Eternally Yours Read Online Free PDF Page B

in the room was watching with round eyes, holding their breath: Here was more Nastasya-provided drama, for their benefit. Dinner and a show.
    “Yes, it is,” he ground out. “And you’re a dangerous stray dog my sister found! A piece of Terävä flotsam!”
    I can never remember the difference between flotsam and jetsam.
    River reached up and tugged on his sleeve. He ignored her.
    “Not
exactly
,” I said. Everyone here knew about my past, the unexpected legacy that I’d denied and avoided for 449 years. Apparently River hadn’t mentioned it to ol’ Ott here. He probably hadn’t let her get a word in edgewise, the windbag.
    My fingers were tingling, and I felt kind of otherworldly and weird. I’d spent a long, long time not thinking about my heritage, suppressing all memories of my childhood, my parents, my siblings. I think I would have been able to truly block it completely out of my mind if it weren’t for the permanent, irrevocable reminder I carry with me always: the scar on the back of my neck. It’s round, almost two inches across, and is the exact image of one side of the amulet that my mother had worn every day. It had been burned into my skin the night my parents died. Every day for the last 449 years, I’ve worn a scarf or a high collar or both, and in all that time, only three people had ever seen it, that I know of: Incy, River, and Reyn.
    The point is, I’d invested huge amounts of effort into forgetting my identity. But I was suddenly itching to drop a bomb on Ott.
    “Yes,
exactly
!” His voice was loud in this plain room. “And whatever plan you have here, whatever goal you have in mind, you will fail. I’ll see to it.”
    “Now that’s seriously bad news, Ott,” I said. “Since my only goal is to learn and become all Tähti-tastic.”
    My parents had been Terävä—practicers of the “dark”kind of magick, where you take power from things around yourself, stealing their energy to increase your own power. This process tended to kill things. Tähti magick was a relatively newish form where one channeled the earth’s innate power through oneself, thus not killing anything around you. Most immortals are still Terävä—it’s much easier than being Tähti. Incy was Terävä. I was choosing not to be.
    “Ottavio,” River murmured, and again her brother ignored her.
    “You may have fooled my sister,” Ottavio said.
    River sat up. “Hey.”
    “But
I
see you clearly: an opportunist, here to weaken our house, to learn our secrets, to plant evil here. The events that took place in Boston—they were unforgivable.”
    “I totally agree with you,” I said seriously, and I meant it. “But I didn’t set those events in motion.”
    “You deny that you took part in that desecration?”
    “I deny that I caused it or helped it,” I said, losing whatever passed for patience in my life. “I mean, please. I can barely match my socks in the morning, much less cook up some big plot. Long-term siege? I can’t commit to a cell-phone plan. I need to be here—I need to become better. But I have
no
need to weaken your house. I have no need for anyone’s power but my own.” I stood there and crossed my arms over my chest, trying to look serious and determined. Eleven sets of eyeballs followed us left to right, like a Ping-Pong game.
    When I had acknowledged myself as my mother’s daughter, my father’s heir, I’d chosen to claim my ancestral power and my position as the sole heir of the House of Úlfur. It was like an effete hamster choosing to become Mr. Universe. I had a long way to go, to use understatement of galactic proportions. But that didn’t mean I was going to take this crap from Ott lying down.
    Ottavio gave a derisive laugh. “Your power is laughable. Of course you would want ours.”
    “Not
that
laughable,” I said. I was getting more and more wound up, more anxious to have this be over.
    “Ottavio,” River said firmly.
    But he was on a tear now and drew himself up,