Page 3 of Magic and Mayhem

Letting out a breath, I step away from the door. Master has taunted my keeper with that promise ever since I canremember. She’ll whine and plead, but he gives her no attention or affection other than the occasional thanks.

I don’t understand why she wants him anyway. He claims he knows how to steal power using an ancient spell his grandfather dug up. His following is limited to our small town where pretty much everyone believes him. But in the nearly twelve years I’ve been here, nothing has happened to prove he has any real power.

They must move closer to the door because I hear my keeper more clearly from where I stand now, absentmindedly braiding my hair in the mirror just inside the room.

“She should be nothing to you, but you keep her like a pet. Why can I not warm your bed while she sleeps on the floor at our feet where she belongs?”

Gag. I can picture her sliding up to him now, her hand on his chest while his cold lifeless eyes stare at her.I might actually puke.

“My dear, it is almost time. Next week, when the girl turns twenty-one, she will be sacrificed and out of the way. I will rise and we will be together.”

My eyes connect with my own in the mirror, never having heard that word from him before.

Sacrifice?

I remember reading about them, but they always end with someone's death. Dread runs through my veins as this new information clicks into place, and my life here starts to make a whole lot more sense.

“Her blood will save us.”

That can’t be good. I must be hearing him wrong.

He wouldn’t kill me, not after everything he did to keep me alive. That can’t be right. He just needs my blood or something silly like that. The blood of a virgin is alwaysthe most powerful thing in those witch books.

‘You cannot die until I say, not until the time is right.’

My body jolts, the memory of his words sending a chill down my spine. Panic rises in my chest, like acid curling its way around my heart. My breathing starts to come in short bursts, my hands shake, unable to finish the braid which causes my dark hair to cascade around my face.

This can’t be happening. This must all be a dream. A really sick and twisted dream.

But hiseyesand the unchecked fury in his gaze. How I’m paraded around his people, shown off like a prized horse abused for show. Everything about how he controlled my meals, never allowing me to have red meat because it was tainted, needing me to stay pure for the right moment.

It all makes sense now. Awful, horrible sense.I was never meant to keep my life, it was all for him.

My foot slips on the rug as I stumble backward, sending me falling into the wall. Two pictures fall down on either side of my head, glass shattering around me. The room seems to blur, my head falling to the side like I’m about to pass out.

But then those cold hands are on me, squeezing my wrists as he tries to pull me up. “What the fuck happened in here, Ev? Did you fall?”

I can’t answer him. My mouth opens, but nothing comes out. I can see it in his eyes as we hold each other's gaze. He’s going to kill me, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it. Then his words register and the defiant girl he hates so much rears her head.

“Don't call me Ev,” I seethe.

A smack lands across my face so hard I see stars. Before I can blink the spots away, his nails are digging into myflesh as he grabs me.

“Evolet!” he yells. I shake my head, trying to force myself back into my body. It feels like I’m no longer inside of myself, just floating.

Maybe it won’t be so bad. Perhaps death will be the greatest gift he could give me.

“I-I think the shower was too hot.” The lie falls easily from my tongue. “I feel lightheaded.”

He huffs, and my keeper comes in with a broom to sweep up the mess. She’s angry with me, but not as angry as Master. They both scold me, but Master shoves me back into the wall, smacking my head so hard that another photo falls, and somehow I’m to blame.

“Useless,” my keeper hisses, reprimanding me before she too wraps her hand around my wrist.

The two of them are always so cold, as if their bodies died, leaving only their black souls. No blood pumping through their veins to give them life, just a dark ink that stains everything they touch.

She yanks me towards her, spit flying from her mouth.

“You should respect the place you have been given or you can sleep in the garden.”

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