What Remains by Bailey Bradford (to read list txt) 📕

it’d be best if he participated in casting the spell. But it could have been someone else’s hair. This is just a precaution. I mean, unless you can think of someone who’d want to hurt Severo?”

Laine could, and judging by the pain flaring bright in Sev’s eyes, he thought the same thing.

“My parents,” Sev said in a tight voice. “They’re the only ones who’d want to strip everything they could from me.”

* * * *

After making arrangements to meet with Miriam tomorrow to learn what he needed to do to help cast the spell, Sev settled beck beside Laine. His heart hurt, knowing, believing as he did that his parents had done such a thing.

“They probably came up with this idea after Rogelio mentioned me. They’d seemed to have forgotten about me before then.”

Laine pulled Sev over until he was sprawled half on top of Laine. “I don’t believe they ever forgot about you. But yeah, I think that’s probably what set them off, that or Alma telling them she wasn’t going to cut you out of her family’s lives. Either way, it was a hateful thing to do. And if that was your hair, I wonder how they got it?”

Sev knew the answer to that. “Mom used to save bits of our hair every time we got it cut. I would have thought she’d burned mine, but then again, I wouldn’t have thought she or my father would ever turn to a curandero. It’s stupid of me to think I know anything about them other than that they hate me.”

“I think they’re scared of you,” Laine corrected, his words so similar to Rogelio’s that Sev almost smiled. “People fear what they don’t understand, we’ve heard that often enough, seen it at least as many times as we’ve heard it.”

“Yeah, but why couldn’t they just accept me? Tolerate me, if they couldn’t love me?” Sev willed his welling eyes to dry. He wouldn’t break down over this, not when he’d come to terms with it years ago. Or thought he had.

“Because they are some seriously fucked up people, sweetheart.” Laine dipped his head and kissed the corner of Sev’s eye. “I don’t see how anyone can’t love you. The problem lies with them, not you. Never you.”

As he closed his eyes and listened to more of Laine’s comforting words, Sev wished he could believe him.

Chapter Nine

Rogelio looked a little thunderstruck, Sev thought. He’d brought his nephew with him to meet with Miriam. Alma had been unsure about it, but once Sev had told her and Roger what someone had done to the McKinton spirits, and just who he and Laine thought that someone was, Alma had quickly agreed to let Rogelio accompany him.

She’d also told him that their mother had been going to a curandero in secret for years now. In secret, at least, in regards to their father. There was no way that rigid old man would tolerate his wife turning to such a heathen practice.

He’d been furious when his own mother had gone to a curandero, but all Grandma had done was point out who held the purse strings and Sev’s father had shut up. If he found out his wife was going, who knew what he’d do, even if she was using the curandero to hurt Sev.

“Will you be participating in the ceremony too, Rogelio?”

Rogelio swallowed noisily. “Sure, if my parents will let me. I, uh, I don’t have to get naked or anything, do I?”

Sev thought the kid sounded more hopeful than not.

Miriam laughed and ruffled Rogelio’s hair. “No, there’ll be no getting naked. You’re a minor, none of us want to go to jail for dancing skyclad around you.”

“It means naked,” Sev said before Rogelio could ask.

“I also have someone outside of the coven coming to help. I made another call last night.” Miriam turned and waved to someone in a group of people behind her. A pretty young woman with dark brown hair and large almost black eyes walked over. She was dressed in a long skirt and a loose blouse, but even so Sev could tell she was built in that voluptuous way that made most straight men drool. Rogelio didn’t even look at her breasts, which, Sev noted, jiggled when she walked.

Yep, the kid’s gay. Not that I really doubted it.

Miriam took the woman’s hand and held it. “Severo, Rogelio, this is Veronica, a good friend of mine. She’s also a very well-known and powerful curandera.”

Sev wondered if he imagined the shimmering power he felt when he shook Veronica’s hand. He doubted it, considering her eyes widened and her full red lips parted.

“You’re a very powerful man as well,” Veronica purred. It freaked Sev out, because he was relatively certain she was…ogling him.

“He’s also very happily gay,” Miriam dryly pointed out. “Down girl, and don’t do that sultry stuff with this one”—she pointed to Rogelio—“he’s still a kid.”

“And gay, too,” Rogelio rushed out as he shook Veronica’s hand as quickly as he could. Sev noticed he wiped his palm on his jeans. Did his hand tingle too or was he afraid Veronica would give him girl cooties?

Veronica laughed good-naturedly then gave them both a friendly smile. “Figures. I’m destined to be attracted to men I can’t have.” She winked at them, which brought a flush to Rogelio’s cheeks and a grin to Sev’s lips.

“Maybe you should make a charm for that,” Sev teased and laughed along with Veronica.

“Right. I prefer not to interfere in my life’s path. I’m too busy delving into others’.” Veronica cocked her head and stared into Sev’s eyes. He was thrown back over two decades to when he was a child, staring into another curandero’s dark eyes. “You have a good soul. Someone close to you hates you for it. It’s not because of what you do, but because they fear that you are pure of soul and touched by the gods because of it. There’s intense jealousy, envy…we’ll need to cast a protection