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She’d beensoexcited over meeting my Coven mates and my boyfriend.

“Youneverbring friends home!”she’d exclaimed, when I explained the situation and asked if we could come for lunch, to hopefully ambush my dad into helping with Saint’s curse.“I’m so happy you want to for once!”

Of course, she and I both knew why I didn’t bring people home—it was because my dad liked the house quiet and didn’t encourage visitors.Also, the tension between the two of us was always extremely high—like Thanksgiving dinner right after the election when your family is split down the middle between conservatives and liberals high.But I was hoping my mom’s excellent chicken salad with lemon squares for dessert would loosen him up some—it was his favorite lunch, after all.

There was a choice of hand-squeezed lemonade and home brewed sweet tea to drink and my mom had brought out the best linen tablecloth and china.She didn’t get to entertain much, due to my dad’s taciturn ways, but she loved to put on a show when she got the chance.

I loved her for caring so much how my friends and my boyfriend saw her and the home I’d grown up in.She was a gracious hostess, jumping up to refill everyone’s drinks and asking if anyone wanted seconds of anything—she had also made a really delicious orzo salad as a side dish.

We had started eating without my Dad, since he was out and had texted that he would be late, but I was expecting to see him walk in the door any minute.I was trying to brace for the minute when he saw that Saint and I had Blood Marked each other, since my mom hadn’t told him anything except that I was bringing “friends” over for lunch.

“I don’t dare tell him more, Avery,” she’d told me when I called her.“He just won’t come if he knows about your boyfriend.I’m sorry, but you know it’s true.”

I knew she was right but it still hurt that my dad hated what I was so much that he would refuse to even come in the house if he knew one of the “friends” I was bringing to meet him was my boyfriend.Still, I was hopeful that he would at least be civil and maybe after lunch I could get him alone in his study—what my mom called his “Man Cave”—and talk like adults about what could be done to break Saint’s curse.

My hopes rose and my stomach twisted into a nervous knot of tension when I heard a car in the driveway.

“Oh, I think I hear your father now, Avery!”My mom jumped up from the table again, leaving her linen napkin on the chair.She hurried over to the door, reminding me of a 50s housewife in her dress and heels and pearls, waiting to welcome her hardworking husband home.“There you are!”I heard her say, as she opened the door for my father.“Sorry we couldn’t wait for you, but everyone was sohungry.”

“That’s fine,” I heard my father say briefly as he stepped into the living room.

My dad couldn’t be more different from my mom.Whereas she is petite and blonde, he’s big and burly with dark hair and dark eyes, hidden behind wire-rimmed glasses.He’s what they call a “man’s man”—he loves sports and camping and fishing and drinking beer and basically everything Idislike.So you can probably guess, we really didn’t have much to bond over when I was growing up.

I would always rather be in the kitchen cooking with my mom than sitting with him in the den watching football or soccer or baseball or any of the hundred sports he followed.And the one time he tried to take me on a camping trip, I was miserable the whole time, though I tried to pretend I wasn’t.But sleeping in a bag on the lumpy, dirty ground, catching fish for our supper—(which entailed impaling a live worm on a sharp hook and then gutting and scaling the fish we caught with it afterwards)—didnotappeal to me.

I kept doing housekeeping spells—to clean up the dirt in the tent and get rid of the smell of dead fish and shoo all the flies and insects away that were attracted to the fish guts—until my dad got aggravated at me and roared at me to, “Stop it, can’t you, goddamn it, you little shit!”

Then he had proceeded to explain that the noise and smells and mess were all “part of the camping experience.”He didn’t actually say it out loud, but I’m pretty sure he was trying to toughen me up and make me more “manly” by putting me through the weekend of camping hell.If so, it hadn’t worked.The minute we got home I had taken a long, hot shower to rid myself of the filth and stench and vowed never to go again.

I donotlove the great outdoors.

But I’m getting off track—I watched anxiously as my father came through the living room and into the dining room.

“See, Harold—Avery brought some friends home to meet us!”my mom said, fluttering along beside him.“Isn’t that nice?”

“Hi, Dad—these are my Coven mates,” I said, before he could answer.“This is Megan, Kaitlyn, and Emma,” I said, pointing to them in turn.“And this is Santiago—but he goes by Saint,” I added.

My dad nodded briefly to each of the girls and then his gaze fell on Saint.He frowned uncertainly and I saw that his eyes were centered on Saint’s forehead.Then he looked at me and sawmyforehead.I saw his eyes widen and then narrow as he looked back and forth between us, taking in the Blood-Marks we both wore.

Then he shook his head and, without a word, turned on his heel and headed back towards the front door.

“Harold, where are you going?”my mother exclaimed.

“Out,” my father growled.“If you think I’m sitting at my own dining room table with a couple of fag?—”

“Don’t you say it, Harold!Don’t you say that ugly word in my house—especially about your own son!”My mother’s voice was grim as she rushed to stand in front of the door, blocking his way and looking—I thought—like a Pomeranian backing down a bear.

“I’ll say what I want because it’s true.Get out of the way, Claire—I’m leaving.”

“No, you’re not!”my mother insisted, standing her ground.“Not until you hear what Avery has to say.He needs yourhelp, Harold!You have to at leastlisten!”

“I’ll make it quick, Dad,” I said, leaving the table and hastily going into the living room.“Saint’s Drake is cursed and I need help to break the curse.Even though…” I swallowed, hearing a dry click in my throat.“Even though breaking it might mean we won’t be together anymore.”

But all my dad seemed to hear out of this whole statement was the word “Drake.”

“What?”he exclaimed, glaring at me.“Not only do you come intomyhouse wearing the Blood-Mark of another male, but now you tell me the male isn’t even anotherWarlock?So you’re not only having unnatural relations with another male, you’re also breaking the Edict?”

“Um, Dad, the Edict isn’t really a thing anymore,” I tried to explain.“My Covin-mate, Megan, and her Blood-Bonded mate, Griffin Darkheart, broke its power.”