Page 211 of The Demon's Spell

His father was acting strange, and that was saying a lot considering I’d only met him twice. Jay definitely seemed different than the time we’d seen him leaving the liquor store, or the other day in the town square. Perhaps he was sober.

We stepped into a tiny kitchen with a table set for four. Lucas pulled out a chair for me, and I sat. The food smelled delicious, and it looked like Margo had spent a lot of time on it. The table was set out with clam chowder, roasted veggies, and homemade dinner rolls. I noticed a pumpkin pie on the counter for dessert.

“And who’s this?” Jay asked, looking at me like he was confused.

“Uh, this is Nadine,” Lucas said, eyeing his father like he was worried he might be ill.

“Right, right. The ex-priestess,” Jay said.

I was certain he was trying to make a joke out of it, but it fell flat. I shifted uncomfortably in my chair.

“Dad, can we not do this?” Lucas begged. “We haven’t even started eating yet.”

Margo quickly scrambled to grab a few dinner rolls and distributed them around the table. “There’s two for everybody. They’re fresh this morning.”

Margo was obviously used to keeping the peace, because she knew exactly how to keep everyone quiet. I bit into my dinner roll, and nobody said anything as Margo scooped each of us a bowl of clam chowder.

The chowder wasn’t very good—at all. It was too thin, and it tasted like someone had dumped an entire saltshaker in it. Lucas and I were both supposed to be careful with our salt intake after the kidney transplant.

Lucas spooned the chowder into his mouth. He was surprisingly good at masking his disgust, because there was no way in hell he was enjoying this. I pulled my dinner roll apart and dipped it into my bowl.

The silence was odd, and I shot a glance around the table, waiting for someone to speak. Everyone kept their eyes on their own meals. Jay looked up, and his eyes connected with mine. I quickly looked away and placed another piece of salty bread in my mouth.

“You don’t like it?” Jay asked. His gaze narrowed on my spoon, which I’d left lying beside my bowl.

“No, it’s good,” I lied.

“Margo spent all day on this.” Jay didn’t say it out loud, but I heard the message in his voice. Don’t you dare come into my home and disrespect my wife.

“I have to be careful with my diet,” I explained.

“That’s right. You have that condition,” Jay said. “What is it? Lupine? Sounds like werewolf disease. I didn’t know you couldn’t eat. Lucas should’ve said something to us. Margo could’ve made something you weren’t allergic to.”

“She’s not allergic, Dad,” Lucas said through clenched teeth. He sounded really fucking annoyed, but he didn’t look up from his food.

Jay cleared his throat before changing the subject. “You’re a Curse Breaker. Aren’t you, Nadine?”

I didn’t miss how he pronounced my name using a soft a instead of a long a. I wasn’t dumb. I knew what he was doing. He was acting as if he didn’t know anything about me in order to belittle me. He acted like my presence in the coven wasn’t that insignificant. I wasn’t going to play his stupid games.

“Yes, sir, I am,” I stated confidently.

“And how does that work exactly?” he asked, sounding genuinely interested. I certainly wasn’t expecting that. “How would a Curse Breaker identify a curse?”

Lucas nervously reached for my hand under the table and squeezed it.

“I read the energy signatures of magic,” I told him. “Magical energies feel different to me. Like now, I can feel your Mentalist magic coming off of you in this constant electric pulse. Lucas’s Mortana magic has less of a pattern. A curse feels… chaotic and dark.”

“So if you walked by someone on the street who was cursed, would you be able to tell?” Jay wondered.

“I’d have to stop and study them,” I told him. “Depending on the strength of the curse, it might lay further beneath the surface, so I’d have to spend some time identifying the different magic sources I felt.”

Jay stretched his hand across the table. “Can you show me?”

I eyed his outstretched hand, but I didn’t reach for it right away. Lucas sighed and set his spoon down.

“Is that what this is?” Lucas asked calmly, though his eyebrows knitted in anger. “Did you invite us here so Nadine could work her powers on you?”

Jay frowned and pulled his hand back. “Why shouldn’t I take advantage?”

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