Page 108 of Black Willow Witch
‘You cansaywhatever you like,’ Emberlyn told him, her tone clipped. ‘I’m not leaving with you. You want to question me, you can do it right here.’
Ruben’s cheeks flushed. ‘You don’t get to dictate what we do.’
‘Right back atcha. You might be Watchers, but you have no grounds to take me away like I’m some criminal.’ And going with them, even to avoid a scene for the sake of the little girl who’d been attacked, would have been like an admission of guilt.
‘She sent the Rabid here!’ Bennet shouted. ‘She needs to be detained!’
‘Oh, I agree,’ Patrick cut in. ‘You’re coming with us, Vautier.’ He flapped his hand, magick crackled . . . and then energy-cuffs appeared on Emberlyn’s wrists, yanking them together behind her back.
Motherfucker.Anger fluttered through her blood, wrapped around her bones, charged her magick and quickened her pulse. Emberlyn glared at him, her heartbeat thrashing in her ears. ‘You think you canbindme?’ she demanded, furious. She pulledat the cuffs, and they disappeared. ‘You think you canforceme to go anywhere?’
Patrick swallowed while Ruben flexed his fingers nervously.
Her skin prickled in awareness as she realized that the rest of the crowd had taken advantage of her distraction. With the exception of Mari and Bennet, they now surrounded her; magick dust whirling around their hands.
Emberlyn let out a dark laugh that echoed with power. ‘Try it,’ she bit out, silently calling up her own magick, bracing it to defend her.
Crackling streams came at her from all angles in a flash.
Her magick slammed up like a shield, causing every stream to pause mere inches from her body.
Emberlyn wagged a finger andtsked. Then she threw out her arms. Her magick ‘wall’ bulged outward, shoving the crackling streams back at their ‘senders’ and knocking them off their feet. The only thing stopping her from doing anything worse was knowing that it would scare a child who was traumatized enough.
As the crowd struggled to their feet, Emberlyn snarled at them. ‘You’re all pathetic. Only fucking cowards gang up on a person like this.’
‘You assaulted us!’ shouted Patrick, magick motes swirling around his hand.
‘No!’ Mari materialized, placing herself between Emberlyn and the Watchers. ‘You have to stop. This isn’t right!’
Hank gaped at her. ‘Mari,move.’
She didn’t. ‘I honestly can’t believe you were part of this, Dad.’ She looked at him like she didn’t know him. ‘Imagine it was me. Imagine a bunch of people circled, condemned and attacked me like that. What would you do? No one even asked her about her whereabouts or considered the points she made.You’d all decided she was guilty, and you weren’t interested in anything she had to say to defend herself.’
Emberlyn eyed her cousin curiously. Mari was speaking up for her?This is new.
‘We will question her once we get her to our office,’ clipped Patrick.
Emberlyn looked him up and down. ‘I’m not going anywhere with you.’ He was plain ridiculous for thinking otherwise.
‘What’s happening here?’ a female voice sharply called out.Reena. She shouldered her way through the crowd, looking from face to face.
‘Oh, nothing unusual,’ Emberlyn replied. ‘People are accusing me of stuff I didn’t do. You know how it goes.’
Reena glared at the other witches. ‘I told you I don’t believe that Emberlyn is responsible for what happened.’
‘And I disagree,’ snarked Bennet, coming up behind her.
The High Priestess whirled on him. ‘Because you’ve fallen for a goddamn trick. You’d prefer to believe that an outsider is our culprit. The person who did this was counting on that. If there’s one thing Emberlyn never does, it’s cover up her actions. I don’t see why that would change now, or why she’d do anything to implicate herself if shewasintent on keeping her participation secret. Who summoned her here?’
‘I did,’ Mari piped up. ‘They were discussing riling up a huge number of people and storming the manor to “deal” with Emberlyn. I thought if she could justtalkto them, if they could just hear her out, it wouldn’t get that far. But they didn’t even ask if she had an alibi or anything. They circled her, attacked her and then got angry because she defended herself. If that had happened to any of us . . .’ She shook her head. ‘It was just wrong.’
Pausing, Mari looked at Emberlyn, appearing genuinely distressed. ‘I’m sorry I called you here. I wouldn’t have asked if I’d known they’d react that way.’
Hmm, maybe. Maybe not. Right now, Emberlyn wasn’t feeling inclined to take her word for it. She didn’t trust a single person in the coven.
‘You want us to ask her if she has an alibi, let’s do that.’ Patrick inched up his chin as he again glared at Emberlyn. ‘Where were you this morning?’
‘At home,’ she replied.
