Page 25 of Mortal Desires

I laughed, and she talked over my amusement. “You have no idea what they’ll do to get me back. I’ll stay with you and you can torture me as you like but Penny gets to live here in peace, unknowing of my sacrifice. And the same goes for my sisters.”

I moved toward her slowly, that delicate neck of hers begging for my rough palm. Her bouquet was left on the ground when she fainted. The smell of graveyard flowers barely remained, but I could taste her scent in the air. I felt a rush and a need to lick her skin, but instead, I held my desires back and came so close she had to force her neck back to look at me.

“The wedding is longer than you know.”

“So I was told.”

“It will require a lot from you in the next weeks, and you’ll have to comply to seal the ritual.”

“Of course.”

“If you want your friend to believe, so do the rest of the court.”

“The stupidly dressed people out there?” she asked. I nodded. “No problem.”

I smiled lazily. “Maybe you shouldn’t have agreed so quickly.”

Once we were back in the throne room, I scanned the faces trying to find my father. I was still shaking, his features so like mine carved under my eyelids.

I grew up afraid of him. Afraid of talking too much, afraid my powers weren’t impressive enough for him. My earliest memories were of Elisa shielding us from him, taking the brunt so Marnie and I were never alone with his cruelty.

Vicious said I was there to be tortured. My soul for the hundreds I saved. Of all the torture I thought I’d endure, my father wasn’t one I expected.

Vicious could hurt me, I expected nothing less, but giving my father access to me, was damning me to death. Then again, that could be his plan, he was the god of death after all.

My lips closed into a tight line and I breathed in, remembering everything I was. Our coven’s power pulsed against my ribcage. It flickered stronger than ever telling me not to give up.

I’d never give up.

Magic was nothing but knowledge. Centuries ago my ancestors discovered magic and how to wield its power. Each generation grew stronger and more knowledgeable. Today, we were the strongest coven in existence.

Father’s family held power, but too little in comparison to ours. Elisa told us that when he met Mami for the first time, Abuela tried to intervene. She never trusted the other families, afraid jealousy left a bitter taste in their mouths and nothing else.

Mami was in love, they said. Elisa says every Morales once thought they could fight the curse. They all ended up alone in the end. Partners died, betrayed them, or simply left. But every generation a Morales’ bruja stood in front of her coven and promised to break the curse.

I knew we’d never break it. Elisa always reminded us of that. Just like when we stood in formation, we knew we could only trust our sisters.

We carried more power than the generation before, knowledge, and pain for what our father did to our mother.

We killed her.

What a horrible thing to remember on my wedding day. But I couldn’t forget the truth, especially on this day.

The cruelty of what he had done needed to be acknowledged. I couldn’t walk one more step toward my future husband without having the memories plaguing me. My father used a spell to make Mami have babies one after the other.

I thought about that a lot. Not just about the fact that our birth was the cause of our mother’s death. But about the black heart of my father and all his family to come up with this plan in the first place.

He made her love him. He promised to care and protect her. They had Elisa for love and maybe Lucia too. Then there were the twins. Elisa said she couldn’t remember Mami in full health anymore. Flo, Marnie, and I couldn’t remember her at all.

Mom was a goodnight story Elisa told us. The painting over the mantel. She was something like hope—I couldn’t see her but from time to time the idea of her pushed me to be stronger.

I thought about his betrayal a lot. The years it took, the horrible notion that he had to bewitch her contraceptives to be ineffective.

I was born of her pain, her abuse. I was born of betrayal and tainted love. I was born to be a tool for my own father, a tool he resented for not being powerful enough.

When I stood in front of Vicious, hearing his officiant recite words in a language I didn’t understand, I wasn’t nervous.

I didn’t think about giving my hand to a cruel god whose eyes glinted from the idea of torturing me. I was numb looking at him.

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