Page 17 of A Lesson in Obedience
“How are you even remotely intertwined with the founders of Celica? I mean your mom is human right?” She pulled at one of her curls and then snorted. “I mean obviously that would have to mean that your dad was a magic wielder…”
My breath caught causing her to clamp her mouth shut.
“That’s not right though…because your dad was a human who helped students at Mystic Riegan. He was the best person tocome to when you had a problem, no matter where you came from.” She sounded so sure of herself.
I brought my knees up to my chest and whispered, “He wasn’t my dad. Not my biological one at least.”
“What?”
“Please don’t tell your mom any of this.”
“Sure, whatever you want.” She placed her hand gently on my forearm.
I told her everything I could about Chancellor Fowler and River’s dad. I tried to sum up Chancellor Fowler’s history with my mom and tried not to get too choked up by telling her about my dad. Her eyebrows raised when I stuttered out Grayson’s name. She listened carefully, never trying to interrupt me. Once I was finished, she waited a moment to see if I had anything left to say.
Corrin bit her thumbnail, thinking. “He ordered Grayson to get those girls from the coven so he could get a memory pulling witch to search through their minds.” Her words came out like they were fact.
“Seriously?”
“It makes sense. Telekinesis is a pretty dominant power, so he likely knew you’d inherited it, but he couldn’t figure out if you were well…you. Best way to do that, since your mom gave you that necklace, is to search in your mind, find visuals of your mother, your life, anything to identify you. When they didn’t pan out, he sent them back. Quite literally mind fucked.”
“I’m sorry, Corrin,” I said, placing my head in my hands.
“For what?”
“Unknowingly putting you in danger. Getting you involved in any of this.”
She wrapped her arm around me. “The guy is the supreme leader of my coven from what you’ve told me, so I’ve always been involved. Even if you didn’t transfer, he was still siphoning magic from his own coven witches like the greedy pig he is to keep just being powerful. Classic villain. That goes for Mr. St. James as well, although that guy always gave me weird vibes anyway.” She pulled me into herside tighter. “I am sorry about Grayson though. As much as I want to beat his face in for what he did, it does sound like he had no idea.”
“I’m sure he didn’t. I just can’t— I don’t really even want to look at him right now.” Every time I thought about Grayson, I saw him bringing in Marianne. I saw the stunned look in his eyes and heard his pleas of forgiveness. All the happy things I tried to remember about us were now doused in this shadow of darkness, coated with the blood of my best friend. All because he didn’t know how all of this would pan out. All because he thought he was saving his future, and well, I guess he did at the expense of my trust. But…he didn’t know.
My hands were shaking and my heart started beating intensely in my chest. The drawers in Corrin’s dresser rattled and a few items on her desk were shifting around as if there was an earthquake. Jax jumped off the dresser, leaping onto Corrin’s bed for safety. Beau stalked over to me, laying down on top of my feet.
“Riley, hey look at me.” Corrin shook my shoulders a little. She didn’t beg me to stop like others might have.
I blinked over at her, hearing the soft rattling of objects around me.
“I don’t know if there is more to your time with Chancellor Fowler and I won’t push. Just know I’m here, okay?”
I could feel myself wanting to explode, wanting to tear this whole room apart with my anger and sadness. Heat raged in my veins and knew I could set this room on fire if I was given the opportunity, but I found myself looking at Corrin and suddenly all I wanted to do was cry.
“He hurt someone I cared about. He really hurt them. I–I just–” My voice cracked.
She stopped me. “You don’t have to say anything else.”
I let the tears fill my eyes and spill over. I dropped my head into the crook of her neck and sobbed. It wasn’t loud and obnoxious, the kind of crying that strained your throat. It was the kind that was soft and nearly silent because you still didn’t want people to know thekind of pain you were in, the kind that hurt your chest because you weren’t sure if the tears would ever stop falling. My cries were muffled into her shirt, soaking the fabric, but she didn’t care. She smoothed her hand down my arm and rocked her body into mine.
I don’t know how long we were like that, but somehow, I fell asleep.
6
River
Iwatched Asher speed out of our driveway and down the street before heading into the kitchen. He had mumbled something about still being a teacher and needing to do some stuff at school. I couldn’t imagine heading back to school right now. Even though it was only closed for two days, Mystic Riegan would do what it always did: it would rally. We would be a little awkward going back to the normal everyday college student things, but somehow everyone would eventually end up acting like it was old news.
The university did the same thing with Riley’s dad. It kind of made sense now that Chancellor Fowler had been revealed to be heractualdad. He had more pull than most and never had to really show his face. If I was being honest, I didn’t even know our school even had a fucking chancellor until my junior year. I scrubbed a hand down my face, shuffling over to the coffee maker. I leaned against the granite counter while I listened to the machine rumble and pulled out my phone.
I’d woken up to a text from Riley’s mom, thanking me for finding her daughter and letting me know she was at Corrin’s. I planned on heading over to Corrin’s house today and giving her back her phone, then taking her back home—or maybe bringing her back here. She had run away from her house, so maybe going back to her mom wasn’t something she wanted. What the fuck happened between us leaving that night and her ending up sleeping at her roommate’s house? We would unpack that later.
