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asked to speak with the three of them. If I had made such a decision, I would have approached her quietly, and alone.
    Shaking my head, I replied, “No. I’m going to keep it.”
    Bryce set his hands flat on the tabletop. They were strong and weathered, tanned by the harsh Arizona sun. “You’re not serious.”
    “I am.” I sounded calm and in control, the antithesis of how I felt inside. Oh, well, in this case, I figured presentation was everything.
    Allegra blinked. “But — ”
    “But bearing a child to the Wilcox primus will kill me. I know.” The words came out flat, without inflection, just as I’d meant them to. I couldn’t let them hear the fear growing within me, growing just as surely as the baby inside my body.
    “You can’t really be that selfish,” Margot said, tone harsh.
    I glanced at her and raised my eyebrows. “‘Selfish’?” I repeated. “How is that selfish?”
    “Your responsibility is to your clan, not to Connor Wilcox.” Her dark eyes seemed to bore into mine, and I had to force myself not to flinch under her stare. “It seems he’s made it abundantly clear that he wants nothing to do with you. So why deprive the McAllisters of their prima just to bear a child that will bring nothing but death?”
    “It’s an innocent baby,” I protested. “It’s not as if it’s going to come out twirling a mustache and plotting to take over the world. It’s the curse that’s the problem, not the baby.”
    “The child and the curse are linked,” Bryce said. “You can’t have one and not the other — not with the offspring of a Wilcox primus .”
    That was no more than simple fact, I supposed, and in that moment I truly understood for the first time why Damon Wilcox had fought so hard against the dark destiny to which he’d been born, through no fault of his own. “Well, then, I guess I’ll just have to break the curse.”
    Margot let out a cold little laugh. “And that’s worked out so well so far, hasn’t it?”
    “Not for the Wilcoxes, no,” I admitted. Then my brain started to churn away as it pondered those words. True, no Wilcox had ever succeeded in undoing the curse cast so many years earlier, but technically, I wasn’t a Wilcox. And, as Connor’s cousin Marie had once pointed out, I wasn’t just any witch. I was prima of the McAllisters. “So maybe it’s time to apply a little McAllister ingenuity to the problem.”
    Bryce said, not blinking, “That’s a shot in a million. You should really have Allegra help you.”
    Help you. There was a nice euphemism for an abortion. Not that they were probably thinking of it in those terms. All they could see was their prima in jeopardy, with no clear successor in sight. True, in my clan the power wasn’t passed from mother to daughter, but its vessel still appeared only once in a generation, and any girl who might be the next inheritor was barely toddling at this point, far too young for her abilities to have begun to manifest themselves.
    I hesitated, trying to find words to shoot him down that didn’t include “fuck you, Bryce.” At the same time, Allegra twisted nervous fingers around one another and said plaintively, “How did this even happen?”
    Margot shot her a disbelieving look. “I’m fairly certain we all know how this happened, Allegra.”
    Color rose to the other woman’s cheekbones. “That’s not what I meant. Surely Rachel taught you to be careful, Angela?”
    “Of course she did,” I replied with some irritation. “And I was. But somehow…it just didn’t work, that last time.”
    “‘That last time,’” Margot repeated, brows drawing together, as if she’d had a sudden thought. “When was the last time you and Connor were intimate?”
    Oh, Goddess. But I knew it was a legitimate question, and one I’d already answered on the questionnaire I filled out at Planned Parenthood. Anyway, the date was burned permanently in my brain, considering the events that had taken place the next day.