Anathema (Causal Enchantment #1)(62)
Mortimer glared at the dog. “You disappeared from my mind, but I thought you were just angry with me! I didn’t think you had traded allegiances.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I interjected, forcing bravery. “Why? Why would you do something so …” My eyes burned but no tears came. Even my eye ducts were in shock.
“Monstrous?” A smile flickered over Viggo’s lips. “Well, at least we can give up this silly charade. It was becoming quite taxing.” His voice, once placid and soothing, had a sinister edge now. Maybe it had always been there, but I’d been deaf to it until now. “I need to move somewhere less … cluttered.” Viggo’s eyes skimmed over the corpses and destruction in the room. “Sofie, why don’t you explain why I felt the need to kill Evangeline’s mother? And make sure you explain your part in it.”
Sofie was part of this? Of course she was. She’s a murderer. Ursula confirmed it. My stomach twisted, all the same.
“Do I tell her the truth, or your version of it?” Sofie retorted bitterly.
Viggo responded with a wicked chuckle. “Do you even remember what the truth is anymore?” With that, he vanished, Mortimer in tow.
“Let’s get out of here,” Sofie said quietly.
I nodded, not because I wanted to go anywhere with Sofie, but I needed to get away from this death zone. I zeroed in on the hallway beyond the door, not allowing my eyes to wander for even a second as we maneuvered around the blood and gore.
We went to the library. “Where to begin,” Sofie said, settling on the leather couch. She folded her hands in her lap and stared at them, lost in thought.
“How about explaining why you’ve been watching me my entire life,” I snapped, drawing her emotionless, pale green stare to my face, “and why you cursed me. And about my mother’s death.” Once the questions began, they spilled out like an overturned jar of beans, scattering uncontrollably. “This crazy Ursula woman, who was she? And Nathan, the guy you murdered?”
My last question sparked a reaction. Sofie’s pale eyes displayed raw pain. I had struck a cord.
“Nathan is the vampire who turned me,” she answered quietly, then exhaled as if to compose herself before launching into a long explanation. But then she was up and pacing around the room, nervously chewing on her thumbnail. I wasn’t used to this side of Sofie—anxious, uncertain. I watched in silence, intrigued.
“Nathan and I were desperately, madly, irrevocably in love,” she began, running one of her slender hands through her silky red hair, a waver in her voice. “You should have seen him, Evangeline. He was the inspiration behind the tall, dark, and handsome cliché. Gorgeous. I remember the moment I first laid eyes on him. It was 1887. I was sure my chest would swallow itself whole.” She dropped her hand to her side. “Anyway, Nathan was a vampire and I was a witch and our kinds abhor one another, which made our relationship tricky, to say the least. Like the Montague and the Capulet families in Romeo and Juliet.”
So now you’re trying to compare yourself to the greatest love story of all time? I wanted to snort.
Sofie smirked. “Maybe not as enchanting, but definitely as heart–wrenchingly impossible.”
Ugh, I forgot—she could read me like an open book.
“We wanted to spend the rest of our lives together and, for Nathan, that meant eternity. Now, that was trickier. You see, witches, if exposed to a vampire’s venom, will simply die. Every single time. We can’t survive the transition. I don’t know why; it’s in the genes, I suppose. Anyway, naïve and ambitious as I was, I was bound and determined to figure out a spell around this certain death. I knew I was a uniquely gifted sorceress and I was arrogant enough to believe I could solve what others had been unable to. I did solve it …” Her eyes sparkled with excitement that was extinguished almost instantly. “Or I thought I did. Never once did I imagine such terrible consequences.”
Sofie paused long enough to sit down in the leather chair. “Nathan was such a fool. He fully trusted me. I told him to bite me, to inject me with venom, and he did. When I woke up, I was immortal. I knew it instantly. I could feel the overwhelming power coursing through my veins. It was exhilarating.” Sofie sighed sadly. When she continued, her voice was thick with torment. “I found Nathan’s lifeless body lying beside me. The spell had reversed the consequences. It killed him. I killed him.”
She’d cast the spell for love. Not for selfish, foolish gains, as Mortimer had said. He had lied as well.
“I killed my soul mate, Evangeline. And I would have jumped into a flaming pit, had it not been for Veronique.” Sofie was out of her chair again and standing in front of the mantel in the blink of an eye, smiling adoringly at the painting of the dark–haired beauty. “Veronique was my younger sister.” Her voice fell, grew distant. “She was normal … Not a witch, I mean. The sorceress’s gene skipped her. She was always so supportive of my love for Nathan, for a vampire. The only supportive one. That’s because she understood implicitly. She was madly in love with not one, but two of them—one named Mortimer and the other named Viggo.”
I thought my eyes were going to pop out of their sockets.
Sofie turned to me and chuckled. “Yes, my silly, sweet sister saw something in both of them. Outrageous, isn’t it? Veronique was waiting to decide between the two before transforming to spend eternity with them.” She swallowed hard, looking down at the floor. “When I cast my spell, it destroyed that possibility for her. Mortimer felt the change immediately. He described it as the only life force within him, drained. Later we learned that every vampire felt something strange happen. They soon discovered that their venom was rendered useless. It was an unexpected outcome of the spell. Things like that can happen.