Chapter 20
I HELD MY BREATH.
I stood inside my father’s office, but my father was not there. Instead, a man I’d never seen with beady black eyes, silver hair tied in a ponytail, and an air about him that made my skin crawl, stood in his place.
I couldn’t explain what it was about him that set my insides off. It could have been the narrowed eyes, the sneer on his old face, or the way he looked at me as though I was little more than dirt on his shoe.
“Who are you?” I asked, pulling up all my mental shields and placing my feet in a fighting stance in case I needed to get out of the way quickly.
My father had special wards in place to stop people doing magic within his inner sanctum, but my powers still worked because I was of his bloodline—the same way it worked with my mother’s magic—an
