Escaped Daughter (Morrigan University #1)

1

“It’s been decided,” Father declared easily. “You will wed him in a few months.”

I didn’t even flinch or react, more than used to this sort of audacity with my family… Or insanity. Maybe both? I simply raised an eyebrow after several moments.

“I bet this is one of those times you truly wish warlocks were allowed to use mind control or force their family to do their will to get around that pesky law of consent. It won’t happen otherwise, Father. I won’t marry him or anyone else you order me to. Ever.”

My mother slapped me across the face in a flash. I was used to that as well. If my father had done such a thing, it would be abuse and detestable. But my mother? Oh, that was simply a woman disciplining her daughter to behave in an appropriate manner.

Obedient.

Silent.

Submissive.

Things like that and no, I didn’t see the difference in a female parent slapping a child simply because of their sex. Both were child abuse even if I was now eighteen.

“My answer is still no,” I pushed. “Beat me all you want; it’s never changed my answers before.”

“You ungrateful child,” Father seethed. “You are blessed we could arrange such a match when you are without any real magic.”

I had to swallow a reaction then. If I’d shown I had any magic, what they’d planned for me was far, far worse than an arranged marriage that benefitted them . I met his gaze without fear. “Oh, it’s for me and not your business?”

“You are a Shaw and you should benefit our family,” Grandmother cut in, giving me a dismissive wave. “Just as you benefit from our name. How else do you think you managed to get into Morrigan University?”

I couldn’t even hide my annoyance at that. “You can use that silver tongue of yours to sell ice to Indigenous people who live in frigid temperatures, Grammy, but I know better.”

It was hard not to smirk when she flinched at the term. She loathed it, but even she knew better than to strike a family member for using a loving term in front of servants .

I only did it because I loathed her , so it seemed fair.

“There is no cheating the system or anyone using their family names to get in,” I reminded her. “No important family has, and they brag about that.”

She narrowed her eyes at me. “There is no more important family than Shaw in the magical community.”

I sighed. “Yes, yes, but we are not the only important family. Others have been denied, so don’t try your tales on me. I got in on my own.”

“You still wouldn’t make it without this family, so do not push me to the point of disowning you, Bevin,” Father threatened.

“Please do,” I challenged, shocking the three of them into silence for once. Even the staff around us couldn’t hide their surprise.

Father recovered, and I practically saw the wheels of his mind spinning thinking that I was being a brat and bluffing. That couldn’t have been further from the truth. I wanted nothing more than for him to disown me and had been carefully plotting for years for this moment and the chance I pushed him to this point.

He kept his face calm, but I saw the amusement dance in his eyes that he only had when he thought he won and had an unbeatable ace up his sleeve. Fitting since he thought he knew me so well and honestly didn’t know the first thing about me.

“Fine, you think you are so wise and don’t need the Shaw name? I don’t think you’ll last the semester without using the protection of it.”

I wanted to laugh so hard I held my breath to keep it in. He used that as a threat yet wanted to marry me off to a “lesser” magical family where I wouldn’t have had the name anyways. Was he completely incapable of seeing reality past his narcissism?

I searched his eyes and let him assume I was mulling it over. “So you’re suggesting I register under grandfather’s name or something? Start school as Bevin Millen, a normal freshman?”

His lips twitched, liking the idea as if it was his own. “Yes, exactly that. You complete the semester without running home for help, using the Shaw name or wealth, and I’ll disown you.” He smirked at me after letting that sink in. “When you fail, you marry who I want like you should as a Shaw.”

I sneered at him. “I still won’t let you sell me like a property you own, Father . I’ll agree to choose from among five of your picks that would benefit the family, but the final choice is mine. I’m your daughter , not a car you can sell. Have some integrity to understand at least that.”

I caught my mother’s hand when she went to slap me this time, shocking them again. I glared at her when I shoved her arm away.

