by Aileen Erin
To be honest, I was a little jealous. She’d gotten to live a normal life until a few months ago, while I’d been struggling with the Wicked Witch. I didn’t begrudge her that…much. I wanted what she had. A life. Real friends—not coven members who were trying to suck me dry. A boyfriend who would do anything for me instead of Mathieu le Douche.
My shoulders were so tense that I could barely roll them back. So much for breathing through the stress.
The one thing I couldn’t forget—that I couldn’t let myself forget—was what I’d done to get here. Taking that stupid oath in the first place so that Mom could leave the coven. Doing Luciana’s bidding until my soul was blackened. Then, manipulating my cousin so that she’d be forced to stay at the compound. She’d been stripped of her powers—tortured—because of me. And getting David killed…
I owed both of them. And no matter what—by the time this all ended—I would repay the debt. So help me God, I would settle it or die trying.
Chapter Two
As much as I’d hated being confined to the coven compound, I’d always felt at home there. It was my home. Everything I knew was there. Everyone I knew. And they all knew me. I’d never been an outsider before. I was from one of the oldest coven families and I had a secure place there.
At St. Ailbe’s, I definitely felt like an outsider.
No one would talk to any of us brujos except Teresa’s friends. The rest of them gave us a wide berth. We were unknowns. I understood that. But still, there were eight of us and loads of them. Which meant that we ended up going everywhere in a group. Raphael was half-convinced that if we separated, the wolves would attack. I didn’t think that was likely, but if I were being honest, we’d betrayed our own coven. The wolves knew that, and if it came down to a fight… They might not make the distinction between good witches and bad witches.
I’ve already lost one friend. I can’t lose anyone else.
I swallowed down my grief. I’d cried all day after Daniel died, but now I had to keep going. His death had stopped Luciana’s attack. For all her evilness, she still loved her son. As much as someone like Luciana could… But the quiet after the battle wasn’t going to last. The nightmares alone proved she wasn’t sitting still. She was going to come after us, and now she wasn’t just drunk on power, she was angry too. Her ally had killed her son, but there wasn’t a doubt in my mind that she believed the wolves and those of us who’d left her were at fault.
Now we had to be ready for whatever hell Luciana was going to throw at us. When this was over—when Luciana’s threats weren’t hanging overhead like an anvil about to crush us—I’d give myself more time to grieve for my closest friend. For now, I had to ignore the ache in my heart.
I miss you so much, Daniel.
“Ready to go?” Raphael said as he stuck his head through the doorway.
I’d showered over an hour ago, and it was past time for my morning cup of coffee. “I’m ready whenever everyone else is.” I flattened my hands against my short jean skirt.
“Everyone’s good to go. We’re just waiting on Cosette.”
I grinned. How fey of her to take the longest.
“I’m ready,” Cosette’s voice rang out from the hall. “I’ve been ready.” She appeared in my doorway, her aura a glittering rainbow. The first time I’d seen it, I’d stared, dumbfounded. I’d like to be able to say that I didn’t feel that way every time, but that’d be a lie. I was used to seeing different colored auras on witches, depending on what kinds of magic they specialized in, but her aura was breathtaking. Like holographic glitter. A bright shining silver, but then all colors of the rainbow all at once. It was unlike anything I’d ever seen.
“Oh… Well…” Raphael said as he practically drooled.
I raised a brow at him. He knew she was majorly off limits. Cosette was always vague about her background, but I’d spent enough time with her to read between the lines. She’d never revealed what kind of fey she was or where her abilities lay, but I could sense the undercurrent of her power. It was a lot of power. She had to be much deeper into the fey courts than she let on.
Cosette flounced ahead of us, all tall and willowy in a mini skirt and tank top. Raphael tilted his head to stare at her butt.
Gross. I shoved past him, shooting him a look. “No,” I mouthed over my shoulder.
He shrugged.
Lord help me. Raphael getting tangled in fey intrigues was the last thing I needed to worry about. Cosette was on our side, but Raphael wouldn’t last a minute in the fey courts. Because of his straightforward nature, he’d never learned how to be diplomatic about things. And, if what I knew about the fey was right, they were all about politics.
As we followed Cosette outside, the group of us was quiet. I scanned my friends’ faces as we moved across the well-manicured quad. Yvonne looked tired, but that could just be because she was older. Her hair had turned gray before I was born. This was a stressful situation for us, but that was possibly more true for her. She’d betrayed something that she’d spent her long life supporting.
Elsa was quiet, but then again, she was always quiet. Now the way her shoulders hunched and her feet dragged along the freshly mowed grass told me this quiet was different than her normal demeanor.
Dark shadows hung under Tiffany and Beth’s eyes. Only Shane had managed to break his oath, and I was beginning to wonder if he’d even made an oath to begin with. The rest of us were lagging light-years behind him.
