Total pages in book: 142
Estimated words: 134501 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 673(@200wpm)___ 538(@250wpm)___ 448(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 134501 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 673(@200wpm)___ 538(@250wpm)___ 448(@300wpm)
Reena gave it the side-eye, clearing her throat.
Without lifting her arm from the armrest, Emberlyn raised a finger. ‘First of all, that you’d expect me to put the wants and needs of your coven before me – a person most of them refer to as “the devil’s witch”, in case you’ve forgotten – is pure and total lunacy. Secondly, whether or not I live at the manor has no impact on them. It’s the land you need. I don’t have it. It belongs to Ripper now.’
‘As the owner of the manor, you could contest the will,’ Reena reminded her.
‘I’m not going to. I would never disrespect my grandmother’s last wishes, especially when those wishes were fair. It’s wolf-clan territory. In their position, you’d want back land that rightfully belonged to the coven.’
‘Since when do you care what’s fair?’ Reena snarked.
‘When haven’t I?’
‘You have misused magick many times; attacked many of my coven, even as a child.’
One of Emberlyn’s brows slowly winged up. ‘Oh, you mean the gang of bullies who thought I’d make an easy target? A group led by your daughter? If you had dealt with them – because yes, I eventually discovered that my teacher did talk to you about it – instead of dismissing it, I wouldn’t have had to. And let’s be frank, I could have hurt them much, much worse than I did.’
Ripper felt his brows lift at the latter. None of the rumors had mentioned that Reena had been informed of the bullying and declined to intervene.
‘It should be noted,’ Emberlyn continued, ‘that a lot of things you’ve held me accountable for were actually committed by the rebellious faction in your coven that you insist on swearing doesn’t exist.’
Ripper had heard some rumors about that as well.
‘Because it doesn’t, you just like to shift blame.’
Emberlyn frowned. ‘I’ve never, not once, denied anything that I’ve done. Why would I, when it was always in an effort to make a point?’
‘And you’ve been making “points” since you were too young to use even a whisper of aggressive magick. You haven’t only hurt people. You’ve caused damage to countless pieces of property. Like the swimming pools, for example. What did they ever do to you? What so earned them your wrath that you turned the water to blood?’
Another crow swooped down out of nowhere. It, too, perched itself on the rail.
Reena cast both birds a wary look.
‘The pools had done me no harm,’ Emberlyn replied, her words coming slow and calm. Too calm. An emotion that wasn’t present in her eyes – they were dark, hard. ‘But the owners of those pools? Each one laughed on hearing that Michael turned Rabid; said that being mated to me had fucked him up. And they chatted that shit knowing I could hear them.’
Ripper exchanged a surprised look with Kerr. He hadn’t known that any of the coven had blamed her for what happened to Michael.
‘You like to make out that I’m some sort of menace to society,’ Emberlyn went on. ‘I have largely kept to myself. A certain percentage of the coven has left me alone, and I have done them that same courtesy. But others didn’t let me be, and so I dealt with them. It’s not as if you would have done it on my behalf.’
‘Magick should not be used to cause harm,’ Reena clipped.
‘Did you tell that to Tyra? Or to the fifty-two-year-old witch who tried hypnotizing me into going home with him when I was sixteen? Or to Sera, who tried magickly punching her way into my mind a few years ago?’
Ripper felt himself go stiffer with each angered word she spoke. He’d been very aware that a large chunk of the coven wasn’t ‘nice’ to her, but he hadn’t known that things had been quite that bad.
‘I could go on and on, Reena,’ she added, the small hairs around her face fluttering as magick crackled around her. ‘All I did was make it clear that, contrary to what they believed, they don’t have the right to come at me whenever they please, however they please. So do not. Fucking. Demonize me.’
Caws again split the air, and then two more crows appeared. One settled on the rail, but the other landed on Emberlyn’s shoulder.
Either she was calling to them or they were responding to her distress – he couldn’t tell which. But as it occurred to Reena right then that just a signal from Emberlyn could likely make those crows divebomb her, the High Priestess uneasily straightened in her seat.
‘You’re right,’ Reena finally allowed. ‘Ninety-nine percent of the time, you acted only in retaliation. It was unfair of me to imply otherwise. I’m simply frustrated. Carver is on my back, the coven isn’t happy and the—’
‘And the manor isn’t finally in your possession,’ Emberlyn finished.
Reena’s nostrils flared. ‘Millicent set this up so that you’d end up here, didn’t she?’