Page 14 of Outlawed

I open my mouth and suck in a deep breath. I mean, I knew she made them. My father had said as much. But hearing it now, it’s hard not to feel a connection to a woman I have no memory of and yet somehow still miss.

He reaches over and cups my face, making me stiffen. “You would have been around three when the potions stopped coming. Your father told everyone she left in the dead of night, running away to be with her secret lover, leaving her only child behind. But my mother never believed that for a second. They might have been natural born enemies, but they had one thing in common—evil fucking husbands.”

Chapter Five

“Your mom thought Martin killed her?” Shepard guesses.

“Like recognizes like. I think my mom saw the writing on the wall for herself and, in doing so, it was impossible not to see the resemblance. Could you really see Martin letting her go if she truly had run?”

I swallow down the bile at the thought of what just happened to Dawn and shake my head. “No, I can’t. I don’t know why I didn’t think about that before.”

“My guess, you were told since you were little that she left you,” Riggs says softly, squeezing my hip. I can’t help but feel guilty, though.

“How does any of this tie into what the fuck you did to Poppy?” Shepard snaps.

Austin doesn’t react to his tone, his eyes on my birthmark that he’s tracing with his fingertips.

“A witch comes into her powers at eighteen. The Hart bloodline has a birthmark that darkens as the power grows.” He lifts my arm for the others to see. “Rarely, a witch’s powers come in early. It’s usually because of some kind of attack or trauma, which is ironic because their power coming in early leaves them even more vulnerable.”

“Explain,” Riggs snaps.

“I mentioned how powerful a witch’s blood is before, when used to curse the land, but there are three times when that blood is at its most potent. When they are on the cusp of death. When they bring life into the world.”

A startled gasp escapes me as something else clicks into place. The baby he made my mom carry, of course. But more than that—“Hannah.”

“Wait, what?” Shepard questions.

Austin frowns for a moment before it dawns on him, too. “Shit. I’ll need to do some research, but it makes sense.”

“Well, I’m glad this is making sense to some of you,” Riggs complains.

“Dawn has no memory of sleeping with Porter. She went dancing in a bar at eighteen and woke up in an unfamiliar hotel room, alone and sore in places she shouldn’t have been.”

Shepard growls as Riggs freezes. Riggs has figured it out now, too.

“Can someone explain this shit to me like I’m dumb?” Shepard snaps.

I look down at him and feel tears threaten once more. “Can we come back to this? It’s all connected, and I need Austin to finish his part first.”

He stares at me, tense and angry, but he nods before glaring at Austin. “Skip to the fucking important part.”

“It’s all important, motherfucker,” Austin snaps back before he gets to his feet and starts pacing. “As I was saying, they are at their most potent when they are dying, bringing forth life, and when they transition from a child into a woman.”

He lets that sink in, and I have to grab a handful of Shepard’s hair to stop him from leaping from the bed and tackling Austin.

“I saw your birthmark that day at the clinic. I thought it might be the lighting in there. I prayed it was.”

“You knew who she was all along,” Riggs hisses.

“Of course I did. I knew she was being tormented by Andy, too, and I did nothing to stop it. I needed him to hate her because it was safer that way.”

“How the fuck did you reach that conclusion?”

But I already know the answer. “If he liked me and showed an interest, then he might have gotten in my pants, and that would have ruined your plans.”

He jerks back as if I’ve hit him. “Jesus, is that what you think?”

“You raped me, Austin. What am I supposed to think?”