It was worse than I’d thought. I’d assumed Raphael looked tired because he kept saving me from my bad dreams in the middle of night, but what if that wasn’t it? Was he hiding the effects of his own oath from me?
I barely held in a frustrated sigh. No wonder he wanted me to go to Peru. He knew that I’d saved our parents from Luciana. It pissed him off. He hated them for leaving, but he’d push me away if he thought he could save me from sacrificing anything else. And I would. I’d go back to her if that meant saving him.
There was no way I was going to Peru now. Not when my brother was in danger and trying to hide it from me.
“It’s Samhain today,” Elsa said.
I stumbled for a step before catching myself. How did I miss that it was Samhain? It was an important holiday. The coven always celebrated it with a feast and a nighttime ritual. It was a time when the veil between our world and the next was thinnest.
“Do you think we should do something for it?” Beth asked, turning to me.
I hated to let anyone down, but I doubted that the wolves would let us outside in the middle of the night to do any magic. “Not this year, but next year—we’ll make it good.”
No one questioned it, but the silence from the others spoke volumes. I ignored it. There wasn’t anything I could do. Not right now. We had so many other things to worry about right now.
As I stepped into the cafeteria, my anxiety rose to a record-breaking high. The way everything stopped as we entered made me beyond uncomfortable. The students paused with their forks halfway to their mouths, staring so hard that their auras washed over me in a wave of golden yellow energy. Even the man flipping pancakes at the grill station stilled to study us.
Raphael was right. The wolves didn’t trust us, and I didn’t blame them. Helping them once wouldn’t erase all the animosity they felt toward us. But they hadn’t bothered us. Yet.
From the way they watched us and kept us separate, if we stepped even a little out of line, they’d be all over us before we could breathe a word of protection. Raphael stepped closer to me, and it seemed like we were on the same page as usual. With our seven witches and one semi-fey against hundreds of werewolves…
It was only when Cosette stepped into the room, her head held high, that the rest of us felt confident enough to enter. I wasn’t sure how she did it—maybe it was the fey in her—but she always commanded a calm, confident presence even in the most tense situations.
She nudged my shoulder. “Want to split an omelet?”
“Sure. Should I go
with you?” The werewolf guys weren’t shy and a few of them were eyeing Cosette like a different kind of meal.
“I’m not worried about a few wolves.” She gave an enigmatic smile as she flipped her dark blonde curls. “If anything, they should probably be afraid of me.” She strutted off to the omelet station like there wasn’t an army of Weres ready to pounce on us at the slightest inclination. The one thing I knew for certain was that fey didn’t lie. So the wolves probably should be afraid of her.
That thought instilled a little more confidence in me as I started off toward the fruit station. As long as Cosette had our backs, we should be okay.
Raphael grabbed my arm, stopping me before I got very far. He was still following Cosette with his eyes. “Shouldn’t we all stick together?”
As much as I agreed with the safety in numbers defense, I didn’t want to show the wolves any weakness. Cosette had set the tone, and now we just needed to maintain it. “I’m grabbing some fruit. Why don’t you get some food, too and then we’ll find a table? Teresa is bound to be here soon and—”
“I’m here!” she said from the doorway. Her long hair hung in loose waves down her back. I’d swear her skin glowed, and her body… I’d kill for that. She liked to say that it was because she was a wolf, but she’d liked running long before she got bitten. I was curvy. I’d never get rid of my hips, even if I starved myself. And why go through life being hungry all the time? Life was too short to care that much. Still, every time I saw her, I felt a little twinge of jealousy. Seeing Dastien hovering behind her only compounded the feeling.
I pushed away all those green-tinged emotions, and focused on my brother. “See.” I shoved Raphael in the direction of the food. “Go get your breakfast.”
The one thing that St. Ailbe’s did amazingly well was food. From the hot and cold stations to the short order cooks, there was enough here to feed the entire state of Texas, and all of it was delicious. Still, I was always surprised that with as much food as they put out, none of it seemed to go to waste.
These wolves can definitely eat.
Shane and Elsa stuck close as they navigated the food lines, but he kept looking around, probably searching for Adrian. I wasn’t sure what was going on with them, but Adrian was the only wolf who actively sought us out. He had a little bit of brujo blood and said he wanted to learn more about his magic lineage, but the way he and Shane kept exchanging looks…
If my gut was right, I was sensing definite chemistry between the two of them.
“You sleep okay?” Teresa said as she came up to me. She wore a T-shirt that was brightly printed with cover art for a band I didn’t recognize.
“Sure.”
She sniffed. “That was a lie.”
“Good job,” Dastien said.
