Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 97229 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 486(@200wpm)___ 389(@250wpm)___ 324(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97229 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 486(@200wpm)___ 389(@250wpm)___ 324(@300wpm)
My pulse was racing.
“My father’s side isn’t on your wall though, is it?”
“No, it’s not.”
“So WHY? Just tell me, will you? And if you say fucking PATIENCE I swear I’m going to–”
Hans sighed.
“Fine. He’s the head of the Templar Masons,” he told me. “A senior order of the Western Mystery Tradition.”
I was confused.
“And what does that mean?”
Hans didn’t hesitate.
“It means he’s a high level initiate. The very highest in England, in fact.” He paused as I stared at him. “He’s an occultist, Katherine. An extremely good one.”
I pictured an occultist as some kind of horror movie character, but Hans shook his head.
“No. Think of a wizard and you’d be much closer. Minus the starry sky robe and pointy hat, that is.”
I couldn’t quite picture it. “So, let me get this straight. My father is a head wizard in a group of wizards?”
Hans couldn’t help but chuckle. “Something like that.”
I didn’t know whether to laugh along with him, or freak out, or cry.
“It’s all right,” Hans said. “He’s quite renowned, and very, very well respected.”
I pulled a face, still trying to get my head around it.
“If he’s the leader of some kind of occult group, how the hell was my mum involved with him? She hates anything to do with magic, or weird stuff.”
I loved the adoration in my vampire’s eyes.
“Oh, sweetheart. She hates anything to do with magic, or weird stuff or anything that doesn’t fit in to her brainwashed idea of normal and holy, but she definitely didn’t hate your father. She fell in love with him, after all. She was devoted to him, just as he was to her. Love defies reason. Unfortunately, hate can dissolve it all.”
I felt a lump in my throat. I’d always figured he was a nobody who’d cast her aside.
“It wasn’t like that,” Hans said, and ran a thumb down my cheek. “Your father didn’t up and leave. Your mother turned her back on love, and on him, but that was because she had to. She wasn’t given the choice.”
“And my father let her, did he? He just walked away?”
“Your father didn’t have any choice without waging a war. He wasn’t the man he is now. He was a lot younger.”
“Why didn’t he have a choice? And what war?”
I was reeling so bad my heart was pounding. Another spin of unknown memories swirling around. I’d expected tonight to be a grand, mystical build-up to Hans giving me eternal commitment, not another slammer of revelations about my past, with an erotic kink on the side to go along with it.
Holy shit, what the fuck was happening to me? Maybe I should expect this from now on. Bombshells of revelations. Things I didn’t know jumping out from the shadows wherever I looked.
Hans took my hands and gripped them tight, pulling me back to him.
“It will be all right. This is another part of your journey back to yourself.”
I didn’t care about that, though.
“Why didn’t my father stay around?” I asked again. “What is the war you’re talking about? Who the hell would want to fuck him off and push him away if he’s all so good and brilliant?”
Hans’ eyes were fierce and cold. I got shivers at the anger in them, but it wasn’t directed at me.
His voice was full of venom when he answered me.
“Because of your fucking grandmother, Katherine. She’s the biggest bitch of a witch I’ve ever known.”
Chapter Twenty-nine
“Your grandmother turned her back on tradition before you were born,” Hans told me, “but that didn’t stop her using her skills. It never has done. She can deny them all she likes, but it makes no difference. She exploits them every day of her life.”
“What skills?”
Hans was shaking his head as he spoke. His indignation obvious.
“She’s a witch of the highest level, through and through. She’s an expert mind reader and in tune with energies of all kinds, and believe me, she always takes advantage of them. She can put it down to common sense and intuition all she likes, but she fools no one. She knows far more than she should about everyone she meets. She’s the epitome of holier than thou, in godawful form. It’s tragic. Truly.”
I thought of Grandma, and the way she glared at me when I was growing up, always whispering in Mum’s ear and cussing me for being a stupid girl. She was judgmental and scathing, I’d always known that.
I was scared of her, like so many people were. She was a gossiper of secrets and seemed to know everything about everyone, whispering and sneering whenever she passed them in the street.
Georgina White is a slut whore who’s been sleeping with David Lewis and Raymond Jones at the same time. Phillip Taylor is cheating everyone in the community with his fake car deals and worthless warranties. Penny MacGregor is having lustful thoughts about Karen’s husband, and he’s fantasising about her.