Bloodline

01

I pull out my phone and see a text message with my older sister's name and her familiar eye roll emoji attached to it.

Call me NOW!

What could she possibly want at this time of night? It's nearly 2 am over there, shouldn't she be sleeping somewhere with a spell book in her hands or something? What the bell does she want to talk to me for? If it's that important she can just text me whatever the hell it is and I'll respond in the morning. I can see Benji eyeing me, brows raising a bit. "Your family?" he says and I make a face at him. "How'd you know?" I asked him.

"You always make that same sour face whenever your family hits you up."

I chewed on the inside of my cheek feeling a little bit embarrassed that it was easy to read my facial expressions that someone who's heavy drugs right now could easily tell. "Would you like to talk? You look pretty down." He replied in a shout and I barely heard him and sighed when I finally did.

My family is quite literally the last thing I want to think about right now. It's not like I hate them or anything it's just witches suck. This isn't me being bitter or anything it's just simply a fact. If you were to ask any witch you know I bet they'd tell you the same thing. In my case, I know quite a handful who without a doubt have some type of issues with their family by the time they're twelve. If they say they don't they are lying or maybe they're just part of a very small minority — however much smaller one could get in an already marginalized group of people with magical abilities.

I'm just speaking from personal experience. Being the son of Erik Amaranthus — sovereign of the Amaranthus coven, one of the few original houses of witchcraft left in the world went without saying that I had a lot on my shoulders from the time I was born. Witchcraft ran in my family's blood like ice water. Cold and strong and straight to the bone. My father led his coven with a powerful fist. He's a leader, tactical, smart, and powerful in every way that makes a witch a sovereign. He's also extremely annoying, judgmental, and condescending but the coven doesn't get to see that part of him though.

Being one of his five children was more like a curse than a blessing. Every day since I was a child I felt like I was in a competition than more so a family. My older sister Rina has always been the most talented when it comes to magic, her powers being compared to our father's during his prime. The second oldest, Ejay inherited our father's brains and can whip up enchantments with a snap of a finger — literally. My younger brother Zhyi is a master at illusion magic and he's only fifteen and my baby sister Issa is only thirteen and I'm pretty sure her abilities have already surpassed mine.

Growing up every day felt like a race I just couldn't win.

My father had no problem setting us up against one another to challenge each other and see how far we could go with our abilities. I was always in last place. I'm not strong like Rina or smart like Ejay, and I'm not able to master a certain class of magic like Zhyi and Issa. I'm just Ymir. The middle child who's magic surely doesn't live up to the hype of the last name.

I don't care though. Becoming a powerful witch or a sovereign of a high-ranking coven was never really my thing. I left that to my control freak of an older sister. What I truly ever wanted was freedom. To be able to do my own thing without anyone telling me what to do or how to do it. That is why I'm so glad I left that coven shit behind years ago. Who the hell wants to live in a house with twenty—something people talking about ancient customs and magic all day? Booooring! I left the Amaranthus coven at fourteen. My father never believed me even though I told him I was going to leave all the time.

"And go where my love?" he'd always say in that English accent I'm still jealous I didn't inherit.

I didn't have a clue then and I didn't have a clue when I packed my things to get the hell out of there, but the most surprising part was that my father didn't even try to stop me. He was quite calm about it actually, everyone was except Rina and Issa. Rina had her nose titled in the air with that stuck-up look on her face that I'm sure is frozen on there, and Issa just cried because that's what she does. My father let me go on my own, though on my own to him just meant shipping me off to different boarding schools across the country until I was of an age when he felt I was able to take care of myself completely which I didn't mind for the most part. As long as I wasn't a part of that damn coven I didn't care where I ended up.