Page 9
Story: When Storms Collide
“My father?” I asked, one hand raised to shield my eyes from the sun so I could read her expression.
She nodded. “Osiris loved the beach but hated the feel of the sand. How it permeated everything, and always came with you wherever you went next.”
I guess we did have that in common.
I motioned with my hand for her to continue on and I followed at her side, the sand now slipping freely between my bare toes. It was warm against my skin from the baking afternoon sun.
“What did you want to talk about?” I asked, breaking the delicate peace that had settled between us.
I couldn’t imagine things would ever beeasybetween us, but right now, they were especially strained. She had lied to me since the moment we first met, and everything had gone to shit. When I had first thought she was dead I had craved her in a way I never thought I would. I wanted to hear all about her life. Toknowher. Now that she was alive and right before me, I didn’t feel the same. She was simply another person who had lied to me and betrayed me.
“I wanted to… explain,” she began, casting me a sidelong glance.
I kept my eyes on the sand.
“I’m not sure there is anything to explain. You lied to me, pretended you were someone else… and here we are. You left me in the mortal realm and never came back for me, despite telling my mother you would.”
She flinched at the wordmotheras if it physically hurt her. As if she had any right to the word herself.
My mother was the woman who hadraisedme. We might not have seen eye to eye, but she did the best she could for me under the circumstances. She was raising a Shade, not a normal teenager after all. Where was she supposed to turn when Annelise had simply… disappeared?
“I wanted to come back for you,” she replied, her voice tight.
“But you didn’t,” I countered, my voice cutting.
Annelise threw her head back, blinking away the tears that threatened to stream down her cheeks. Her skin was as pale as a seashell against the coastal sun, her cheeks pink. “I did come back, once.”
Once.
Now I was the one biting back my tears as they stung the back of my eyes. I wasn’t ready for this conversation—wasn’t sure I ever would be. I stopped abruptly, my feet planted in the sand, my head shaking back and forth.
Annelise stopped as well, her gaze meeting mine. “You were happy. I didn’t want to destroy what you had built for yourself there. What yourmotherhad built for you there. You were so beautiful. Radiant. I knew the moment I laid eyes on you that I couldn’t take you back tothis.” She spread her arms wide, her head shaking back and forth. “This was no life for a young girl with her entire life ahead of her.”
“Bullshit.” I ground my teeth together, my eyes falling back to the sand as I dug my toes in.
“Diana, I am telling you the truth. You had to have been six, maybe seven. You were with your new family, devouring a cone of mint chip at the creamery in New York. You know the one… the one you always went to with your father.”
I did know. I bit my lip against the swell of emotions that surged forth.
“I couldn’t take you away from that.I couldn’t. There was no life for you here, all that waited for you here wasdeath.” Her words were barely above a whisper.
“You had to have known the spell would wear off. The one that kept my magic spellbound. That my powers would eventually resurface. What was your plan, then? What did you plan to do?”
“I planned to spell you again. I had been keeping an eye on you, and when your mother took your family to Silver Oaks, I knew she was following my instructions. That the spell was wearing off, and you needed to be around other witches your own age.”
“But you didn’t spell me again,” I pointed out.
She shook her head. “I couldn’t. I ran out of time, which was my mistake. I couldn’t get close to you—Fletcher Price and Antonia Finch were preventing that. Then Nikolai showed up and I knew I was too late, that there was no going back now. That everything had been set into motion already.”
“Everything?” I asked, my brow raised at her.
She nodded. “The prophecy. The events that Alastir had seen unfold.”
“And when I was imprisoned in the Stormvault?” I asked, my eyes narrowing.
“I riskedeverythingto get you out. To get you to safety. Donika told me that if she ever laid eyes on me again, it would be for the last time. She spared me in Siraleth, she would not spare me a second time.”
“Spared. As if she were doing you a kindness,” I scoffed, my brows pinching together. “Donika doesn’t have a kind bone in her body.”
Table of Contents
- Page 1
- Page 2
- Page 3
- Page 4
- Page 5
- Page 6
- Page 7
- Page 8
- Page 9 (Reading here)
- Page 10
- Page 11
- Page 12
- Page 13
- Page 14
- Page 15
- Page 16
- Page 17
- Page 18
- Page 19
- Page 20
- Page 21
- Page 22
- Page 23
- Page 24
- Page 25
- Page 26
- Page 27
- Page 28
- Page 29
- Page 30
- Page 31
- Page 32
- Page 33
- Page 34
- Page 35
- Page 36
- Page 37
- Page 38
- Page 39
- Page 40
- Page 41
- Page 42
- Page 43
- Page 44
- Page 45
- Page 46
- Page 47
- Page 48
- Page 49
- Page 50
- Page 51
- Page 52
- Page 53
- Page 54
- Page 55
- Page 56
- Page 57
- Page 58
- Page 59
- Page 60
- Page 61
- Page 62
- Page 63
- Page 64
- Page 65
- Page 66
- Page 67
- Page 68
- Page 69
- Page 70
- Page 71
- Page 72
- Page 73
- Page 74
- Page 75
- Page 76
- Page 77
- Page 78
- Page 79
- Page 80
- Page 81
- Page 82
- Page 83
- Page 84
- Page 85
- Page 86
- Page 87
- Page 88
- Page 89
- Page 90
- Page 91
- Page 92
- Page 93
- Page 94
- Page 95
- Page 96
- Page 97
- Page 98
- Page 99
- Page 100
- Page 101
- Page 102
- Page 103
- Page 104
- Page 105
- Page 106
- Page 107
- Page 108
- Page 109
- Page 110
- Page 111
- Page 112
- Page 113
- Page 114
- Page 115
- Page 116
- Page 117
- Page 118
- Page 119
- Page 120
- Page 121
- Page 122
- Page 123
- Page 124
- Page 125
- Page 126
- Page 127
- Page 128