Page 31 of Calling Quarters

More about the Book of Shadows.

More about our history as Quarters.

More about The Movement's agenda.

And more about our Counters.

We'd blindly believed the words of our fathers and grandfathers, never once questioning their sources or reasoning. Never once wondering why we weren't shown the history books or given concrete proof to study. We never had a reason to, until now. And none of it was readily available to us.

Chapter 18

Remy

Rowan Wildes was not known for his patient demeanor or soft tone. He was one of the most closed-off, intimidating men I'd ever known, aside from my grandfather. No one ever crossed him, and most were afraid to even speak to him unless completely necessary.

I had been blessed by the gods to have this stony man as my father. He taught me everything I knew about being a Quarter, fighting technique, and serving my coven, and left the rest of my upbringing to my mother. If we weren't discussing Quarter business, we likely weren't speaking at all.

Since stepping into my role as a Quarter and claiming the gift that was once his, our relationship was more strained than ever before. He hardly acknowledged me when we passed in the halls of our home, and he made a point to avoid me in public. In fact, his sudden interest in my life had only just peaked when the Movement grew stronger, and he recognized the opportunity to regain his magic and relive his glory days—all while robbing me of mine.

Which was why I had such a hard time following his lead as his aging body slowly dodged and ambled away from my strikes. We were working on fighting technique and reaction time, though he appeared to be the one receiving the lesson while I was practicing a simple warm-up. I'm not even sure why this was a part of our “training refresher,” as he referred to it.

If he were truly concerned with my lack of magic, we wouldn't be standing in our backyard pretending that he was teaching me anything I didn't already know. Instead, he would be scouring our history books to find the missing piece or coming up with ways to stop Rayner from poisoning the minds of our coven and turning them against us.

I already knew the missing piece, though. She haunted my brain every chance she could get.

The power I felt when I was around her was the most addictive thing I've ever tasted, and I planned to use her for every ounce of it that I could squeeze from her curvy little body. I wished I could seek her out the way she had done to me. Appear in her space and watch her every move without her knowledge, taking notes on every strength and weakness she possessed.

But I was stuck here, playing the game like I agreed to do.

“Where is your head? You should have stopped that,” my father chastised through labored breaths.

I let him believe he was leading this thing and allowed a strike to pass through. His hand wrapped around my wrist, and he pulled me into a choke hold.

Now that I knew how weak and defenseless my Counter was, all the physical training felt quite useless. Before, she had been some faceless enemy, highly trained and ready to defend her life just as I had been. Instead, she was a sad little girl with next to zero knowledge of her role in the world and beautiful eyes that perfectly matched the lavender fields out on the Forbes property.

It was Lux's voice in my mind that had me swallowing down the snarky responses that were burning in my throat. Even if Storie was my Counter and the missing piece to regaining my gift, she could only serve in that role to me. The others still hadn't found their Counters, and their lives were in danger because of it. I couldn't risk them losing everything simply because I no longer had to worry about it. They were the closest thing I had to a family, including the sweaty man standing before me.

So, I took the low blows and stroked my father's ego long enough to pacify him until his aging body could no longer handle it.

Once we finished up, he took one last jab at me, then swaggered over to one of the patio chairs and fell into it, swiping sweat away from his forehead with his arm.

“Mayor Douglas had canceled the rest of the scheduled Mabon celebrations.” His gravelly voice delivered the news without emotion, his eyes focused on the whiskey he was swirling around in his glass.

“Oh, yeah?”

His brows furrowed together. He stilled and the black pits that I’d inherited from him slowly drifted up to pin me. “This is your fault, Remington. You should show a little more remorse.”

A flame of fury burned through my chest, encouraging me to counter with some sort of defense. To point out that we wouldn’t be in this situation if he and the others hadn’t failed at finding our Counters. But the words fell flat on my tongue when I once again reminded myself of the end game and what was at stake.

“I’m sorry,” I mumbled in a non-committal tone. That only seemed to piss him off even more.

“We can’t help you fix this if you’re unwilling to show some respect to the coven who is relying on you,” he chastised, finishing off the amber liquid. “You’re lucky we’re so willing to step in and help you boys. I can’t say my father would have done the same for me.”

He didn’t wait for me to respond. He knew he’d made his point and effectively pissed me off in the process. He just stood from his chair and swaggered off without looking back. I hadn't seen such confidence in him since I was too young to understand how cruel of a man he was. How it stemmed from igniting fear in others instead of the respect I had once thought.

He assumed he was going to end up on top—all our fathers did. While it killed a piece of me to allow them to make a mockery of us, it only proved that we were doing exactly what we set out to do. For now, they were too blinded by their own egos to even see us coming.

I walked to the opposite end of the house, up the two flights of stairs to my room and straight out to the patio.

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