Page 101 of When Storms Ruin

“You know I love that blush.”

I shook my head with a smile. “We will have plenty of time for a…replay…later. I don’t want to keep them waiting.”

With a reluctant nod we dressed, taking our time to stop for kisses and gentle touches to the point that at least twenty minutes had to have passed by the time we finally made our way over to the library.

To my surprise, Tess and Puck were nowhere to be found. Had we slept that late? There was a handwritten note in what appeared to be Liss’ handwriting taped to the stack of books on the table asking us to meet her in Zion’s office.

We traveled down the hallway hand in hand, towards the last room on the right, right before the hidden tunnels. I raised my hand to knock, but the door swung open of its own accord.

They were expecting us.

Zion sat in the cushy leather chair at the desk. Liss was across from him with her hands buried in her lap.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, sensing the tension in the room before either of them had a chance to speak.

“Come sit,” Zion smiled softly, indicating the chairs across from him.

I took the one next to Liss, Nik settling into the chair on my other side.

“What’s going on?”

“Liss told me about the key spell,” Zion replied simply, leveling me with a gaze I couldn’t quite read.

“And?” I asked in confusion. “We don’t have a bloodline…so we have to find another way.”

“There maybeanother way,” he replied, his gaze cutting to Liss.

“What did you find?” I asked, moving to the edge of my seat.

I could feel the anxiety bubbling up within me where it had been nothing but serenity only moments ago. Was there a chance Zion had found another way for me to control my storm magic? If he had…this would change everything.

It wouldn’t matter how many we lost in the battle in Prins, we would be able to move against Donika much sooner than we had expected. If I could bind my magic and use it against Donika, it would change the tides of this war.

“It isn’t a workaround. Not exactly,” he replied, his mouth tight.

“What does that mean?” I asked, my brow raised.

My eyes cut to Liss, but she was silent in the chair beside me.

“We have a bloodline.”

My hand flew to my throat in confusion. My gaze fell on Nik, but he appeared equally as confused as I was. I had told him last night about how we would need to find another way,because the bloodline needed to come from the witch who would be bound. Adirectbloodline.

“Zion, what are you talking about? Everyone in my immediate bloodline is dead.” I shook my head in confusion.

“Not everyone,” he replied softly.

“What are you talking about?” I asked, my eyes once again flicking towards Liss.

My pulse had ratcheted up, my heart beating painfully fast in my chest. As my gaze traveled from Liss back to Zion, a wave of vertigo hit me, my vision blurring.

One moment I was there in Zion’s office, my eyes flashing back and forth between Zion and Liss. The next, I was pulled into a vision, one I recognized as having been sent by the book of shadows.

Once again, I was seeing through the eyes of someone else, the same someone holding the intricate silver key. Their hands rested above the grimoire, their fingers tracing the elaborate serpentine designs and the teardrop crystal. The hands delicately placed the key atop the tattered pages of the book, and exactly as it had before, the Kotova grimoire was engulfed in flames.

When the smoke cleared, the key was drawn onto the page, no longer a physical object. My vision traveled up the hands, the arms, the shoulders, until I could see the vision of the person clearly before me.

It was my mother.

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