Spell Cat by Tara Lain Page 0,4
me okay, yes, but king? Nonsense.”
Her dark blue eyes narrowed. “Ah, but they could come to see you as such when you assure more power for our kind against the increasing threat of the human hordes.”
What the hell was she up to? “What increasing threat?”
She leaned back. “Even you must see that the rise of religious fanaticism all over the world could easily bring us back to tribunals and witch burnings.”
“I see no such thing, but even if it did come to that, the humans would just murder one another as they did in the earlier centuries. They hardly ever caught a real witch—although they certainly blundered into wiping out a few of us.”
She frowned. “Well, I suppose you’d know, though why you insist on that idiotic teaching profession I’ll never understand.”
He sighed. “We’ve covered this a few thousand times.”
“Yes, yes. Empathy, the masses, the great unwashed.” She rose grandly. “Let’s take our coffee in the living room, shall we?”
Killian followed her from the “cozy” table for sixteen, through the grand arch into the “family” living room, which was far smaller than the formal living room. A few hundred people could hang out in there. Witches were wealthy as a race, and the Barths, as the most powerful, were also among the richest.
His mother gestured to the flowered love seat. Love. Not something this house boasted a lot of. He stalked to the window and stared at the garden. His back didn’t stop her talking. “On Saturday, we’ll have an early gathering of the select few here and then welcome the community in the formal living room at seven for cocktails and dinner. And, of course, the announcement of your betrothal.”
Gods, just the word made his stomach turn. He swallowed. Fight, scream, gnash teeth. Didn’t matter. She had him by the short and curlies. The horrifying truth didn’t change. Something was killing his race. Witch power lessened with every generation, until some witches might as well have been human. Apparently—though it made him want to vomit—he was the only one who could stop it.
He turned toward her. His mother packed huge witch power in a tiny frame, barely over five feet. His father must have been tall, since Killian topped Evangeline by a full foot. She smiled sweetly. “You will help with the party, won’t you, darling?”
He collapsed into one of the reasonably forgiving chairs. Gods forbid anyone should get too comfortable. “I’ll help.”
“And you’ll make me proud of you?”
This had only one meaning. “You mean by being civil to Lavender Karonoff, thereby not pissing off her powerful father and his coven.”
She sat opposite him. “I mean by being charming to Lavender and her very powerful family, or she will likely turn you into a mouse.”
He laughed. “You really think she’s that good, huh?”
“Reported by all my sources to be the most powerful female witch of the younger generation.”
He slowly crossed his legs. Throwing his power around was really contrary to his nature, but sometimes…. “That doesn’t mean she’s more powerful than I am.” He gazed at his mother over his steepled fingers. “You aren’t.”
She shot him a killing glance. “And that’s precisely why a union between you is so important. Your offspring will engender a new level of power in future witchery, undoing the impact of the witch/human unions and assuring the continuation of our kind over many more centuries.”
It sounded like catechism. “And the fact that no woman of any kind has ever given me a boner doesn’t interfere with your plans at all?”
She half rose from her seat. “Killian Barth, do not be vulgar!”
He leaned forward as she resettled. “Mother, as you have known since I was seven, I’m gay. Women do not excite me.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
By the time he stopped laughing, he had to brush tears from the ends of his hair. “Sorry, honestly I am. Hell, I wish I could just donate my sperm like humans do.”
“You know that won’t work for witch males. And there’s no need to discuss such things in polite company.”
He nodded. Witch sperm died outside the magic body, and that was just fact. Shit. “Yes, Mother.”
She shook her head. “Gods, you remind me of your father.”
Not that again. She always tossed that at him when she was least pleased with him. Strange. His father’s sperm had produced this so-called great witch, but in the times she talked about the man, it was always with disdain.
She sat on the edge of her seat, arms crossed. “Do