“I stand by that. You lecture and lecture about family loyalty—have some for me . I will pick from five so I have a chance at a real life with someone who will respect me and benefit our family. It also gives time to find any skeletons in the closet that could embarrass both of us instead of this impression you’re giving of selling off an embarrassing asset you’re stuck with. It’s humiliating.”

There was almost a hint of humanity in my father’s eyes, but it was gone in a flash, instead replaced with the greed of the chance to get more on his investment. I knew it would never come to my losing—as I’d rather die than give in to marrying any man he’d select for me—but I also wouldn’t show my hand by giving in so easily.

He would figure out how badly I wanted this instead of assuming it was on a bratty whim as he currently did.

“Deal,” he agreed, extending his hand to me. “You have no problem with a magically binding one, yes?”

“Not at all,” I answered, shocking them again. “I might not have the magic you wished of me, but I have my own integrity.” I extended my hand and placed it in my father’s, touching him repulsing me given how much I hated him. I felt his magic flash over me as we locked in our deal. I couldn’t hide my smile then.

“Smile all you want, but you will fail, child,” he mocked.

“If you say so.” I pulled my hand away, still smiling. “I’m simply happy it has to be fair now.” Oh, I bet they all swallowed flinches then. None of them were known for being fair. I didn’t think any of them knew the meaning of the word which was why my comment about integrity was actually a dig.

No one in the Shaw family had any .

I headed off to the indoor arboretum and acted as if I wasn’t doing cartwheels inside. Father never understood how easy it was to manipulate him because of his narcissism and pride. He looked down on everyone and it made him completely vulnerable to being taken advantage of. The only reason he wasn’t more often was he was scary powerful… And simply scary.

It was widely known he was not a man to cross or the cost would be more than any were willing to pay. And it was normally much higher than most would expect the punishment to be. Funny, since again, he wasn’t one to play fair. But it was how no one ever screwed over the Shaw family.

I hadn’t though. He would fully believe it was his idea and I was a bratty woman who he had no respect for. His ego and delusions had given me both things I’d wanted most.

A chance to be disowned.

And to not start school with the Shaw name. My parents and grandmother might have thought it the greatest thing in the world and the best name in the magical world. The reality was it was a curse. Sure, it came with money and power, but a whole lot of negatives came with that.

Plus, a lot more given how ruthless my family was. That left a lot of people who also hated us.

Nothing sounded better to me than shedding all of that and using the respectable last name of my grandfather who had married into the Shaw family. He’d done it to save them, but from what he’d told me, my great-grandparents had still led them to their demise. He had never said more than that, and with my family that could mean anything.

But something in his tone always made me believe his family hadn’t been without fault either. Almost as if they’d made the deal with the devil knowing exactly what it was and had gotten bitten in the end. That was what he’d always tried to warn me of most. Or so I’d thought. He’d died when I was thirteen and there was a lot I missed from his teachings.

“You did well, child,” an elderly male voice praised as I walked into the arboretum. I glanced around to make sure no one was there, especially the staff who reported everything to my parents.

“Thank you,” I replied under my breath as I sat at the fountain. I glanced down fondly at Clarence, one of my only and oldest friends. “I’ll figure a way to bring you with and—”

He hopped closer and nuzzled my hand. “I have lived much longer than any normal frog, Bevin. It will be my time soon and we both know this. I believe it was the gods’ plan that I make it to this point to see you safe. Now it’s time for you to be free and for me to move on to what comes next.”

I swallowed my feelings as I rubbed my fingers over his small body. “I would be dead if not for you. How can you ask me to leave you behind and be treated as just a frog when you’re gone?”

“I’ll be gone, so what does it matter what is done to my body?” he countered. “You are too watched here for you to see it. Even you are not such a good actress to hide what my death will do to you. Do not grieve for me. It will upset me. Instead, know I will be at the big pond with the gods enjoying their graces after doing my part in their plan.”

Saving me. He’d always said saving me from my parents was his purpose in life.

Being able to hear animals talk was incredibly rare even in the magical community. I’d been five when I first heard a bird do more than chirp, or so I’d thought. Luckily, I’d been smart enough not to tell my parents and kept it to myself. Right before my seventh birthday was when I finally knew for sure and heard something clearly.

