Page 118 of Black Willow Witch
‘I’ve been busy trying to figure out who used magick to sway him.’ Gill thrust a hand into her hair. ‘You’ll think I’m just making up excuses here, but I’m not.Someonewove a spell to stir up that crowd. No way would anyone have genuinely thought it a good idea to march to the manor and burn Emberlyn at the stake.’
The fuck?Emberlyn gawked, fury tearing through her once more.
Ripper went deathly still, a growl rumbling in his chest. ‘Burn her at the stake?’ he echoed, refocusing on his captive. ‘That was the plan?’
Hank whimpered. ‘S-someone tossed out the idea. I don’t know who.’
‘You don’t know? Baby, he doesn’t know.’
‘Of course he does,’ said Emberlyn.
‘Oh, he definitely does.’ Ripper edged forward. ‘Who, Hank?’
Cowering, Hank scrunched his eyes shut.
‘Tell them, for God’s sake,’ Gill barked.
His chin trembling, Hank opened only one eye. ‘Patrick. It was Patrick.’
So, once Ripper felt satisfied that Hank understood he was to stay away from her, they went to Patrick’s house.
He wasn’t home, though. According to his girlfriend, he was with a coven member who specialized in mental cleansing – apparently, he was feeling ‘dirty’ from the manipulative magick that he’d allegedly earlier been gripped by.
Yes, like Bennet and Hank, he claimed to have been magickly coerced.
The girlfriend also stated she was convinced that the coven’s rebellious faction was behind what happened.
‘Making this claim could just be the crowd’s way of covering their asses,’ said Ripper as they headed back to her car, ‘but it would make sense that they’d been bespelled. Nothing they did earlier could be called wise. These people are dicks, but they’re not brave enough to really risk your wrath or mine. They’re weak.’
‘Which makes them easy to magickly manipulate,’ Emberlyn added.
They decided to pay Ruben a visit next. Nobody answered the door. Just the same, no one opened up when they went to the homes of Getty or the others involved. It was likely that they’d been warned Ripper was on the warpath and so they were pretending they weren’t home.
Returning to her car yet again, Emberlyn paused at the driver’s door. ‘Are we stopping off at CeCe’s place now?’
Meeting her gaze over the hood, Ripper frowned. ‘Why would we do that? She won’t know anything.’
‘No, but shedoesneed dealing with after that shit she pulled last night. You had a little chat with her. Now it’s my turn.’ Emberlyn jumped into the car and closed the door.
Sliding onto the passenger seat, Ripper said, ‘I already handled it.’
‘So I should leave the situation be? That’s quite a double standard you have, considering you insisted on confronting every person who crowded me.’
Ripper’s lips tightened. ‘Baby, it’s not that I think you should let it go because I dealt with it. You really want to go confront her, I’ll give you directions to her house; we’ll go there right now. But she’d love for you to turn up there. Love the attention and the drama. Like I said earlier, I’m done giving her attention.’
Emberlyn sighed, understanding where he was coming from. To track her down would be to play into her hands . . . just as Ripper raging at the coven would have played into the faction’s hands. He’d agreed to handle the latter situation differently. She’d be a hypocrite if she didn’t do the same regarding CeCe.
‘Believe me when I say that she’ll be sitting by her window, waiting in anticipation for you to arrive,’ he added. ‘I’d prefer that we disappoint her.’
Emberlyn inhaled deeply. ‘Okay.’
‘Okay?’
‘Okay.’
His brows dipped, not looking reassured. ‘Why do I get the feeling you’re going to handle this however you see fit, regardless of what I say?’
‘I don’t know, why do you?’
