Page 70 of Bedeviled

My mother looks between the two of us, her eyes catching and lingering on Memnon’s facial scar, before her attention settles on me. “Do I need to call the cops?”

I bite back my groan.

Witches’ titties. This is going to be a long Thanksgiving.

It takes hours, many glasses of wine, one dry-ass turkey, and several more forgotten dishes to even start to smooth the situation over.

Memnon is absolutely zero help. I know he knows how to have tact, but it’s like he needs to be as raw and real with my parents as possible. And Ben and Liv are taking it about as well as expected.

The four of us sit in my family’s den, Memnon and I on the couch, my parents on two side chairs. I’m grasping my wineglass for dear life and shamelessly leaning into Memnon for emotional support, which is probably incredibly fucked-up since he’s the one oversharing. Then again, maybe it’s fucked-up that I was all too willing to never ever tell my parents these truths.

“…I have endured two thousand years of deathless sleep to be reunited with my soul mate, your daughter, and her life and love is the greatest honor of my existence.”

I down my latest glass of red wine before reaching for the bottle on the coffee table.

My parents’ gazes are bouncing between the two of us. This is far, far more dramatic than anything Ben and Liv Bowers are used to. Reincarnation, soul mates, undead love, centuries-old curses, and millennia-long vendettas.

“How are we only learning right now that you even had a soul mate, Selene? Isn’t that something your school was supposed to notify you of?”

“They likely did—I just forgot.”

My dad whistles. “That’s a helluva list of secrets you kept,” he says, giving his head a shake.

“Selene,” my mom says, “grab your glass and come with me.”

My heart sinks to the pit of my gut, and now I have to breathe through my nose to not upchuck the alcohol and everything else in my stomach.

Little witch, Memnon says across our bond, I have felt less fear from you when you faced down armies.

You clearly haven’t been around my mom long enough.

I swear Memnon seems delighted at the prospect of a bloodthirsty mother-in-law.

He is so unhinged.

We step into my parents’ room, and my mom quietly shuts the door behind her, leaning back against it.

“I am sorry,” she says.

My brows draw together in confusion.

She continues. “I have failed you somewhere along the way for you to do so many shocking things and keep so much from me.”

A lump forms in my throat. She thinks this is me acting out. Some long-buried rebelliousness that I unleashed only once she and my father were out of the country.

To be fair to my mom, before I enrolled at Henbane Coven, I could and did tell her anything. She would often serve as my memory in place of my journals.

I drop my face. “How was I supposed to tell you that I found a tomb and woke some ancient supernatural, especially when my own memory of it was spotty?” I say. “He’s telling the truth,” I say, gesturing to the door and Memnon who must be somewhere beyond it, “and yet it sounds so unhinged you were ready to call the cops—you, who are a supernatural and used to unhinged things.

“Then,” I continue, “so much happened so quickly, and you and Dad were in Europe on a trip you’d planned for years⁠—”

“None of that is important compared to your life and safety, Selene,” she says, her eyes still distressed. “That—that man in there is terrifying.”

I bite my lower lip. She still doesn’t even know the half of it.

“Are you okay?” she insists, peering at me. “I really can call the cops—or find a lawyer. You don’t need to stay married to him.”

“Mom—we’re soul mates.”