Clarence. He knew somehow that I could hear them, and he gave me the warning that saved my life. Witches and warlocks were immune to most poisons in nature, and my mother thought it amusing to keep certain animals in the arboretum that would hurt humans… Like a poisonous frog. What she didn’t know was a lick from one and it could significantly mute our powers for testing.

That was what had saved my life. Clarence had done that and hidden how powerful I was before I was tested—as per tradition—on my seventh birthday.

What wasn’t part of tradition?

I didn’t have a huge party befitting a Shaw. I didn’t know that was odd until later or that my siblings had had them. They had kept me completely secluded and hidden from our society because the Shaws had a secret worse than selling their daughters off in marriages.

Well, they had lots of dirty secrets, but one was leaps and bounds above the rest.

They had a tradition of sacrificing their youngest child to boost the power of their male heir. Insane, right?

And yet I knew it to be the truth as it was how my father was so powerful. My grandmother had sacrificed her own youngest child to make him that way. I had heard it all with my own ears after doubting the talking frog as a child. My grandfather never knew the truth, thinking an accident had happened when he was away on business, and I’d never had the heart to tell him.

He already knew my grandmother was the devil and evil to the core. No reason to confirm it again and torture him with a pain he couldn’t shoulder or that would destroy him with trying to take revenge.

But the ploy had worked and I registered as next to no magic. And I couldn’t be hidden anymore. By High Council law all children’s magical assessments had to be recorded within thirty days of turning seven. So that was the one chance to use me as a sacrifice to up the power of my eldest brother, Alex.

Not that I trusted any of them for a second they wouldn’t still use me if they found out I was powerful, which was why I still hid it.

“Clarence, you were right,” one of the birds said as it flew over to us. “They will check her again before she leaves. Her mother thinks she caved too easily and is up to something. She convinced the father that her magic might have bloomed and to make sure before releasing her from the house.”

“Despicable people,” Clarence seethed. “Well, we know what to do and how to handle it. We always have. You have much to do before leaving for school. They think it will be in two weeks, but you signed up for that early seminar, yes?”

I snorted, nodding. Anything to get out of this house early. I might not have had the magic they wanted to use me as a sacrifice, but I knew I was gorgeous by society standards and my parents preyed upon that. Or more, they played that up as a listing on my resume as if selling a mare. Also, how na?ve I was, sheltered, well trained to be submissive… Everything a deplorable—but powerful—man would want.

Ass. Holes. My mother and grandmother especially, as women, to do this to a woman of their own family. So I’d been homeschooled my whole life, college the only time that it wasn’t allowed. In many ways, I was light-years ahead of others with my private tutors and such, but anything magical I was severely stunted as I’d hid my powers, and my tutors had always been on my parents’ side.

Always. I’d learned that very, very early how fast they would report everything on me.

But at least education was the one area our society wasn’t sexist on. The mind and magic were to be challenged always, and the higher your family level, the more it was expected of you. So the only time I didn’t disappoint my parents was when I ate up more and more books on magical theory and languages, studied histories of ancient civilizations long gone that our beliefs came from.

To them, it showed that at least I had some of the Shaw blood in me, and it was a selling point that I was so well-educated.

To me, it simply kept them off my back and gave me more weapons in my arsenal for the real world when I broke free of them. I knew they thought I was completely ignorant and would run home within a week. The funny thing about that was they were also ignorant on technology, deeming it a human toy and crass.

Well, a lot could be learned through social media and the internet, so I wasn’t as ignorant as they hoped. Did I think I was prepared for real life and college? Fuck no. I wasn’t deluded. I knew I was na?ve and chum in the water, but I knew that , and that was an advantage over those who lied to themselves.

Plus, I had a lot of furry friends who told me tons about everything my parents kept from me.

“Then let’s get started as you have a lot to do,” Clarence said firmly, knowing full well I’d want to spend most of my remaining time with him.

As it was probably the only time he had left.