Total pages in book: 56
Estimated words: 52864 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 264(@200wpm)___ 211(@250wpm)___ 176(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 52864 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 264(@200wpm)___ 211(@250wpm)___ 176(@300wpm)
Ansin continued arguing on his phone.
“Hey! Are you coming or not?” I barked.
Ansin gave me a look, possibly surprised I was urging him to come.
I waited for a second, then ran to catch up to Draco.
Oh God. Oh God. This was it. The tipping point.
First, Draco had been abandoned by his parents. Then he’d discovered the most violent, sick people on the planet had been waiting for him to lead their global takeover. Later, his father had tried to kill him. Twice.
It only made sense that if meeting his mother went the same way as everything else had, Draco just might turn into the monster everyone claimed he’d be. A man could only be told he was the devil so many times before he started to believe it.
Draco
Would my mother look like the woman from my dreams, just as my father had? For every element the dream potion’s magic got right, there were fifty it got wrong. I was not loved or wanted by any of the people I’d met. They feared me or wished to use me. Even Piper was beginning to turn, lying and attempting to hide the deceitful thoughts in her head.
Was she now scheming with the Seers? Maybe someone else had gotten to her. Nevertheless, I felt her struggling to remain loyal, but it was merely a question of time before she decided I was too powerful to exist.
The irony was that I still meant what I said. I could never kill her.
I removed my jacket and walked onto the beach. It wasn’t overflowing with tourists, but there were people everywhere.
A woman with salt-and-pepper hair, standing ankle-deep in the shallow waves, immediately caught my attention. She was short, maybe five two or three, with a slender frame. She had her back to me.
I focused my thoughts on her and was immediately hit with a wave of intense emotions—fear, sadness, regret.
It had to be her.
I walked up, keeping my distance from the water.
“Jeni,” I said.
She slowly turned, revealing a set of teary brown eyes.
“Draco, it’s good to see you again.”
I felt the hollow ache in her heart. She had missed me.
“I only have one question,” I said. “Why didn’t you just kill me instead?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
My mother and I walked along the beach, a light breeze in the air keeping me cool in the tropical heat. It was strange looking at a face I’d known my entire life but had not actually laid eyes on since I was an infant.
She had more wrinkles around her eyes than in my dreams, and there was a deep kindness in her heart that reminded me of Piper, but her light was dimmed—no powers.
“You are no longer a Seer,” I concluded.
“I broke off with them after you were born. Long story.”
“Was it because of me?” I asked.
“You should know by now that everything is connected.”
I nodded and glanced up the beach. Piper and Ansin were watching from several yards away. “Who is the guard dog?”
“My husband.”
“Children?” I asked.
“Three. They are grown now, each off in the world living their lives.”
So I had three half-siblings. “Do they know about me?”
“Everyone knows about you.”
“And do they think I am the anti-Christ?” I asked.
Jeni’s eyes danced over the horizon. I could tell she was trying to choose her words carefully. “You asked why I didn’t kill you. The answer is because I love you as much as I love them.”
“Hard to believe, but I am not here for words of comfort or remorse. I am here for answers. Why did you spare me if you believed I would end the world?”
“I don’t know. I guess…I guess I always hoped that something would change.”
I woke up, so I supposed it had. “Why do you believe I’m destined to be an evil man? What event turns me into him?”
She stopped walking, a troubled look in her light brown eyes. “Who told you there’s an event?”
“I assumed.”
She stared with a deep, deep sadness. “There is no event.”
“Then?” I asked.
She swallowed hard. “You had a twin sister. She died when you were born.”
I did not know. “I am sorry to hear that.”
“You killed her, Draco. You drained her life away in the womb. And after you were born, you would cry and cry until I picked you up. But you didn’t always want milk. You wanted power—to drink people’s life force. Then one day, you almost killed your grandfather when he tried to hold you.”
“So you locked me away as an infant. Was there any consideration for teaching me to control myself?”
“I saw your future—who you were meant to be…” She broke off in sobs. “And you don’t destroy the world alone, Draco. I help you. Me.” She wiped her face with the back of her hand. “That was the moment I tried to create another path for us both. I gave up my powers and you.”