She watched the woman lose all her composure. “Blood for blood. I had no family left, neither would she. I could have had romance, fancy dresses and gay parties, but I followed my calling. Followed the rules. She should have followed the rules. When a seer told me her offspring would appear during this Triune, I knew I’d have my chance. A Magian is forced by instinct to seek out their matches. All I needed to do was find a compeller, someone who fit the profile. I was disappointed with all my near misses, but careful. I could have sworn the last girl was the one. She tried to attack me, if you can believe it. But now I know I was wrong. It’s you. The orphan Calliope. You even look like her. It all fits.”
It did fit. That was the scariest part of all of this. Callie was the right age, an orphan. Her name, Calliope, a name that she was adamantly given before she’d been abandoned. But she’d had no powers until Harrison had used her glamour. How could it be true?
The Magian pushed Callie to her knees, the woman’s strength was unbelievable. She lifted the golden scales from her desk above her head. “After all these years, justice can at last be served.”
Callie felt a blazing heat around her wrist, then shrieked in surprise when the golden snake’s head lifted from her bracelet, opened its fang-filled mouth, biting down on the older woman’s hand with an angry hiss.
“What?” The scales fell to the ground as her attacker reached for the small snake piercing her flesh. “You shouldn’t have been able to bring any enchanted weapons into my office. I have protection.”
“You’re no longer protected, Margaret. You know the rules of magic.” The far wall disappeared, revealing Tucker, Tyghe and three other men, their faces grim. “Let the girl go. You must face your judgment.”
“But I am judgment. I am Proxenos. My laws were broken.”
“No one is above the law. Not even you.” The tall man beside Tucker reached out with his hand, his golden energy leaving his hands like a lasso, wrapping around Margaret’s body and pulling her away from Callie, her clawed hands curling as she screamed in denial.
Tucker ran to Callie’s side, pulling her into his arms and burying his face in her hair. Tyghe joined them, caressing her back protectively as he watched the others take the old woman away in silence. “I’m glad that’s over.”
Callie sighed. “So that’s it? No energy fight? No shoot ’em up?”
Tucker pulled back with a stern frown. “You sound disappointed. If you’d like to bring her in here again so you can have a crazy girl fight to the death, I can ask my supervisor.”
She shook her head. “No. It’s just, well, a little anti-climactic.”
“We’ll try to make the lack of climax up to you later. Once you agree to be officially joined with us…Calliope Fairbanks.”
Callie tugged out of their arms, shaking her head. Despite her doubts, it couldn’t be true. “Don’t you start. She was obviously a lunatic. I’m not even Magian. There’s no way I could…what?” Tucker was looking guilty. “What aren’t you telling me, Tucker Abbott?”
The bracelet snake slid across the floor casually, as if it was perfectly normal for jewelry to come to life, and Callie moved closer to the men, her laughter tinged with hysteria. “And what the hell is that?”
“I never knew Mom made defensive totems. Her jewelry is usually used for healing and luck.” Tucker sounded just as baffled as she was.
The snake began to morph, the gold growing and spreading to form itself into a four-foot-eight woman with a sheepish smile and tear filled eyes. “Jenner?”
“Sorry about that. It was the only way I was sure you could be safe. When I recognized that woman…well, I lost my composure.” She took a step closer to Callie, the tears glinting on her cheeks like diamonds. “It’s true, dear. You are Euterpe’s daughter. I know. I was the one she asked to take you away. To hide in a place no one could find you until you came into your own. I knew she was related to those crazy Magians who were stalking Euterpe, but I had no idea your mother’s killer was Proxenos. She never told me.”
Tyghe rubbed the back of his neck, shaking his head at their housekeeper. “What the hell is going on around here? You’re a morpher?”
Jenner nodded. “Rarer than compelling magic, I know. When your mother asked me to give Harrison the necklace I thought I’d found the perfect way to protect Callie as the matching bracelet”
“So you were on her wrist the whole time? Callie is Magian? Where the hell have I been for the last fifteen years?”
Tucker put his hands on Callie’s shoulders protectively. “What I still want to know is, why did you let her think she was human for so long? Especially after you knew how unhappy she was with her foster family.”
Jenner sobbed, but nodded her acceptance of the censure in both Tyghe’s and Tucker’s eyes. “At first no one could find her. Euterpe and I worked a spell to bury her magic, so she could pass as human. Stay off Magian radar. It worked a little too well. But I had a feeling the day I sent Harrison to the park. And I am the one who suggested she work on the glamour spell. I knew that her power, joined with my own, would be enough to release what was inside you.” She looked pleadingly at Callie. “I took care of you as much as I could. Loved you.”
Callie’s mind was reeling. She turned to Tucker. “When did you know?”
“Last week.” His expression was closed. She couldn’t tell what he was feeling. She turned to Tyghe.
He held up his hands. “Don’t look at me, Callie. I’ve been left in the dark along with you.”
She was Magian? The power she felt, that she’d been feeling, had been hers all along? And Tucker had known. “Is that why you had sex with me?”
Tucker glanced quickly at Jenner then away, a flush tingeing his cheeks. He shook his head. “I made love to you because I’ve wanted you since I was old enough to know what wanting was. Because I thought I’d never be allowed to have you. At least, not unless I served my people long enough to earn a commission. Then I could have done whatever I wanted. Including marrying a human. That would be the only way around the rules.”
“Magian rules kind of suck.”
Tyghe looked at the ceiling and agreed with Callie. “Amen to that.”