Enchantment Emporium

Allie rolled her eyes. Gale boy or not, Dmitri thought a little too highly of himself. “It doesn’t work like that, and the aunties would never choose him, not if he wants it that much.”

“You’re sure?”

“Pretty sure, yeah.” She shifted inside the confines of the seat belt, really not wanting to talk about why she was sure with her father even though he had to have known that Dmitri’d spent Thursday night. He’d given him a ride to school Friday morning, so the odds were good. “Dmitri’s not powerful enough, and he’s too… tame.” Not quite the best description, but anything more exact crossed over the TMI line. Way over. Gale women were attracted to power, and it took a lot to keep them from wandering off. Dmitri just didn’t have what it took to hold the rituals in place.

“David…”

Allie waited for more, but the name just hung there.

“David’s not tame,” she said at last, rubbing at a smudge on the window with her sleeve. And then, because it was clearly where the conversation was heading, added, “Auntie Jane wants him.”

“So I’ve heard.” The aunties shared the habit of talking amongst themselves like they were the only ones in the room and, with two of them in the old farmhouse, her father had likely heard any number of conversations he’d have been happier remaining ignorant of. “Your Auntie Jane is worried David’s going to turn. Says it’s been very a long time since a Gale boy went bad, and it’s not going to happen on her watch.”

“Really?” Allie felt her lip curl. She couldn’t seem to stop it. “And who put Auntie Jane in charge?”

“I suspect Auntie Jane did.”

Hard to argue with that, actually. Even among the aunties, who insisted on a lack of hierarchy, force of personality won out. Even Gran had deferred to her, although she’d done it mockingly. Allie drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “David’s not going to turn.”

“They’re worried about how much time he spends away from the family.”

“He’s there if he’s needed. And come on, Dad, he works with the police. He helps put bad guys in jail. He’s… David. Sure he gets all dark and brooding sometimes, but hello, great power, great responsibility… she knows that. They all know that. Or don’t they listen to the lectures they give us?”

“You’re his baby sister, Kitten. You’re not exactly unbiased.”

“You’re his father!”

“Well, fathers. Sons. It’s complicated.”

She glanced over at her father’s smooth profile. Allie had asked her mother once if she’d been afraid the aunties would turn him down when she’d presented him. He was smart and funny and infinitely patient, but he brought nothing out of the ordinary to the family.

Fortunately, her mother had understood. “Don’t worry, Allie, when the time comes, they’ll approve Michael. Everyone likes him and that’s a very useful trait for the family to acquire. Or control if it comes to it. As for your father, well, your gran came home and made such a nuisance of herself that I think they agreed to accept him at least partially just to shut her up. And, who knows, maybe they saw what I saw in him.”

Of course, the aunties had never been given a chance to approve Michael and Allie’d come to see that infinite patience when dealing as an outsider with the Gale family was a wonderful thing to have. David had inherited some of that patience. Allie hadn’t. And none of that changed the fact that her father had no scars. He’d never gone head-to-head in a blind rut, unable to stop the need to dominate. He thought he understood his son, but really, bottom line, he couldn’t.

“David won’t turn,” she told him. “And he’ll choose when he’s ready to choose. If Auntie Jane wants to tie him to ritual and the land, wants to tame him with chains of family obligation, she’ll have to go through me!”

One dark brow rose. Unless he’d been practicing, it was likely they’d both gone up, but Allie could only see the one. “Tame him with chains of family obligation?”

“A little melodramatic?”

“Just a bit.” But he was smiling and the tense line of his shoulders—tension she thought had come from her leaving—had eased. Which was flattering and not terribly realistic since even Auntie Gwen, whose eyes had only just darkened, could go through her opposition like a knife through meringue. “I take it you don’t want me to repeat that to Auntie Jane?”

Allie literally felt her heart skip a beat. “Oh, God, no!”

“It’d help if he’d choose.”

David’s list was long enough that Allie suspected the aunties had bent a few lines trying to get him safely tied to one of his cousins.

“Or he could go Roland’s route. I know there’s cousins willing and that’d take the pressure off.”