hearted murderer; I’m talking a hundred times the men who haunt the humans' nightmares. My dad was a literal one.
No joke, he’s in the fucking Book of Nightmares. I’d be slaughtered on sight if they learned whose bastard child I am. It’s the very reason my uncle hid me away all these years.
Clearly, not well enough.
That’s probably my fault though. I’m the one who insists on learning magic even though I can’t use it. It’s just the basics I was already being taught in grade school before we had to flee—levitation, mind protection, and persuasion ... plus or minus a few I snuck along the way. I’m sure the Gifted have a way to track power found outside of Rathe. I probably lead them right to me even if I never did tap into the principal power my parents’ blood passed down to me.
But the letter is addressed to “London” so maybe they don’t know who I am, just that I’m like them?
Still ... me? The Queen of Darkness?
“Yeah, fucking right.” I reach across the counter, leaning on it as I bite into an apple with a grin, staring at the paper below me. “They really expect me to, what? Say ‘I accept this offer’and just—”
My voice cuts off as a dark cloud appears before me.
