Page 44 of Lucy

CHAPTER 22

Lucy

“Necromancy is a certaintype of magic involving communication with the deceased—either by summoning their spirit or raising them bodily. It is often considered sorcery or black magic as it goes against the natural order of things.”

I rubbed my hands as I listened to Veti repeat what we had read about necromancy. It wasn’t anything that I hadn’t discussed with her a million times. But it felt different knowing that there is someone else out there with the same gifts, but she uses them for evil.

Lola.

I wondered what she looked like. Was she the oldest? Viv and I were not quite a year older than Joanie. Angie was twelve years younger. Was she somewhere in that space? Why did she help the alliance? I wished that I better understood the dynamics of everything. It was one thing to hear about Brendon being forced to take care of his mother, and quite another to think that you personally, might need to kill your sister.

I had a much greater empathy for Viv’s mate. I can’t imagine going through that once, only to hear that you needed to do it all again because they were raised from the dead.

Eva had been unusually quiet since Angie’s ordeal. I wondered how she was dealing with things. Had she heard about Sven? So many questions and so few answers.

I felt a comforting hand on my shoulder and looked up into Joanie’s worried expression. I tried to paste a smile on my face, but it must have sucked, as much as I wanted it to be successful, because she grimaced.

“What are you thinking about?” she asked kindly.

I shrugged my shoulders before responding, “There are too many things to count.”

She nodded and sat next to me. “Pretty weird that there is another one of us.”

“Yeah,” I said wrinkling my nose. “I don’t understand how the court doesn’t have better memory of our family. It doesn’t make sense.”

Joanie nodded, saying, “I was talking about that with the triple-A’s and they agreed. We think that they were spelled to forget what really happened during the massacre that destroyed our family.”

“It was really weird speaking to my mother,” I blurted out. “I should have asked her so many different things, and yet I was an idiot that just sat there. I should have gotten more information.”

Joanie’s expression changed from compassionate to stormy. “No, you need to stop that thinking right now. Lucy, you had no idea what was going on. For all you knew, Angie was having a seizure. You can’t blame yourself for any of this. We didn’t start this war; it came to us.”

I hated that my throat felt tight and my eye glistened with unshed tears. I wanted to be as strong as Joanie and Viv. But growing up, sheltered away from the real world, I had missed out on so many different things. I felt like I was trying to make up for something, and my body was betraying me.

“It scares me too,” she whispered softly.

I turned to meet her gaze. “I just wish I understood better.”

I turned to look at where most of the group was talking, and Joanie followed my glance.

“Everyone here wants the same thing that you do, Lucy. We all want to get to the bottom of things. We all want to be able to live in peace without the threat of the Alliance over us. We all want to understand.”

I leaned my head into her shoulder and sighed. “I miss Marcus. How do you handle three mates?”

Joanie laughed. “I don’t. Not really. They handle things far better than I do. Just trust in Henry and Marcus and try to not overthink things. I know it’s confusing, but once you have completed the mating, everything seems to fall into place.”

I nodded slowly. “What if they don’t want to mate with me permanently?” I gave voice to one of the biggest fears that had been plaguing me.

“That’s not even a possibility.”

It wasn’t Joanie who had spoken, but a deep voice that I would have recognized anywhere. I flew out of Joanie’s arms and launched myself at Marcus.

“When did you arrive? I missed you so much! Have you seen Henry? Do you know what happened?” Each statement or question was interrupted by kisses that I smashed on his face.

He laughed, the sound pouring into me like warm honey, filling all the cracks.

“I missed you, Lucy.”

Those words were just what I needed. I held him closer, burying my face in his neck and smelling the rich essence that was only Marcus. I felt a hand on my back and knew that Henry had come to join us. Popping my head up I wrapped an arm around Henry and gathered him in to the embrace. “Did you see? Marcus came for us!”

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