Page 74 of The Last De Loughrey Dynasty

Suddenly, my features shifted, and the reflection developed its own soul. A boy who shared several similarities with me blinked, while my eyes didn’t move.

His features weren’t as sharp as mine, and he looked rather boyish, and from the look of his ruffled black hair and chaotic choice of clothes, he had something rebellious about him.

I knew the boy in front of me.

“James,” I breathed, and he seemed to just notice me now, nodding fast, brushing his hand through his curls.

“You’re Matthew’s son, am I right?”he asked, and I shook my head slowly.

“Matthew is my grandfather. His son, Griffin, is my father,” I corrected, and James looked like someone had slapped him across the face, but he caught himself within a second.

“That is certainly a shocker.”

“What happened between you and Dottie that night?” I ignored his hesitation, taking this chance before anything could destroy it. He wasn’t a spirit. He was an illusion, a manifested memory, fuck knows what he was, but he wasn’t held back by the veil so he could talk.

James’ eyes darkened, and his hand moved to his heart.“I—I should have protected her. But there was nothing I could have done, our fate had been sealed.”

“Did you kill her?” I was sick of all that talking around. I needed straight answers.

His blue eyes snapped up to me, pure anger burning in them.“Foolish boy. Dorothee Odette De Loughrey was the love of my life, she was everything to me, and in another life we’d have been able to run away and build the life we deserved. Don’t you dare to assume such devilish nonsense ever again,”he shot at me with burning rage.“I fought so hard to be able to warn you just for you to insult me?!”

His anger didn’t affect me. I was used to it, but suddenly, I felt like I shouldn’t have asked. My gut had been right. And even though I understood why Jesse accused James of murdering Dottie, it sounded surreal from the beginning.

“I apologise. But why does the prophecy written on a picture of you and her say that the last De Loughrey dynasty will fall by Kingstone hand? Make it make sense.”

My great uncle gritted his jaw in the same stubborn way I always did. It was a Kingstone thing, and thankfully my sister inherited far more of our mother’s genes.“Because love equals ruin. There is this Latin proverb Dottie and I always used to excuse going against the stars’ will. Amantes sunt amentes.”

“Lovers are lunatics,” I translated, and he didn’t need to explain the meaning behind those words because I understood them better than anyone.

“We were stupid, that’s for sure. But we didn’t care. I wasn’t made to fall for the ways of the star, but I did. She was the owner of my heart, and God forbid I let her have it the way she liked. Dottie was everything good about me, and during our times we laughed in the face of fate and challenged it. Foolish, but I wouldn’t have done anything different because I am a selfish man… I was a selfish man. Now I’m nothing more than a shadow.”James paused, his eyes lost in memory, before he caught himself and looked back at me again.“Our families have always been the ruin that started with love. It’s a cycle, kid. And we were the first that gave in, trying to break the pattern. Love always wins, they say. Lies knitted into the constellation of the stars. The only thing that love brings is chaos to the Kingstone’s as to the De Loughrey’s.”

“Why is it that our families fight this rivalry? And what do the Goddamned stars have to do with everything?” Everything is always connected to them, and I knew there were people believing that everyone’s fate is connected to the day you’ve been born. What time and constellation of the planets and the stars foresee your future. But this goes deeper.

“Because it all started with the constellations, giving us the greatest gift of all. The rule of death. The keeper of the shadows… Until the power started to corrupt one’s mind to insanity. Craving more than possible, so we got punished. Cursed to suffer from heartache and the minimum of ourabilities, haunted by the dead. Everyone believes we’re liars when they used to build altars and pray to the very first of us,”he spoke so angrily that I could feel his hatred to the bone.

“Who was the first of us?”

Many questions spun in my mind, but we needed to start somewhere, and where else than the very beginning?

James lifted his head, a dark, unsettling smile appearing on his lips.“Hecate.”

I frowned, “The goddess?”

“The one and only. Blessing the seven families with a kiss of her power. Each of them is unique alone but equal together.”

“You’re trying to say that we are the way we are because a goddess blessed our families centuries ago until we wronged her, and she decided to curse us with said gift and bring a wedge between the De Loughrey’s and Kingstone’s in the form of desire cursed with heartache?” I summarised, trying to wrap my head around the new information.

Hecate was a Greek goddess, that was all I knew about her, since it had never occurred to me that gods really did exist.

James nodded.“Exactly, and that you have to break the pattern. Find the prophecies to find the Book of Shadows before history will repeat itself.”

“Stop constantly saying history will repeat itself, just tell me what happened that night!” I yelled at the mirror because this was just as frustrating as knowing nothing.

Fine, some goddess blessed us then cursed us, whatever. I didn’t care, I just needed to know what history we’re trying to prevent here, it’s driving me to madness.

He smoothed his shirt and swallowed visibly.“One of the families has betrayal written in their name. Seven families was one too many, since six is the number of destiny and seven is not. The seventh family was known for their intriguebehaviour, wanting everything to build on the ashes of their so-called friends. Don’t let Hecate’s book fall into their hands.”

I stilled, soaking in a breath of the mist that had formed in my bathroom, surrounding me as if it were trying to make us one.

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