Page 105 of Wedded Witch
He nods. “Yeah, so we left with your family. But my brothers got kept behind.”
“Alone?”
“With Mavis.”
“But why?”
He hesitates, his eyes searching mine. I nod, “I know about them shifting.”
“Into dogs?”
I grimace. “And the other thing.”
“Yeah, well, that’s a pretty unique kind of magic. Mind you, so are triplets in Watcher families, which is why they were needed to stay here. To guard the gateway.”
“To Hell.”
“Hell. The Underworld. Other world. It goes by lots of names.”
“But they were children,” I protest, unable to get my head around that.
He shrugs, “It’s just the way of our people, Swyn. Duty first, always. The gateway in Spells Hollow trapped a particularly strong kind of evil and leaving it unprotected was not an option.”
“Morfran, right? But I don’t understand why your family didn’t stay with them,” I protest. As awful as my family can be about this damn curse, I know deep down that they love me and want what’s best for me.
“Because your family was leaving. And where you go, we follow.”
I frown. I hate that. It’s like our family has held his prisoner for generations and it’s awful. Is that the only way he feels bonded to me? Because he has to stick around to protect me? If we fail to break the curse and my family perishes, what will happen to his? Are our fates so tightly bound that the Lambert-Accardis will cease to exist too? That thought doesn’t sit well with me.
My stomach twists. I feel awful.
“Stop that, lucky charm. I can hear your thoughts a mile away and they’ll be none of that self doubt, you hear me? None of our families have ever been mated before, we’re unique. This is real.”
I blink at the nickname, pondering the rest of what he’s saying. If only it was that easy to let go of my doubts. “My Gramps called me that.”
He smiles. “I know. Who do you think guided me here?”
“I don’t understand.” I shake my head. “He warned me away from marrying you. Why would he do that if we’re fated mates?”
“Because he knew that in order to break the curse, you needed to find all of your mates. As soon as we said our vows, our bond was ignited - however weak. You may not have felt it, but it was there.”
“I felt something,” I whisper.
A flash of satisfaction crosses his face. “Me too. So, Elias knew I’d be able to find you with his help, because we had a faint bond already. And he warned you away, because he needed you to come to Spells Hollow to find my brothers. If we’d marriedand gone on our honeymoon, that might never have happened and we wouldn’t have stood a chance of breaking the curse.”
It makes sense. I guess. But why couldn’t Gramps just say that? And why are the guys so hell bent on helping me destroy this curse? You’d think they’d want to knock me up and be done with the whole thing.
The thought of passing this curse on to a new generation though…
Fuck.
I can’t.Wecan’t.
“Listen, Swyn,” Oland says, reaching across the small space of blanket between us, to capture my hand in his.
My heart thumps double time at the electricity his touch ignites.
“I want you to know that there’s no pressure to?—”