Free Darknight (The Witches of Cleopatra Hill Book 2) by Christine Pope

best to keep my tone neutral. I didn’t want to say anything that might keep Connor from talking.
    “Well, he’s been using his work to aid him in altering spells, making them stronger, making them do things no one else has been able to.” He spooned some beans onto his plate and then handed the bowl to me. I took it from him with a slight smile, but remained silent so as not to interrupt. “I’m not an expert, so I can’t begin to explain half of it, but he tells me that spells are energy, will is energy, and he’s learned to work with that energy in ways no other primus — no other warlock — ever has. So neither you nor anyone in your clan should beat themselves up too much over being bested by Damon Wilcox, because it’s hard to defend against something you never even knew existed.”
    “That’s…impressive,” I said after a pause. Well, that was one word for it, anyway. “Frightening” was another that came to mind, but I didn’t say it out loud.
    Connor shrugged. “He’s driven. It’s good for the clan, I suppose, but it’s…a little tiring.”
    I could imagine, even though I didn’t really want to think too hard about what it would be like to have Damon Wilcox as my older brother. But since Connor seemed to finally be talking, I thought I’d better see if I could get anything else out of him. “So….” Now that I thought I had an opportunity to ask questions, I didn’t even know which one to ask first.
    “So why do I put up with it?”
    I nodded.
    “It’s complicated.”
    “You told me that before.” I picked up the tongs and set another tamale on his plate, since he’d already finished off the first one. “You just didn’t tell me why.”
    The green eyes seemed to darken almost to black. “You really don’t want to hear all this.”
    “Actually, I do.”
    He poured some more wine into his glass, then topped mine off as well. “Why?”
    “Because….” I had to stop myself from saying, Because I think I’m starting to like you a lot more than I should. Instead, I told him, “Because I think it will help me to understand what’s going on here a little better.”
    Another pause. The steel-string guitar played in the background, fast and intense, accompanied by equally intense drumming. Connor let the music spool out for a moment, then sighed as he reached for his wine glass. “It’s not a pretty story.”
    “I figured it probably wasn’t. You want mine first, just to break the ice?”
    He gave me a smile with little humor in it. “I already know it — at least, about your mother dying when you were a baby, and how you don’t know who your father is.” His fingers tightened around the stem of his glass. “There are times when I wish I had that luxury.”
    I remained silent, waiting for him to go on. My heart, though, had begun to beat a little more quickly.
    “Do you know about the Wilcox curse?” he asked abruptly.
    “A little.”
    “Then you know the marriages in the direct line aren’t exactly happy ones.”
    Mouth tightening, I nodded again.
    “For a while it seemed like it might be different for my father and my mother. She was an artist, too — did a few shows, I guess, but she mostly liked to paint for herself.”
    “Those are hers, aren’t they?” I murmured.
    “What?”
    “The paintings in your room. They don’t look like your work. They’re hers?”
    “Yes.” He drank some more wine, a large gulp, but I wasn’t about to give him grief over that. Not when I could tell how difficult this must be for him. “She had Damon, and everyone started watching her carefully, because usually once the primus ’s wife has a son, the trouble starts. But she seemed fine. She was fine, for years and years. Then she got pregnant again.” He gave me a humorless smile. “Me. Damon’s almost ten years older than I am, and everyone thought it was a sort of miracle, and maybe for some reason the curse had finally been broken. Then….”
    The word trailed off