“She belongs with us, her people, not yours.” The next voice slithered through me with as much warmth as a snake. Caron, the coven leader, the woman who’d tortured BJ. And when Karson had stormed in to save us both, she left men, paid human guards as a distraction, to die, just so she could get away. The witch was comfortably intimate with cruelty. I’d hate her if she wasn’t the same woman who had used her magic to save my life.
Karson snorted. “Her people? Where were her people when she was tossed into foster care for all those years? You fed her to the wolves and wonder why she wants nothing to do with you.”
I swallowed. I tried not to think of what kind of people my biological parents were to dump their child and leave her to be treated like I was. I tried not to think about them at all. They didn’t deserve my energy wasted on them. But as much as I told myself to let it go, there was a twisted part inside that would never forgive them for what they’d done.
“Her childhood is irrelevant. She needs to come with us. She needs to train for what lies ahead. The wolf has been anxious. The attack on the waters is coming, and she will be needed to fight.”
“She will never fight for you.” His voice came out quietly, but it was deadly—he was getting angry. You did not want to anger Karson—not if you wanted to live. “I will not allow her to put herself in danger, ever. Do you understand me?”
“She’s a witch.” Another voice snapped, a woman’s, one I didn’t recognize. “She was born to protect those waters—that is her entire purpose.”
I chewed on my bottom lip. The thought of being born just to kill, of having to kill, and worse, of having people try to kill me … A swallow tapped down my throat.
“You and your pathetic coven have no rights over her.”
“Do you know what will happen if the book ends up in the wrong hands and those waters are spelled?” Caron appealed. “There will be war, people will die, mortals, vampires, and witches.”
“I’m well aware of the danger. I’m a product of them, after all.” A flare of arrogance in his tone.
Caron spoke quieter this time, and I couldn’t hear her. I edged forward and peered around the corner of the hallway. Caron, Dahlia, and a woman I didn’t know, stood in an arc just inside the open front door. Dahlia was dressed in her usual head-to-toe black. She stood a couple of feet to the side, arms folded. She was a formidable warrior. She had been trained since she was a young girl to be one. Unlike me. I didn’t even know I was a witch until about five months ago. I could move things with my thoughts, hit a knife into a bullseye, harness the power of a wind so strong I could hold a firstborn pinned against a wall.
Lucky for me or I’d dead.
But after a lifetime of training, Dahlia was far more skilled in battle than I could ever be. If the waters were attacked, I’d be all kinds of fucked.
If Dahlia needed to protect Caron, she would. Though she wasn’t stupid, and she wouldn’t try anything against Karson. Unless she lost her temper. Dahlia had a temper. My stomach twisted; I liked Dahlia, even if she was misguided and worked for Caron.
My eyes fell to the other woman, gray streaks through the roots of bright-red hair. She wore more heavy, chained crystals around her neck than a jewelry shop. “You and your kind are exactly why we can’t have it happen again,” the woman sneered, glaring at him like he was a bug she wanted to stamp with her booted heel. “You’re an abomination.”
Karson’s shoulders stiffened so subtly the others wouldn’t notice. But I noticed. Even though he kept his face expressionless, being called an abomination struck someplace deep.
He rolled up the sleeve of his shirt casually. “Tread very carefully, witch.” He spoke so softly I barely heard it. “Or your disrespect will be your last.” He too was dressed in all black, ready to blend with the night as if he belonged to it.
“You have to let her go,” Caron said. She was wearing a weird dark-purple cloak over her pants and blouse, the same type of cloak she’d worn when she made herself invisible to escape after she’d tortured BJ. “This thing you think you have going on with her has to stop. We can protect her far better than you.”
“Shewill stay with me—she’s mine,” he snarled. “Now get out. I have far more pressing issues at the moment than worrying about something that might not even happen.”
She’s mine.Bird wings fluttered in my chest. I wouldn’t tell anyone because it probably made me sound pathetic, but pathetic I must be because I wanted to be his. Ineededto be his. I didn’t know how he actually felt about me. He’d told me he loved me right before I drew what we all thought was my last breath. But death had a way of over-enhancing emotions and he hadn’t told me since. He cared enough to protect me, but could a vampire who detested witches love someone like me?
The red-haired witch whipped her head toward Caron. “I told you.” Her orange bell sleeve flapped as she threw out a spindly, boned hand. “I told youallof it was a bad idea.”
“Lila, enough.” Caron’s palm shot up to silence her, her gaze glowering with warning.
The red-haired woman turned her attention back to Karson. She stepped forward, her thin, cracked top lip pulled back with disgust. “You have far more pressing issues because being with you is the reason she’s in danger in the first place. Release her immediately, or I promise you, you will both suffer in unimaginable ways.”
I opened my mouth to cry outNo, but the word never left my lips.
There was a blur, a flash of black, no more than a streaking shadow, followed by a wet, ripping sound. Red, horribly bright, cradled by her orange hair, streaked through the dimly lit foyer like a blazing star. Her body slapped to the floorboards, crystals glinting from the crimson haemorrhaging from her severed neck. Her headthud, thud, thuddedsomewhere on the driveway outside.
I gasped. Bile rose up my throat and then slammed back into my stomach so hard that I stumbled sideways and had to brace my hand against the wall to hold myself steady.
I shouldn’t be surprised. I’d seen him tear off a vampire’s head to protect me. But violence wasn’t something I was used to; or could ever get used to.
Caron glanced at the headless body as if she didn’t know her, as if she’d seen death a thousand times before. She looked back at Karson, her lip curled up into a sneer. “Well done. If you want to break the treaty and start a war between witches and vampires, that is a perfect way to go about it.”
“Need I remind you, you entered my house. I’m within my right to protect myself and my loved ones. She threatened me.” He steepled his fingers. “Now I suggest you both leave before I lose my patience.”
Dahlia’s hand hovered above a blade on her belt, her jaw tight, her blue eyes spearing straight through him. Stepping to the side to avoid the blood slithering across the floor like spilled wine, she raised her chin, not an ounce of fear showing. “There are some things that are fated and almost impossible to curb. You can’t stop what’s going to happen, and we can’t win if we are too busy fighting each other. Youstupidfucking idiot.”
