Page 79 of Gray Dawn

Only a matter of time before he made one.

He really shouldn’t have held on. I had him now. He was done.

Funneling magic to the point where our skin met, I sent him flying. His limbs seized on impact, jerking, and his facial muscles spasmed as his scream morphed into pathetic whimpers. His head tipped to one side, tears and drool wetting his cheeks. Eyelids twitching, he quit moving. Alive, based on the rise and fall of his chest, but probably wishing he wasn’t. I had hit him with the equivalent of a taser powered by a lightning strike.

An arched eyebrow was all the sympathy his predicament elicited from his lover.

“Hiding anyone else?” I breathed through the white-hot pain in my side. “Any other surprises?”

“Just this one.”

Dad rose from his limp sprawl with the same dead-eyed stare as the director.

Beside him stood…my mom.

Just as lost as he.

“One moment.” Luca stepped behind the director, murmured to Dad, and Dad bound his father’s wrists at his spine. He then cast a spell that brought life surging back into the director’s gaze. “There.”

As the director’s expression cleared, it darkened with the promise of retribution, but that was what brought us here. He wasn’t going to scrape together enough hate on the spot to beat Luca at her own game.

“How dare you?” The director gnashed his teeth at her. “Our business has long been done.”

“We’re done when I say we’re done.” Luca gripped his jaw in her hand and jerked his head toward me. “I want you to see this.” She snapped her fingers at the end of Dad’s nose. “Kill her.”

Manic laughter poured from the director as he watched the unfolding spectacle.

“You think I care about her?” He laughed louder. “Or him?”

Hard to keep an ear cocked to their conversation with Dad striding toward me with my death in his eyes.

“They are your legacy.” Luca, clearly put out by our dysfunctional family, forced him to watch. “Your line ends with them. Your only living child, and your only living grandchild, dead. You’ve already lost your compound, your fortress. Soon, you will lose the secrecy shrouding our world from humans, and with it, any leverage to rebuild your precious Bureau. The new world will have no need for the old rules, or for thosewho enforce them. You’re no better than a common thug selling protection to those who only need to be kept safe fromyou.”

“You don’t have to do this.” His jaw flexed with the effort of civility. “We can start over.” He softened his gaze on her with such precision it was clear to me—if not to her—he had plenty of practice. “Together.”

To make sure he didn’t escape this unscathed, I reminded her, “Heleftyou.”

Mom drifted behind Dad like a shadow. She didn’t blink or talk. She simply existed next to him.

As much as I hated that she was, yet again, reduced to a pawn, I was grateful she wasn’t fighting me.

A few feet away, Dad drew his wand, cocked his arm, and flung a spell at me.

I yelped as I dodged the blast, having forgotten he was able to lob power without the book.

I could almost hear the Maudit Grimoire’s seductive whisper.

Use me. Bond with me. Be mine, and I’ll always be yours.

“No,” I growled under my breath. “You don’t get to win. You don’t get to take up space in my head, book. Not anymore. I’m done with doubting myself, and I’m done with you.”

Wielding his wand like a blade, Dad sliced through the air above me.

I dodged his swing. Okay. Fine. I tripped and stumbled out of his way.

Not fast enough.

A hank of my hair drifted past the end of my nose where the blade of magic had caught it.