Violet doesn’t feel like my mate anymore.
I look down at her and still love her, still need her. But that deep ache of possession is gone. She’s killed her wolf.
Thorin whimpers and cries in my mind and I don’t know what to do, how to soothe either one of us.
Aster goes to grab Violet’s wrist but Iris and Ember both point their wands at the older witch.
Aster laughs. “Just the two of you? Please,” she says, the idea of Iris and Ember being powerful enough to stop her is comical.
The door behind us creeks and Aster straightens her back.
“Daisy, go back in the house,” she says to her sister.
The older woman uses her cane, walking past me, and holding out a wand, giving it to Lavender.
“Go fuck yourself, Aster,” Daisy says, holding her own wand.
A united front of four witches stands against the High Priestess, yet I can barely look away from Violet. What has she done to her?
I stand next to her, keeping a grip on her wrist. Wherever she goes, I go too.
“I’m still the High Priestess. I did what had to be done, what was necessary.”
“You stole my baby from me, made me forget who I was, stole my magic, and had my daughter sit in an orphanage because you were afraid of what she would become,” Lavender says, her tone thick with sadness.
“You trapped me in myself,” Daisy says.
“It was for your own good,” Aster says and Daisy holds her wand higher, pointing it at her sister. “You’re the worst kind of witch, sister.” Aster laughs and sighs. “One day, you’ll realize what I did for this coven.”
She goes to teleport and then realizes she can’t; her face dropping, her thin lips forming a straight line when she realizes she’s been bested.
“What now? Tell me? How, even with the help from outside, do you plan on dealing with me?” she asks, like she has a plan.
“Undo what you’ve done to my daughter and we'll let you live,” Lavender says sternly.
A slow grin takes over Aster's face as she shakes her head. “That can’t be undone. I’ve made sure of it,” she says, holding up the chain of Violet’s necklace.
The anguish that floods through me on Thorin’s behalf nearly has me falling to my knees. I just hold on to Violet’s wrist, grounding myself to her, that she’s still physically here.
“What? None of you have the gall to kill me,” Aster says confidentially.
“No, far worse,” Lavender says.
A spell whips out of her wand and I watch as Aster falls to the ground, incapacitated.
“Get the rest of the coven here immediately. We need to do this now,” Lavender says.
I just hold on to Violet’s hand, feeling out of place and fucking helpless.
“What about Violet?” I ask.
“Stay with her, be there when she wakes up. We will have to run a diagnostic to see what Aster did to her so we can reverse it,” Lavender says, barely looking at her daughter, and I wonder if she blames herself like I do.
“What are you going to do with her?” I ask. Trying to push back how bad Thorin wants to kill that woman right now.
“Something far worse than death,” Lavender says.
Iris and Ember both stay in the shed with me for a short moment, touching their best friend. Ember wipes the tears away from her eyes.
