Page 1 of Cursed Sight
Prologue
Aubrey Broderick ran the back of her hand down Ethan’s downy-soft cheek. “My sweet boy,” she whispered and swallowed past the lump in her throat. “I’m so sorry I won’t be here to see you grow into the special man I know you and your brothers will become.”
An unchecked hot tear escaped her eye as a heavy hand squeezed her shoulder. She looked up and shared a silent moment with her mate. They didn’t have to communicate with words or telepathy to express the grief suffocating them as she neared the end of her seventh pregnancy.
“I’m so sorry we couldn’t stop the curse,” she managed to say.
“I’ll never stop loving you,” Easton declared before pressing his lips to her temple.
She lowered a hand and pressed the spot where her daughter kicked. “I have everything ready to bind whatever powers Brandy may have.”
Easton shook his head. “We don’t have to do this, Aubrey. I can—”
“She may hate us for it, but it’s for the best. We have no idea if the boys will even develop powers, and as the seventh generation of this curse, we have no idea what’s to come.”
“I can protect her!” Easton hissed.
“Honey, I know you can protect them all, but… without a true coven, it’s too much.”
“But the Broderick line is an original family,” Easton said in protest.
She nodded sadly. “That may be true, but you know the history as well as I do. After what Suzanna did, they stopped trusting others. The Broderick line stopped practicing like the olden days.”
Easton chuckled. “There are enough of us to be our own coven.”
“And while that may also be true, there are other Brodericks out there who could form their own coven. Instead, we’ve all traveled different paths. Perhaps they might’ve joined their local coven if they long to practice, but as it is, even you and I chose not to join another coven. The Broderick coven will live on as its history and members integrate with other covens.”
“I can teach them what they need to know.”
“You can, my love, but small sparks of magic every few months doesn’t make a witch.” She looked down at her youngest son. “The older boys’ powers should be more noticeable by now.”
Easton knelt by the rocker and cupped Ethan’s face. “It’s not fair that he’ll never know you.”
“It’s not fair that you must raise them alone,” she said and pressed her lips to his.
“I had a premonition today…”
Aubrey’s brows narrowed as she pulled back to take him in. “How can that be?”
Her husband was powerful in his own right, but premonitions were not one of his powers.
He grinned at their sleeping boy. “I’m not sure how, but I’d been feeding Ethan while you helped Max wrap the wing of the bird he’d found.”
“Well, tell me,” she hissed, both annoyed and excited.
“It was only a spark of an image, Ethan with a beautiful redheaded woman. It ended before I could understand who she was, but in my heart, I believe he will find his mate.”
Chapter 1
Flipping the lock after her customer stepped outside, Serena Bishop leaned into the door and peered up. The full moon rose into the vast sky, its glow lighting the small lot. She called out a quick thanks to the goddess for helping her with the tarot reading before she searched the shadows.
Things were not right.
A couple of months had passed since she witnessed the demise of Volark, a high-level demon who had attempted to take another witch’s power. Other demons and magical creatures were still behaving erratically. Just the other night, a witch found a tubar, a low-level demon, wandering the streets without its human disguise.
Blowing out a breath, Serena released the curtain tied away from the door. She needed to figure out why there was such a sudden change. Her intuition said Volark’s death was not to blame.
When she reached the small table in the corner, she grabbed her deck of cards and shuffled it. Her gaze moved to the shelf, and a smile threatened to free itself. In a silk bag the color of the night sky lay another deck of tarot cards, a deck she had not touched since the last timehe’dbeen in there practicing.
