Forbidden Fruit

Chapter 5: Freakouts & Stubborness

I take the long route along the east side of Revelia, passing along the outer edges of Wicca City, and making my way straight towards Star Mountains, the horizons in this region as familiar to me as those from the Capital.

And still Thomas says nothing.

Even as we travel up and down through the show capped mountains, Magi settled in the trees and in their homes as they silently watch us pass through their neighborhoods.

Nothing like a good old dose of double edged judgement to remind you of your place in the world.

Just wanting to have a clear head, I stay silent as well as we make our way the last five minutes and finally arrive at the base of my Aunt Venessa's tree, the inners carved out and turned into a beautiful tree home. It's always been a place of wonder, amazement and magic. Not that so have use for most of those things nowadays.

I find tears welling in my eyes that I try to blink back as I go to knock on the door, but it pulls itself open before my hand can even touch the enchanted wood.

While my father did everything in his power to rid me of my Incubus traits, one way or another, my mother doing nothing to stop it, it was my Aunt who assured me that there was nothing wrong with me. It's only because of her that I feel safe enough to use magic at all. I've never quite understood how she and my father came from the same parents, not that I've had the pleasure, or misfortune of meeting them either. A fact that makes me belief that perhaps my Aunt Venessa is the black sheep of her family.

Which is precisely why I always feel at home with her.

Even now when it feels like my entire world is falling apart.

I walk into the welcoming threshold with heavy feet and a heavier heart, my head throbbing from the wild thoughts coursing through my brain.

There's no one in the living space when we enter, my Aunt more than likely sensing us with her magic barrier surrounding our houses still in her study down the hall. I throw myself into her couch, my eyes staring blankly at the ceiling.

My Soulmate.

My Chain.

My life.... is it even mine anymore?

The question has me sinking deeper into the couch, just as I hear heels clicking on the polished wood floors, the sound as familiar to me as my own voice.

I spent countless days and nights here helping my Aunt with her spells and potions, the woman doing odd jobs for hire to maintain her exquisite and expensive taste in, well, everything. Her lush couch being one of her more recent perchases and I allow the soft material to comfort me as my Aunt stops in the threshold to the rest of her house down the hall.

Thomas is already at the bar along the left wall, having grabbed glasses from the Kitchen behind the swinging door across from the main entrance.

I swallow thickly just as my Aunt sighs and I hear her settle down into an armchair a few feet in front of the decorated hallway behind her to the left.

"So, you've found your Soulmate." Are the first words she says and my head snaps up from along the back of the couch, shock coursing through me at the truth she's managed to effortlessly guess. Thomas comes around the back of the couch, handing drinks to my Aunt and I before settling to lean against the arm of the couch to my left.

I narrow my eyes warily at my Aunt but she holds my gaze fiercely with open regard, enough of it that I close my eyes and lean my head back one more, unable to hold her all seeing gaze.

As a child I was much more afraid of my Aunt Vanessa than some random Goddess.

Knowing she's waiting for confirmation to something she clearly already knows, I steel myself and nod, hating the way my heart constricts at the affirmation.