The Wizard King Read Free Page B

take her in when she had shown up on her doorstep with no place else to go. Something about the nonmagical Kerry made Gen want to protect her and watch over her. The fact that she’d managed to survive their attack would make Hugh, especially, want to take her again.
    Gen couldn’t allow that, so living with Kerry, protecting her in person, was the perfect solution. She got a place to stay, and Kerry had the magic of an Own to defend her. It was win-win.
    To keep Kerry safe, Gen had done everything she could think of to protect the very unmagical Kerry from attacks. She’d shielded Kerry’s home, her car, her place of work, given her additional protection amulets on top of what Annabelle Evans had done for her… There was nothing she could think of that could protect Kerry more in Gen’s absence. But she still planned on returning as quickly as possible. There was no telling what Hugh and Arthur would do if they knew she’d left Kerry alone for longer than a day or two.
    And if Kerry got hurt because of Gen, Lana would truly never forgive her. Thank goodness Annabelle Evans, Lana’s grandmother and grande dame of the Philadelphia coven, had agreed to watch over Kerry whenever Gen had to go on the hunt. She wasn’t happy they were keeping things from her granddaughter, however, and let them know it whenever they spoke to her. “Maybe you should tell Lana.”
    Kerry grunted her disagreement. “If I tell her, she tells Chris, and then guess who else hears about it?”
    Gen bit her lip. As much as she wanted to see him again, she knew what a bad idea it was. The man hated her, and Gen didn’t blame him one iota. Her family had done nothing but cause his grief for years. “Then wish me luck.”
    “Good luck.” Kerry’s tone was full of doubt. “If you don’t come back in two days I’m calling in the cavalry. And I expect phone calls.”
    The cavalry being Annabelle. “As you wish.” Gen smiled, wishing she could shed some of the mannerisms that made her seem so uptight. But as a member of the Godwins she’d had those affectations drilled into her since she was a child. It was expected of her, to be the pretty porcelain doll her father paraded in front of his blue-blooded wizard friends.
    When she’d seen the first Harry Potter movie, she’d gasped at the Malfoy family. They had been eerily familiar, right down to their disdain for mundanes. And when she’d realized what she, and the rest of her family, actually were she’d offered herself to the Goddess before her father could force another unwanted choice upon her.
    She smiled as a feeling of warmth swept over her. The Goddess had accepted her plea and protected her from the Godwin men and their evil machinations. But before that, it had been her mother who’d protected her.
    Her mother had taken care of her, had loved her when no one else did. She cast a spell that hid Gen’s nature from the rest of the family, with unintended consequences that wound up nearly costing Chris Beckett his life.
    Because of her mother the Registry hadn’t picked up on what Davis and the rest of the Godwins had become until it was almost too late to stop them.
    Her mother’s spell, driven by love and the desire to protect Genevieve, had spilled over onto the entire bloodline. It had hidden their warlock status from everyone, much to Davis Godwin’s delight. He hadn’t been certain why his wizard wife, cowed by his evil, had cast the spell, but he hadn’t questioned the gift. Davis Godwin, his daughter and his sons had been listed as wizards in the Registry until Chris, Daniel, Zach and Gareth Beckett had questioned just how Cole had been able to cast some of the spells he had. They had ripped away the veil her mother had put in place all those years ago, bearing the family to the court’s scrutiny and eventual expulsion.
    But not before Cole Godwin had almost become the wizard king.
    When Davis Godwin realized Cole was up for the position of king, he was beyond