Total pages in book: 218
Estimated words: 212458 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1062(@200wpm)___ 850(@250wpm)___ 708(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 212458 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1062(@200wpm)___ 850(@250wpm)___ 708(@300wpm)
Built for entertaining. And for a family. And I’m sort of stumped because the déjà vu feeling floating around in me about this house won’t let up.
There’s no sign of my ring in this bathroom either. I need out of here before he wakes up and tries to screw me again. I shiver in a very private place.
Mason. Cue daydream music.
The bridal march is the music I’m hearing, because he called this our wedding day. Like having sex with me equals getting married. Mating for life. God knows most people don’t mate for life. Case in point, my parents. Or more accurately, my traitorous father who thinks he can cheat on Mom, leave her after getting caught red-handed, and then when his assistant (who is only a couple years older than me) ends it – try to come back with a bouquet of roses and a lame promise to do better. As if that’s enough!
But really, if sex was something that marked that significant of a change in someone’s life, the kind of sex Mason had with me would definitely qualify as that. Life-changing. The kind of sex you’d want for your wedding night. God knows I haven’t had any life-altering orgasms lately. Or even any mediocre ones (unless you count the ones I give myself).
I certainly didn’t ever have sex that made me cry.
I can’t analyze all that right now. There’s no time. I have got to push this stuff out of my mind and focus.
Oh. I spot handles on either side of the bridge that leads to the stairs. Pocket doors. This master bedroom does have privacy as an option if you want or need it.
Okay, that’s enough waxing on about Mason’s beautiful house being absolutely perfect because why would I care that his bedroom does have doors? It’s not like I’m going to live here!
I huff at myself, but this makes him stir, so I freeze.
I watch him for a long, frozen moment, thinking that all this is happening because of my aunt messing with Mother Nature via a fortune teller. And that’s the only reason I got caught up in it. Basically: voodoo sex magic.
On my way here this morning, I recalled how Auntie Nelle tried to assure me from her deathbed that my life would have magic; she knew it for a fact. Acted like there was a big surprise coming that she was excited about. She promised to watch if she could, just to see it happen but promised she’d close her eyes at the fun parts.
I humored her when she said the universe had something magical in store for all of us Brennan girls. Her letter to Mom said she started the ball rolling when Ivy was a baby, me a toddler – and that she made sure the process was complete when she got her cancer diagnosis. She’d made sure that before she’d leave the world that her girls would be taken care of and that we’d have magic in our lives.
The things she said on her death bed, I hadn’t given them much merit; I was so distraught over the notion of losing her that I didn’t give much weight to what I thought were her tumor and painkiller-induced ramblings. But when I read that letter Mom handed me last night? Her words on the page took me right back to the days before she died and made me reconsider what I had waved off as delirium.
I haven’t even thought about her supernatural stories for a long time. I loved those stories when I was a child. She wasn’t always around – often off on an adventure. But whenever she was visiting, she always made sure to do things with me, my sister, and brother individually as well as collectively. I’d get her to recount her supernatural tales often and she told me she could get into a lot of trouble for revealing stuff to me because supernaturals kept things very guarded,. She also said she trusted me with the secrets because one of the Brennan girls would need to know about magic one day. She chose me. And it made me feel important. Especially when she told me my knowledge would help Ivy adjust to the magic in her life when the time was right. I never knew what that meant.
Until now. That ‘one day’ has arrived.
But evidently, for Ivy first. So that was kind of backwards. Did part of Auntie Nelle’s plan backfire or get all mixed up and twisted around? Ivy’s a skeptic. How did she react to all this without me having the chance to prep her like our aunt obviously wanted?
My aunt started planting magic beans, she called them, with me, from a young age. In fact, it was an age so young I don’t remember a time when I didn’t know that she believed there were witches and fairies, spirits, shapeshifters, and vampires among us. She told me there was so much magic all around but that most people never got to experience it. She said that because their minds were closed, they missed out. She told me to keep my mind and my eyes open and if those and my heart were open too, I could get more magic than I’d ever dreamed. I took my promise seriously – the promise to keep things between us until I knew it was the right time to reveal things to my sister. Auntie Nelle said I’d know when the time was right. That my knowledge could help Ivy know not to be afraid, to know that she can trust her heart, trust that magic isn’t wrong.