Tethered (A BirthRight Novel) Read Online Free PDF Page A

everything about anyone who’d ever laid their hands upon it.
    Unfortunately, my father didn’t find her gift to be as wonderful as I did. He used to get so pissed at my mother for what was in his eyes, an invasion of other people’s privacy. It had gotten to the point where she’d walk around with her hands in her pockets, just to avoid an argument. It was irrelevant that it didn’t happen the very second she touched something. She had to take a moment to focus on the object before the flashes of information would flood her mind.
    The technicalities didn’t matter to my closed-minded father. He didn’t trust her not to snoop around where she didn’t belong. He always hated my family’s magic. No, more like, he resented it. If only she’d been honest with him before they’d gotten married, but Gram didn’t think it would be a wise idea. History was always doomed to repeat itself in her eyes. And she was right.
    But my mom hopelessly loved my father back then. Gram knew if he’d heard the truth, he would have never married her, which would have crushed my mom. And considering how difficult things had gotten for my mom after he’d found out, I know Gram regretted her interference. Even though she’d been right about how he’d react.
    My parents argued so much those last few years, and it always broke my heart to see my mother filled with such regret. She hated that she hurt him—and he never let her forget it.
    In the end, she paid the ultimate price for her betrayal—and for her gift.
    What had she touched to set him off? What had she seen?
    Most of their fights blend together in a haze of memory from childhood, but it was the last fight they had that remains crystal clear in my mind.
    It was that last fight that made me hate who I am—and forced me to run away from everything I ever knew and loved.
     

Chapter 2
A Familiar Face
 
    The memory of that day makes my head spin and I’m no longer in the mood for chatter. I need air. “Would you guys excuse me for a minute?” I jump to my feet.
    “Is everything okay, dear?” Gram places her silky-soft hand on my shoulder.
    “I’m okay.  I think the trip down memory lane is getting to me a bit. I just need some fresh air to clear my head.”
    Dhelia snorts. “Well, I guess you shouldn’t have started it then.”
    My head droops as I try to think of something to say.
    “Are you sure you’re okay?” Gram’s eyes turn glassy. She knows how hard it is for me to be here— and to talk about magic.
    I hug her as I whisper, “I’ll be okay. I promise. But can I borrow the car for a bit?”
    “The keys are on the table beside the front door. Take all the time you need, dear.”
    I turn to walk outside, but the guilt kicking me in the gut only makes me feel worse. I get in the car and put the windows down, praying the chilly air clears the memories from my mind.
    But it doesn’t
    As I pull in to the cemetery a few minutes later, I realize an overwhelming sadness is riding shotgun with my remorse.
    I can’t believe I’ve never been back to her grave since the day she was buried. If my broken heart didn’t know any better, it could swear the funeral was going on right now around me.
    As I kneel on the damp grass before her marble headstone, my mind picks up where it left off at Gram’s.
    The images in my mind so clear.
    I’ve tried so hard to forget. Even harder to bury the haunting vision from that day.
    But it all comes rushing back like a tidal wave.
    My parents’ death.
    No. My mother’s senseless murder !
    She was killed because of my father’s hatred of magic. I doubt he meant for it to be a murder/suicide. He was too much of a coward for that. But it was the end result, nonetheless.
    It’s been six long years, and I can still see it, like it’s the very first time. As if losing my parents wasn’t bad enough, I’m forced to see the rerun—every day, for the rest of my life.
    And just like that, I’m thirteen again, reliving the worst day