Page 61 of Their Blood Rite

How did he know about this? Only my father knows it. This isn’t possible.

‘Shaw. She’s choking,’ Archie says, charging forwards. ‘She’s not bloody breathing!’

‘Your commands are to answer my questions truthfully. As long as you do, I permit you to breathe. Understand?’

I nod and gasp in the air.

‘Tell me about the Dark Mirror Kindred,’ Shaw commands.

My words aren’t my own. Nothing of me is. It’s his, just as it was my father’s.

‘I see shadows in the mirror,’ I reply, words spilling from my lips with no command from me. ‘I have for as long as I can remember.’

‘That’s why you wanted me to remove the mirror yesterday?’

I nod.

‘Tell us more.’

‘I hear them sometimes, speaking to me. I feel what they felt when they died. The longer I look at them, the louder they get. The more I hear them, the more real they become.’

‘What do you mean?’ he asks, stepping closer.

‘I feel what they felt.’ I groan as I try to fight it. But there is no fighting it. There never was, and there never will be. ‘The rope around their neck. The fires on their skin. The stones crushing their bones. The water filling their lungs.’

‘When did you link to this Kindred?’

‘I DON’T KNOW!’ I yell back, spit flying from my lips. ‘I keep telling you!’

‘She’s telling the truth. She can’t lie to me when triggered like this,’ Shaw says.

‘How do you know about this?’ I demand. ‘Did my father tell you about the trigger?’

‘I saw it in your dreams. I didn’t want to use this, but we need answers, and there was no other way to get the truth from you.’

‘But there are no marks on her, Ronan,’ Archie reminds him. ‘Her skin is unblemished. Utterly clean. No marks whatsoever. If she has had blood magic and a dark mirror kindred since childhood, someone performed the Rite with her as an infant to unlock her blood magic.’

Shaw steps closer and scans my face.

‘And she knows nothing of it, or she would be telling us so. This trigger is old magic, and none can fight it.’ Shaw looks down at me, still kneeling. ‘It takes years to get a woman under control like this. Many spells and potions. Your father was determined to get you under control.’

‘Many females of my coven are given a trigger, Shaw. It’s not uncommon. Especially the unruly ones.’

‘You, unruly?’ he smiles. ‘That I can believe.’ He looks me over again. ‘The fact remains that you have the black mirror Kindred and no marks to show it. Not even your necromancy kindred mark has appeared from the cat. How?’

‘A glamour?’ Dorian suggests. ‘Would be a powerful one, but she could have a glamour on her?’

Shaw takes off my engagement ring and, seeing no change, shoves it in his pocket. He then runs his fingers over my bracelet and stills.

'This has magic. Who gave you this, Pixie?’

‘My mother.’

‘Have you ever taken it off?’

‘No. I swore to…’ My words trail off as a painful realisation hits me. I look up at Shaw. ‘She made me swear never to take it off.’

‘Who?’

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