Page 39 of Black Willow Witch
He responded to that with a droll look and then nabbed his cup, hard muscle bunching beneath the smooth tanned flesh of his arm. Would he notice if she took a quick bite? Probably. So sad.
‘Ironic that they claim to abhoryou, yet they’d defend someone like Rosemary,’ he said. ‘She should have been executed.’
‘I have to agree.’ The woman had used chaos magick to stir two Alpha males into fighting – and she’d done it on a full moon, knowing that a bloodbath could occur. And it had. The Alphas had morphed into their In-between forms and butchered one another. Their heartbroken mates had then taken their killing-rage out on each other.
And eleven-year-old Ripper, the son of one Alpha pair, had witnessed it all.
An experience that had overwhelmed him with so much dark emotion that he’d turned Rabid.
In his absence, his clan had demanded that Reena hand over Rosemary to be punished, but the High Priestess had insisted on dealing with the matter herself.
‘Having your magick bound wouldn’t be an easy ride – in fact, it’d betorturefor a witch,’ said Emberlyn. ‘I suspect it’s why Rosemary died. Some witches have withered away after being disconnected from their magick. But her actions called for a much worse punishment. She shouldn’t have had the luxury ofdying peacefully in her sleep.’ She paused at the weird look on his face. ‘What?’
Ripper sipped from his cup. ‘Not evil, ruthless,’ he said more to himself than to her.
‘Hmm?’
‘Millicent once told me that you weren’t evil, just ruthless.’ He tilted his head. ‘Yesterday, you spoke to Reena of a time when her niece tried punching her way into your mind. I never heard about it.’
‘There’s a lot that isn’t talked about.’
‘What happened exactly?’
‘Sera turned up at my apartment one day, wanting to apologize for the part she – along with Tyra, Ames and their friends – had played in trying to make me miserable when I was a kid. But it wasn’t hard to sense that she wanted something from me. I eventually cut off her fake apology and told her to be upfront with me about why she was really there or to leave. She admitted that she wanted me to teach her a certain type of magick. I said no.’
‘What kind of magick?’
‘The kind that would enable her to invoke dark beings from other realms.’ Even those within the coven who sneered at Emberlyn still sought her out, looking for the kind of aid or advice that Reena would never grant.
He blinked. ‘You could do that?’
‘It’s not as fun as it sounds.’
His brow knitted. ‘It doesn’t actually sound fun at all.’
To each their own.‘Millicent made it so. It was her way of teaching. She made everything seem light and adventurous. Like we were walking around a zoo while I learned about animals. She was a good mentor. And one thing she taught me was that only a witch who was very grounded should be given . . . darker lessons, shall we say? Sera isn’t grounded. And, unhappy thatI wouldn’t oblige her, she tried taking the knowledge from my mind.’
‘Did Reena punish her for what she did to you?’
‘No. I did that. I turned Sera’s braid into a snake.’ The memory plucked at one corner of Emberlyn’s lips. ‘It didn’t last longer than an hour, but it scared the piss out of her.’
A glint of what she could haveswornwas humor briefly appeared in his eyes.
‘I’ll bet,’ he muttered, before taking another sip of his coffee.
‘Have you mentioned the curse jar to Reena yet?’
‘No. I’m keeping the knowledge of it in my back pocket for now. I want to see if I can catch someone in the act of planting another. They won’t dare if they’re aware that I know about the jar you dug up.’
‘I haven’t mentioned it to anyone, and I won’t.’
‘I know,’ he said with total certainty.
Heshouldbe sure, but his certainty surprised her. ‘Do you?’
‘Call it a gut feeling. Not saying I trust you. Don’t know you well enough for that. But my instincts tell me I can trust your word on this.’
‘What else do they tell you?’
