Birthright

Chapter 21 - we have company - Ephy pov

I open my eyes, gasping, and realize I’m bent over on all fours on the bunker floor. Raven and Jake crouch beside me, hands hovering, afraid to touch me. The twins stand a few steps away, staring as if they’ve seen a ghost.

Maggie finds her voice first. “Did you know you had fae blood?”

Margie steps forward, eyes bright with something between awe and fear. “I felt it the moment your magic flared. You have a strength I haven’t sensed in decades. Child… who was your father?”

Before I can speak, Raven shoots to her feet, fury sparking in her eyes. “Will you two shut up? She’s just found out she’s lost her mother!”

The words break me. A crack runs straight through my chest, sharp and blinding. A flicker of light leaks through my skin, pulsing as my emotions surge.

No. Not again. Control it.

I force a breath. I grab Raven’s hand and squeeze, letting her know I’m still here. Still holding on.

“My mother never told me who my father was,” I say softly.

It’s a lie, one I was taught to repeat. I was told never to reveal anything about him. Not to anyone.

Margie’s eyes narrow not suspicious, exactly, but sharp in the way someone looks at a puzzle they’ve seen before.

“Your mother may not have told you,” she says gently, “but your blood certainly remembers.”

Maggie steps closer, crouching so her face is level with mine. “Fae blood doesn’t lie, dear. It sings. Yours was screaming.”

Margie elbows her sister lightly. “Not screaming,” she corrects. “But… resonating.” She studies me again, a crease forming between her brows. “Power like that usually comes from noble fae lines. Old ones.”

Maggie nods eagerly. “Ancient ones.”

Raven makes a warning noise in her throat, as if daring them to push further.

Maggie lifts her hands in surrender. “We’re not prying into secrets you’re not ready to share. But child… whoever your father was, he wasn’t ordinary.”

Maggie leans back on her heels, her expression shifting into something softer almost protective. “And if he was fae royalty or highborn… then your mother hiding his identity makes perfect sense. Power like yours paints a target.”

A sick twist coils in my stomach. A target.

On me.

Jake lets out a shaky breath. “So what if Dalston knows and this is why he wants the marriage contract?”

Both twins look at him with matching grim expressions.

Margie whispers, “he may have sensed your power my dear, he’s an ancient vampire lord, he would be able to sense it .”

Out of nowhere the temperature drops so sharply my breath clouds in front of me.

A shiver crawls down my spine, not from fear, but from magic. A dark kind. Heavy. Wrong.

A deafening BANG echoes from upstairs, shaking dust from the wooden beams. The candle flames flicker violently.

Margie’s head snaps upward. “Sister..we have unwanted company. We must hide.”

Maggie doesn’t waste a second. Her eyes dart to me, Jake, and Raven.

“We have a secret passage. Come quickly! We can make it.”

Another crash upstairs heavier this time, like someone tearing through furniture.

Raven grabs my arm. “Ephy, move!”

Jake pulls the pan with my blood away from the flames and dumps it into a jar shoving it into his satchel not to save the potion, but so no one else can use it against me.

Maggie rushes to the far wall where an old tapestry hangs a faded depiction of a witch and warlock hugging under a tree. She tears it aside, revealing a small, rune-carved door set into the stone.

The runes glow faintly, reacting to my presence.

“Go!” Maggie shoves Jake through first, then Raven.

I hesitate I can’t help it. Panic fills my chest. “Is it Dalston?” My voice trembles despite me. “Did he find me?”

Margie’s face goes pale.

“Yes,” she whispers. “And worse he brought a Seeker witch and a dark witch.”

My stomach drops.

“They are here… for me.”