Page 34 of Premonition of Peace

“The fuck? Not that I am sad about this, but how could she not be our mother? Who is?” Horror overtook me as I had another, disturbing thought. “Oh gods, is The Morrigan our real mom?”

“Gods! No,” she exclaimed, reeling back at the very thought. “No, our mother is just some no-name witch.”

“Bloodlines are everything in our family. Dad fathering children with someone they’d consider a random nobody doesn’t sound like something Dolores would be okay with.”

She snorted. “As if she had a choice. Our matrilineal line is through our birth mother, but our magic line isn’t. Morgan Le Fay needed the perfect vessel—aLe Fayvessel. So, one blood sacrifice later combining her magic with our father’s, and here we are.”

“Why?” I managed to ask. “What’s the purpose of this?”

“Like I said, our bodies can die, but our soul can be immortal. Her spirit can just keep getting passed on to the next Le Fay in line when one dies.” Kat gestured to Carissa. “Morgan Le Fay left Carissa and went into your friend Sasha. But that’s a temporary stop.”

“Was Carissa . . . made? Like us?” I asked, the shock and hesitation leaking into my voice.

Kat nodded. “Her too, amongst others.”

I inhaled, long and deep, trying to absorb what my sister was telling me. “How long has she been doing this?”

She poured another shot into her glass, tilting it back and swallowing before she spoke again. “It’s no secret she’s old as dirt. She’s been trying to find a way to become immortal, and she’s been doing that for centuries. She finds temporary solutions in the vessels she creates, but none of them can hold and match her magic.”

“So she, what? Takes the body and then . . .” As I paused, the pieces clicked together in my head, thinking about the string of dead in New Chicago that fit the bill. “She drains them of their magic, doesn’t she?”

Kat pressed her lips together and inclined her head. “That about sums it up. When they’re sucked dry, she moves on to the next vessel.”

“How many?”

“Vessels?” Kat asked, and I nodded. “Countless. And she’s killed them all.”

My mind was absolutely reeling. I felt like the ground had been ripped out from under me.

“I’ll take that drink now,” I said hoarsely, reaching for the whiskey she’d poured.

“Thought you’d change your mind.”

I slammed it back in one gulp, feeling the burn splinter through my chest, grounding me in reality as more questions ran through my mind.

“Now that she’s done with Carissa . . . what now?”

“All spells—even blood sacrifices—have rules. Birth order is one of them. I’m next.”

“Kat, we have to get you somewhere safe. We have to?—”

“She won’t stop at me, Nat. It’s not me she truly wants.” Kat peered at me with heavy eyes as the realization dawned on me.

“The perfect vessel,” I said, horror-stricken. “My magic. Morgan needs my magic doesn’t she?”

“Yeah, Nat, you’re the end goal.” She looked at me with pity. “She needed a vessel with chaos magic. None of us knew it was you until after the ritual with Lucifer. No one knew you were chaos. That pushed her into action.”

I clenched my fists, feeling a surge of anger and fear. “And you couldn’t have told me this, I don’t know, forever ago? Before she landed on my doorstep in my friend’s body, maybe? Or, I don’t know, before Carissa died too?”

“Say something to do what? End my own life prematurely for revealing family secrets?”

“This family and their fucking secrets. They’re all dead, Kat! Who gives a shit! You could have told me about our lineage after the coven fell apart. You could have given us an actual fighting chance here,” I yelled, my hands fisting at my side.

“There is no fighting chance when it comes to Morgan Le Fay.” Kat looked down, her expression one of defeat. “The Morrigan is tied to each member of the Le Fay house. Those ties can’t be altered, especially not for us. We didn’t merely accept the tie. She helped create us.”

“So, what are we supposed to do?” I asked, my voice rising. “Just wait for her to take over our bodies? There has to be something we can do.”

“It’s a soul tie, Nat, similar to mate bonds. Nothing can undo it.”

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