Page 82 of The Crownless King
‘I won’t play with my safety, baby.’That reassured him and he withdrew from her mind. She turned her attention back to her cousin. “Did you drive?”
Tracy shook her head and Amaya nodded. Bronx led them to the SUV and the ride to the outskirts of town was quiet. Not even the low murmur of the radio could break the tension. By the time they reached the front gates of the family compound, Amaya’s leg was bouncing in nervousness.
The first thing she saw when the gates opened was the profusion of flowers of various colors in no particular order. There was no path, no rhyme or reason to the garden, just scents and colors scattered across the front and sides of the main house.
Chawi power came in so many different forms, but for her family, channeling chaos was their main magic. It manifested in different ways, the flowers just one aspect of how they released the chaotic power. The car pulled into the circular driveway and her aunt and uncles were waiting for her in the front.
Amaya smiled. She looked back at Tracy and her cousin gave her a guilty look. This was feeling like an intervention and her smile dropped as irritation filled her. She got out of the car and greeted her family.
Tracy’s mother hugged her. She looked so much like Anita that Amaya held her tight a moment longer than necessary.
“I’m so happy to see you’re safe,” Angelica said.
“I told grandfather that I was okay,” Amaya said, frowning.
Angelica looked surprised. “Paul has been spinning stories.”
Amaya sighed. “What do the elders want?”
“To put eyes on you, mostly,” her uncle Michael told her, giving her an awkward pat on the shoulder.
She nodded and followed them inside. The foyer was massive, the walls wood-panels like it was stuck in the seventies. She was led into the main family dining room where the elders were seated. It was her grandfather and his three remaining siblings. Well into their eighties and nineties, these were the oldest in their family, the ones in charge of the way their compounds were run.
The ones mostly responsible for the screaming Amaya could feel in the walls.
Two floors up in the attic, they kept the women who had been betrayed by their own magic locked away. ‘For their own safety,’ they would say. It was her mother’s worst nightmare and the reason Anita begged Amaya to never turn to their family for help. She would never allow them to lock away her mother.
“You wanted to see me.” She crossed her arms over her chest.
Her grandfather’s gaze raked over her neck before coming back to Amaya’s eyes. “You’ve been at the Bayi compound for months.”
“And no worse for wear as you can see,” Amaya reported dryly.
His eyes hardened at her sarcastic reply. Amaya could never control her mouth, and now that she was mated to Levi, she could swear it was worse.
“A mating between the Bayi and Chawi is forbidden,” her great aunt intoned.
“That ship has sailed,” Amaya announced to them.
Her aunt gasped behind her.
“Amaya,” her uncle Michael chided.
She ignored them both and kept her gaze on the elders. “I’m mated to King Levi and there is nothing that can be done about it,” she challenged them.
“Even as you stand there smug, we’ve sent men after your mother.” The malevolent smile her grandfather leveled at her did nothing but piss her off.
She smiled because they didn’t understand the trouble they would invite if they invaded her mate’s compound. Sending the information directly to Levi over their link, his answering fury bolstered Amaya. Her body tensed as she prepared her body and magic for whatever the elders were cooking up.
“You will remain here,” Bradford insisted.
“I don’t think so,” she told them.
Infusing her magic into her sight, Amaya could track the chaos magic swirling around her family members. Their own power signatures were wrapped within the cloud of the magic. Anita had once likened it to seeing cosmic dust and Amaya agreed. While the mist of power around her grandfather was a light gray, around her great aunt, it was darker, hints of turquoise and purple throughout to show the strength of her power. Exactly like the cosmic source of their chaos magic.
Misogyny was the only reason her great-aunt wasn’t in charge of their compound, even though she had more powerthan her brothers. The women in their family carried more chaos magic, but that very same strength turned into their weakness when the power turned on them. Her great-aunt had escaped her fate simply because she had not been forced to work with the Akachi stones.
Her great-aunt slapped her hand against the table. “If you won’t exercise self-control, then you will be locked up here where you can no longer put this family in danger.”
