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My heart beat in my ears at Ellie’s words.

I forgot how to breathe as I blinked at our joined hands.

“There’s no excusing when someone goes that far,” she said firmly even as her voice cracked. “There’s no justifying it or trying to understand it. All the ‘parent’ does is pick a side and not the side of the child who was the victim. Fine, I wasn’t her biological child, but she raised me and didn’t raise her. And I did nothing wrong. I was better.

“That wasn’t my fault. That’s genetics. That’s chance. That’s thegods’choice. I also worked harder to makeher proudand her biological daughter was jealous of that. She was jealous she wouldn’t have the mating prospects I did and the power of being a coven leader’s wife. There is no forgiving attempting to kill a sibling out of jealousy. Ever.”

“Walk us through it,” Dr. Bass cut in, clearly understanding there was more to all of this but wanting to move things along. Probably so she could rest.

Which was also why I’d asked Dr. James to cover my patients for the day. He’d been shocked, but I didn’t have anyone on my calendar who needed me specifically and… Seriously, Ellie needed me more. When I put it like that he said he’d make it work.

Good man.

Ellie sighed. “It took a couple of years, but Father found someone he said was perfect on paper and invited him to stay with the coven. He said that was what was missing and how his wise mate and daughter could see through the cracks with the help of the elders. So do it better and invite him out.” She let out a stressed giggle.

“This is like a telenovela where your half sister met him on his journey somehow and fell madly in love, right?” Carla drawled.

Ellie giggled again and tapped her nose before pointing at her. “Oh yeah. Broken carriage wheel and everything. I mean… My life is like a shitty period cliché that—whatever. She didn’t know until he was here a few weeks that it was so we might be mated. I still wasn’t on board and threatened not to go through with it if they didn’t tell me about my birth mother.

“Father laughed and said he thought it was hysterical that I thought I got a choice, but I had cards to play too. I was ready to tell the coven I was a bastard instead of living with that threat over my head later. It was—you can imagine. Long story short, she found out and went apeshit. I don’t know how long she knew about the switch but…” She shrugged.

“She escaped her arrangements and somehow got into the coven?” Gerald pushed, looking a bit too engaged in her backstory.

“I don’t really know,” Ellie sighed. “I don’t know how much freedom she had.” She grabbed my bottle of water that I’d left on the coffee table and took a swig. “I never knew all that much and it’s hundreds of years later. All I do know is I wasn’t the pampered princess she’d assumed I’d be as a coven leader’s daughter.

“I trained hard because life was hard, and several of the elders instilled it in my head that if Father should fall I would bethe acting coven leader with my stepmother until—I had to be ready. I have no idea if it was real advice or more elder mischief, but I took it to heart.” She angrily wiped tears that broke my heart. “That’s how I met my younger sister.

“With a dagger trying to kill me in my bedchambers. She’s fucking lucky I recognized her even in the moonlight coming through the window. She’sluckythat it was almost a full moon and the moonlight would come in. It was a warmer night and I had the window and curtains open for the breeze.”

“She looked like your stepmother,” Carla put together.

“Spitting image but younger,” Ellie confirmed. “I disarmed and knocked her out only before waking my servant in the connecting room to get my stepmother immediately. I made up some excuse of—I forget. I was in shock, but she saw it was important enough and then my stepmother came and found her real daughter knocked out.”

“Her reaction?” Dr. Bass hedged.

“Grateful,” Ellie admitted. “She confessed Theresa was jealous of me and the life I ‘took’ from her. Everything from my position to my damn name. Apparently, Ellie was a much more graceful name.” She snorted.

“What?” I whispered.

“I was cruel. She was grateful I didn’t kill her daughter but not apologetic that she came to fucking kill me when I didn’t do anything other than what she and my father ever asked of me. I didn’t even know the woman’snameuntil she said it in that moment. I told her that I hoped Theresa ended up hating her as much as I did if not more once she saw it wasn’t my fault but hers.”

“I don’t think that cruel but fucking justified,” Carla mumbled. “I want a piece of the fucking bitch. If you don’t want your child born of a man you’re forced to mate, you fucking run. You don’t go Machiavellian with all this other shit and otherpeople’s lives like you own them and are the puppet master. You—children aren’t possessions. She was just as bad as her parents.”

Ellie looked at her like she’d never seen her before and let out a shuttering breath. “Thank you. Seriously, thank you. I think all of this crazy was worth it for me to hear that,like that, and articulate what I’ve always felt and…”

“Couldn’t ever form into words when so much wanted to come out with the madness,” I finished for her, nodding when she did. “Yeah, I’ve felt the same a lot. You build it up in your head that you’re being too sensitive or blowing it up. People convince you that it’s not as big of a deal, so you keep it in or—Dr. Carpenter has helped me a lot saying several things.”

“I have?” he asked, his eyes bug wide.

“Another time,” I brushed off but then sighed when I saw everyone curious, even Mum. “You’reveryaccepting and excited to correct the medical misconceptions about what I can do. You’ve seen it now, and—my last hospital and so many were excited to save lives but wanted the treatment hidden. They wanted—”

“It to be a dirty secret. They made you feel that, pup,” Alan said gently. “They made you feel embarrassed about what you could do instead of accepted and special.”

“Yeah, they really did,” I confessed for the first time.

“Not here. We won’t ever do that to you here. We have a lot of faults. Alotof them, but not that.”

I snorted. “Like you keep calling me ‘pup,’ you git.”