“I’m dealing with my grief in the best way I can,” I hissed. “You can ask the guys. I haven’t hurt anyone.”
“Except Uncle Bob.” Kelly shot back.
“That was different,” I flinched. “I did that foryou.Because you were hurting in a hospital bed and I had to help you. It seems you’re fine to take the help of a sinner when it gets you a plane ticket to England and a bank account full of money, but as soon as it shits on your puritanical sensibilities you get all holier-than-thou.”
“This is so typical of you!” Kelly yelled. “Twisting everything around so I’m the one who looks like the bad guy. Nothing’s changed for you – your life is still perfect. You have an inheritance and a hot guy and a whole future. You could have sold this castle and gone to MIT and lived your life just the way you always wanted it. Instead, you chose to shit all over Mum and Dad’s memories. The sand isn’t even cold on their grave and you’ve already thrown everything they taught you out the window.”
“Get out,” I growled.
Kelly’s face froze. “Wait, Maeve, I didn’t?—”
“No. We’re done.” I turned away. Behind me, Kelly let out a strangled sob. A moment later, I heard her feet running down the hall.Good. Let her go. Let her take her stupid glitter Barbie backpack and her seven deadly sins bullshit and fuck off to Germany, if that’s what she wants to do.
The woman coughed, her eyes meeting mine. Once again, I was struck by how exactly she resembled my mother’s image from the painting.
“She’s hurting,” The woman – I still couldn’t bear to think of her as Aline, my mother, not yet – gasped out. “Don’t judge her by the things she says in desperation.”
“I don’t take relationship advice from ghosts.”
“You have to ask yourself what hurts more...” Her eyes rolled back again, and she collapsed against Corbin’s chest. A moment later, she emitted a loud snore.
What hurts more?I rubbed my tear stained cheek.What does she mean by that?
“Take her to the library,” Rowan said. “Light the fire and make her comfortable with lots of blankets. I’ll make her some food for when she wakes up.”
“She’s really going to wake up?” The woman looked halfway to the grave.She’s supposed to be all the way in the grave.
Rowan nodded. “She’s fine, just exhausted. Being three-dimensional for the first time in twenty-one years is hard on the body. We’ll take care of it, you should go talk to?—”
“Don’t finish that sentence. Why the library? What about one of the guest rooms?”
“Kelly and Jane are using the last two rooms on our floor, so that only leaves the rooms on the tours, and they’re filled with creepy wax figurines. I think she should be next to a fire, and I’m sure she’ll like waking up in the library with all the books. After all, didn’t it used to be hers?”
“She’s not my mother, Rowan.”
“If you say so, Princess.” Blake winked, as he helped Arthur lift her off the counter. “Excuse us while we settle your not-mother back into her castle.”
I followed the guys upstairs to the library. They settled the woman on the couch and piled her up with blankets and pillows. Corbin went behind his desk. “We should take turns to stay with her, so she’s not alone when she wakes up. I’ll take first shift—” he glanced at me, and gave a shy smile. “That is, if it seems like a good idea to you, Maeve?”
Oh Corbin.He still struggled to let go of his sense of responsibility for the coven. I was supposed to be admonishing him every time he issued commands and tried to take over.
But since the idea of being alone in a room with the woman who claimed to be my mother freaked me the hell out, this time he could have his overprotectiveness. “It’s a good idea, and I’m fine if you go first. I’m tired as hell, anyway.”
“I’d say we should sit down and figure out what to do next, but I don’t think we’ll know anything until we can talk to her again.” Corbin’s eyes met mine with a warmth that melted my heart. “Maeve, you need to talk to Kelly.”
Forget that. My heart turned to ice again. I shook my head. “I’m going to bed.”
“But don’t you think?—”
“No.” I glared at him. “And don’t you talk to her, either. She’s my responsibility. I don’t have to tolerate being spoken to like that inmycastle. Wake me up when it’s my shift. And don’t any of you—” I glared at the rest of the guys. “—eventhinkabout coming up to visit me. I amnotin the mood.”
I brushed my teeth in my bathroom (more furiously than my dentist would have recommended, but he hadn’t just met his zombie mother and had a horrible fight with his sister, so he could go to hell), climbed the stairs to my tower, and collapsed into bed, worn out by the emotional trauma of the day.
As soon as I turned out the light, part of me wished I hadn’t told the guys to stay away tonight. I could have done with Rowan’s cuddles or Flynn’s tickles or Corbin’s soft whispers in my ear. I debated going down and climbing into bed with one of them, but I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.
My dreams gave me no respite from terror. The vision of burned and blackened earth and a maze of towering briar woke me several times. I lost count of the number of times I stumbled through that briar and found the six stakes pointing toward thesky, the charred remains of my beloved guys clinging to their forms. I struggled against the invisible barrier that prevented me reaching the sixth stake, but I couldn’t get close enough to see the face of the wretched figure that hung there. This time there was a crowd of people in black cloaks crowded around, jeering and pointing and tossing sharp objects that slammed against my skin.
“Burn the witches,” they chanted. “Burn the Devil’s children.”
