Lydia Sawyer.
Lunchtime.
12:05 p.m.
I stare at my cup of coffee.
The steam curls upward in slow, lazy spirals.
Hovering above the porcelain like something alive, something undecided about whether to escape or return to the dark liquid below.
I track it with my eyes, letting it mesmerize me, because if I don’t, my thoughts will drag me somewhere I am not ready to go.
Le Rivera hums quietly around me.
Cutlery clinking, low laughter, the soft elegance of wealth pretending to be modest.
This is where I always have lunch with my girls.
Every weekday.
A ritual as fixed as the magic stitched into my bones.
But today, I declined them.
Today, I am here with my daughter-in-law.
The argument between Viola and my son the other night, still reverberates inside me, sharp and ugly.
Horrific if I dare say.
A scene I never thought I would witness, not in this lifetime, not in any of the futures I have seen.
“Hi, Lydia.”
I snap my gaze upward.
Viola stands before me, looking down with cool, beautiful eyes that hold nothing warm in them.
She is dressed impeccably, as always.
Tailored two piece outfit in a soft peach tone, crisp and flawless.
Black pearls rest against her throat and ears, understated and expensive.
Perfect woman.
Perfect wife.
But her eyes say otherwise.
I smile and gesture for her to sit.
She does, but her face does not soften.
It remains blank.
No, not blank.
Emptied.
Almost soulless.
Something inside my chest tightens.
“Marriage does a lot of things to us,” I say quietly, wrapping my fingers around my cup.
“Especially when we expected so much from it, when we got into it.”
I sip the coffee.
It’s sweet, comforting, but a lie on my tongue.
I feel her gaze on me, steady and assessing.
When I set the cup down and look at her fully, her expression has shifted, just slightly.
Veiled curiosity now peers through the cracks in her expression.
I signal for the waiter.
He arrives promptly, takes her order, and leaves us in a pocket of silence.
“When I first married Tim,” I say softly, never breaking eye contact, “I had no expectations of him.”
Her brows lift, mild shock flickering across her face.
Of course.
She comes from wealth too, from lineage and legacy.
She knows what marriages like ours are for, even if she never knew the truth behind mine.
My marriage to Timothy was never about love.
It was about survival.
About protection.
About a curse so old it has rotted the roots of the Sawyer bloodline for decades.
Sawyer Daorheche fled Ireland when the curse first clawed its way into his family.
My people that is.
His mother’s people as well.
For she hailed from our kind.
The one’s steeped in dark magic.
The only ones capable of standing against such a curse.
He married into our lineage not for affection, but for concealment and protection.
Our magic cloaked him.
Disguised his blood.
Shielded his name from the bearer of the curse.
But protection always demands payment.
From that moment on Sawyer Daorheche, who had become Sam Sawyer, had his lineage bound to us.
Forever required to marry from our dark lineage to keep the shield intact.
Generation after generation.
No exceptions.
That was why I was given to Timothy.
That was my purpose.
To keep the pact alive.
And yet, I have never seen the bearer of the curse since my wedding day.
Years have passed without her shadow crossing our lives.
No one in the Daorheche family ever knew her name.
Timothy’s ancestors only whispered of her as the daughter of the merrow ruler.
A mercreature.
The moment the Daorheches had learned that their son, Lysander had charmed a mercreature, their greed had bloomed like rot.
They had plotted to harvest merrow tears, believing them powerful enough to give them longevity.
Fools.
The instant the curse activated, the tears turned to blood.
Unwashable.
Unyielding.
A symbol of their damnation.
That blood has been stored in an enchanted vial for generations now, waiting.
Watching for the impossible.
“Only when the curse is broken,” my mother told me the night before my wedding, “Will the blood turn back to water and flow away.”
That night, I was terrified.
I had seen visions of my end within this marriage.
Ending I despised.
Ending soaked in loss and silence and pain.
“But if I marry him, Mother.” I pleaded, clutching her hands, “I might meet a dreadful end.”
My grip had been desperate.
Childish.
“I have seen what the bearer of the curse does,” I had whispered.
“She never forgives.
Please.
Speak to Father.”
My mother’s lips pressed into a thin, merciless line.
“Lydia,” she said, her voice iron clad, “you inherited the power passed down for generations.
You are bound to protect the pact sealed in blood with Sawyer Daorheche.
Once he married into our clan, his new identity as Sam Sawyer and everything about him, became cloaked in our magic.
And we will protect his lineage forever.”
Those had been my mother’s words.
Final.
Absolute.
So was womanhood.
The magic that shields the Sawyers stripped pieces of my humanity away.
It allowed me only one child.
A son.
The others were stillborn.
Sacrifices no one speaks of.
No one knows the curse bearer’s name.
And even if someone did, they never lived long enough to say it.
“My parents didn’t marry for love, Lydia.”
Viola’s voice pulls me back now.
The waiter has placed her coffee and mini sandwiches before her.
She doesn’t touch them at first.
“But they fell in love.” She continues, her voice breaking just enough to hurt.
“That’s what I expected.”
She takes a bite, but her face tightens.
She looks painfully thin now.
Fragile.
Nothing like the radiant woman who married my son.
“I know we don’t always marry for love,” she says quietly.
“But I didn’t deserve Tarian’s cruelty.”
A tear slips down her cheek.
I watch her with sympathy and guilt.
Guilt because I partly partook in encouraging the union between them.
“He treats me worse than a street dog,” she whispers.
“Doesn’t care what I do.
What I don’t do.
I’m nothing to him.”
Her sobs are small, contained, controlled.
“And yet.” She adds, voice trembling, “I stay.
Hoping he’ll love me.”
My insides twist.
Her blood carries our magic, though in her it’s a recessive trait.
Silent.
Perhaps her daughter might have, if she ever has one.
But it doesn’t matter.
The protection holds.
As long as the Sawyers marry into our dark magic clan, the shield remains.
“His new lover,” Viola says suddenly, “Murieann Amran, invited him to her property in Nantucket.”
I stiffen.
“Murieann Amran?” I ask.
“Owner of Elianor Pearls?”
A memory stirs inside me.
Recent, sharp, but slips away before I can grasp it.
Viola nods.
Anger burns hot in my chest.
“When did he start taking lovers?” I demand hotly.
She snaps.
“Really, Lydia?
Should I be keeping tabs on my husband’s infidelities?”
Her words sting, but I swallow my response.
“Maybe you should keep tabs on that.” She adds bitterly.
“You’re his mother.”
I ignore the jab.
I return my attention to my untouched food.
Because I already know what must be done.
It is time I pay my son a visit.
And this time, I will not be gentle with him.