Page 32

AVERY

“T his is delicious chicken salad, Mrs. Connor,” Megan said, smiling at my mom.

“Yes—I’ve never had chicken salad with grapes and pecans in it before,” Kaitlyn added. “I love it!”

“Me too.” Emma smiled as she took another bite of the chicken salad on a croissant that my mom had made from scratch. She’d made everything from scratch—as I said, she was an excellent cook.

Saint simply sat quietly and ate, but he nodded and smiled agreement, which was fine—I’d told my mom that my boyfriend was a “little shy.”

“I’m so glad you like everything!” My mom was shorter than all my Coven mates but she was dressed to impress in her nicest blue floral print dress and a pair of heels that almost made up the height difference.

She was also wearing my grandmother’s strand of antique pearls that were spelled with a good luck charm—they glowed with creamy light against her skin.

I thought it was likely we’d need every bit of luck the pearls could give us.

She’d been so excited over meeting my Coven mates and my boyfriend.

“You never bring 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 so hungry . ”

“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 I dis like.

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)—did not appeal 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 do not love 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 saw my forehead.

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 your help , Harold! You have to at least listen!”

“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 into my house wearing the Blood-Mark of another male, but now you tell me the male isn’t even another Warlock ? 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.”

“That’s right, Harold—the Edict has been broken. So all the young people can date whoever they want,” my mother put in quickly. “Remember?”

My father’s brows drew low over his angry eyes.

“I don’t care what anyone says—the Edict was put in place for a reason. Certain types of people shouldn’t be mingling together! It’s wrong to mix the blood of different Others—it muddles up the races and gives people the wrong idea of their place in the world.”

Great, so now we were adding racism to the mix along with homophobia. At that point, I would have just let him go, if it wasn’t for the fact that I needed his help so badly. But I swallowed all the acerbic words that rose to my lips and tried again.

“Dad, please—you’re an expert at breaking curses and Saint is under a really bad one,” I said. “It’s Dark magic, made in the Sky Lands. If you could just?—”

My father rounded on me.

“If you think I’ll do a goddamned thing to help you and your boyfriend—” he began.

“Yes, he is my boyfriend,” I snapped. Standing tall, I pushed the hair off my forehead, clearly displaying Saint’s Mark.

“He’s my boyfriend and I love him. That’s why I’m trying to help him by subjecting myself to this…

this sad excuse we have for a father-son relationship.

Because that’s what you do for people you love— you help them. ”

My father shook his head and his eyes went hard and cool behind his wire rimmed glasses.

“God help me, Avery—I’ve tried to love you even though you’re a disappointment to me in every goddamn way possible. But as long as you wear the Blood Mark of another male, I won’t have anything to do with you.”

“That’s too bad,” I said, keeping my voice as cool as his. “Because I love Saint and I’m not taking off his Mark.”

“As I will not remove Avery’s Blood Mark from my forehead either,” Saint said, leaving the table and coming to stand beside me. He gripped my hand in his and squeezed, almost painfully tight, letting me know he was there for me and wasn’t going anywhere.

“But just look at what you’re missing!” My father threw out an arm to point at the table where Megan, Emma, and Kaitlyn were all staring with looks of horror and sympathy on their faces.

“Look—there are three beautiful girls right under your noses! Why the hell would either of you choose another male over any one of those gorgeous girls?”

“Because it’s not a choice!” I ground out, gritting my teeth as I spat out the words. “I was born this way and there’s no changing me!”

“We’ll see about that,” my father snarled. “I’ve let this go on long enough. Maybe it’s time to break a few curses of my own.”

“Harold, what are you talking about?” my mother demanded. She was still standing in front of the door but now my father pushed her roughly aside. She tottered on her heels and Saint jumped forward and caught her before she could fall.

My father’s actions drew a gasp from the room—myself included. I had never seen him treat my mother like that—we weren’t a hitting, shouting, shoving kind of family. Or, well, we didn’t use to be. I guessed all bets were off now.

“Harold, how can you act like this?” My mom was halfway crying now but she was still so angry her cheeks were flushed and her eyes were snapping. “How can you be so cruel? Avery is our son!”

“He’s no son of mine,” my father snarled. “Not while he wears the Blood Mark of another male!” He pointed at me. “I’m leaving and I want you out of my house by the time I come back. And don’t ever bother coming here again until you get rid of that Mark and start acting decently!”

“No.” My mother straightened up and brushed the tears out of her eyes.

“No, you will not deny our son entrance to his own home, Harold,” she said, glaring up at my father.

“ You’re the one who’d better not come home until you’re ready to apologize for this horrible scene you caused and the terrible, hateful things you said.

And if you don’t want to do that, I have some paperwork for you to sign and then you and I can go our separate ways. ”

I felt my mouth drop open. Was my mom really threatening to divorce my dad, right here in front of all my friends?

Her statement seemed to surprise my father too because he stared at her disbelievingly.

“You’re really doing this now?” he demanded. “You’re choosing him over me?”

“I don’t want to have to choose anyone!” my mother cried. “We’re a family, Harold! We should love each other unconditionally. Why can’t you understand that?”

My father stared at me and the Mark on my forehead.

“Sorry, Claire,” he muttered. “I guess some things are just beyond my comprehension.” He looked at her.

“Send the papers—I’ll sign them. Should have done it a long time ago, once I realized what we had on our hands and found out you wouldn’t let me fix him.

” And he shot me a look of utter contempt that cut me to the bone.

“There’s nothing to fix,” my mother said passionately. “Avery is our son!”

“Your son—not mine. Not anymore,” my father said.

Then he opened the door and walked out of my life, slamming the door behind him.