My Sunrise Sunset Paramour (My Midnight Moonlight Valentine 2)

He shrugged. “Why do you believe this choice is up to you or me? All I did was tell the coven what Allen’s last vision was. Would you have preferred I lied?”

“Yes!” I exclaimed. “Wholeheartedly. Because that would have been kinder than giving them false hope.”

“Why do you believe it is false?”

“Because I am not a goddess!”

“How do you know?”

I wanted to punch the air a thousand times and scream. “Because I am not! I think I would have noticed that by now!”

“Dru, for the wisdom of the Druids, and Ella, meaning goddess. Druella, the name your mother gave to you with her dying breath. The last name Allen Allsbrook wrote before his death. You see nothing in this?”

“I see the beginning of a fairy tale. Sprinkle in a handsome prince and a wicked witch, and I will gladly hand over my money to read it. However, that is not my life. Do you know how many Druellas there are in the world? Probably not a lot, but I’m sure it’s not just me. See how name-dropping in prophecies could be a little flawed?”

“Allen did not just write Druella. He wrote your last name as well.”

“Because I am the only Druella he knew, Uncle. Just because we practice magic and believe in magic doesn’t mean every last thing is magical. I do not want to be the hope of the coven or all Wiccan. I want…” My voice trailed off as I thought of what I did want.

“You want what?” he asked.

But it was never one thing. It was so many things.

“To be free…to simply be.”

“And that is exactly the desire of the Wiccan. To be,” he replied, and this was why it was hard talking to him.

Because no matter what I said, he always saw the coven, the Wiccan as a whole above all else. My individual wants were smothered under the weight of Wiccans everywhere. Part of me wished I could be more like him, always focused on the big picture, always wanting to give hope and press on to fight another day. But my heart, for some reason, didn’t burn like his or the other elders. They didn’t understand why and neither did I. Shouldn’t that be proof enough I was not an avenging magical goddess.

“I’m going to go rest,” I said, rising from the chair. “Tomorrow night, I’ll start the circle on a hunt for those vampires. We will set up more traps and charms around the neighborhood as well.”

He nodded, lifting his mug again. “Take it easy. Your magic seems to have grown a bit today, and it will take some time for you to get the hang of it. Don’t overdo it, or you might end up ill and drunk again.”

I made a face. “Couldn’t we have found a better descriptor?”

“Why? I think it works just fine.”

“Good night, Uncle.” I waved and made my escape up the stairs.

Entering my room, I fell face-first onto my bed, and the moment I did, I realized how hungry I was, but I didn’t want to go back down and face him.

I lifted my head from the sheets, and with a wave of my hand, I used my magic to open my bedside drawer and float a king-size Snickers bar toward me. Dropping it in my palm, I rolled over and unwrapped it, then took a bite as I stared up at my ceiling. The longer I stared and chewed, the more I thought about the one good thing that had come out of today…

Theseus.

That name.

Talking to him in general.

What had he meant when he said that I had saved him first. When?

Since when had he started watching me exactly?

What was his reason?

Why did he simply watch from the shadows even when he knew I was hunting his own kind down?

I had no answers.