I grinned up at him. His dark brown hair curled around his ears. His smile showed off two way-too-sexy dimples. Not to mention that he was tall enough, big enough to make any girl feel taken care of. Add to that his bright amber aura, and he was too much. In the category of completely drool-worthy. Plus, he treated my cousin well. There was nothing better than a man who wanted to coddle his lady, yet gave her all the power in the relationship. It was infinitely more sexy than the guy I was supposed to be with.
I allowed myself another split second to envy what my cousin had before moving on to admiring it.
“Don’t be condescending,” Teresa said.
“Tessa. I’m honestly telling you that was good. You’re using your nose.”
She sighed. “It wasn’t all nose.”
I had no idea what they were talking about. Trying to follow along their conversation was extremely difficult at times. It was like I was missing pieces of it.
“I’ve been trying to get her to be more like a wolf,” Dastien said when he noticed my confusion. “She should be able to smell people’s emotions. Especially lies.” He said the last looking at Teresa.
I glanced between them. “You can smell a lie?”
“Dastien can. Me… I rely more on hunches. But I’m getting better at it.” She paused. “Nice deflection. I’ll ask you about the sleep stuff later. If I don’t eat soon, I might die.”
“Cherie. You’re not going to die.”
“You tell that to my stomach.”
They bantered back and forth almost faster than I could keep up with. Their auras glowed brighter as they walked. Meshing together. Bouncing off each other. I could see the deeper connection that their bond provided. That little bit of green envy eased its way back up my spine, and I headed to grab some fruit before the feeling could take over. I was happy for my cousin. Not jealous. Happy.
By the time I found the table, people were staring again. I didn’t mind speaking to people or being friendly, but some of the stares felt more than a bit hostile. That, I didn’t like at all.
I sat down next to Cosette, who was already exchanging not-so-subtle smiles with a table of Cazadores across the room. At least someone was enjoying the attention. “Anyone else feeling like you’re living in a glass bowl?”
Teresa sat on my other side. She had four plates filled with food balanced on her tray with one giant glass of orange juice. “I’ve been stared at most my life. Before people didn’t like me or thought I was a weirdo. Now everyone’s more interested in a friendly way. Mostly.” She paused and looked around. “They’re curious. Just don’t let it get to you.” As she spoke—still glancing around the room, a wave of golden energy passed from her to the gathered wolves. Everyone starting moving—going about the day—in an answering ripple.
“Thank you.” The list of things I owed her for was growing by the second. I wasn’t sure how I’d ever pay her back. Especially after what Luciana had done to her…
“No problem.”
“I don’t like the stares,” Elsa said. She was so petite that even with her striking brown eyes and dark brown pixie cut she usually managed to get overlooked. But she liked it that way. “It’s impossible to stay hidden.”
A few more wolves sat down at our table—all of them Teresa’s friends. I liked Christopher the best of the boys. He was really fun and easy going. Talking to him was effortless.
Adrian sat down next to Christopher, and I nearly groaned. It wasn’t that I didn’t like him, but he was so desperate to learn from us that it made it hard to talk about anything but magic. I liked to think I was more than just a bruja. More than just the sum of my abilities.
Admitting that even just to myself felt rude. Here I was, taking protection and hospitality from the wolves, and then begrudging them for wanting to learn more about me. It was the lack of sleep. If I wasn’t careful, I was going to start being openly cranky. Not acceptable.
Meredith was hilarious. I wished I had the guts to dye my hair fun colors. I’d met her a while ago, before Luciana shut down all relations between the young wolves and coven members. I’d always wondered what happened to her, so getting to know her again was nice.
Christopher threw a biscuit at Teresa, shocking me out of my reverie.
She caught it and looked at it almost like she was surprised it was in her hand. “Don’t throw food at me.”
“I just find it funny. All you witches think it’s such an adjustment being here.”
She threw the biscuit back at him a little harder. “Shut up. It was a hell of an adjustment and they’ve all gone through some rough things to get here. Don’t be an asshole.”
I felt my cheeks heating at her language.
“I think you’re embarrassing your cousin, cherie.”
“Sorry,” she said to me.
“No. It’s nothing.” I cleared my throat and handed Cosette a bowl of fruit. In exchange, she slid half the omelet across to me. I took a bite and nearly moaned. It was delicious, filled with asparagus, avocado, onion, and cream cheese. Not a combination I would’ve ever picked, but it was great. “Now this is amazing.” I drank a sip of coffee—which was brewed to perfection—and energy started coming back to me. I was going to have to carry
around a cup of this all day to stay awake and alert.
“Knew you’d like it,” Cosette said.
“It’s a perfect omelet.”
“Are there veggies in your breakfast?” Christopher said. “That’s just wrong.”
“You’re awfully cheery for this hour,” Teresa said.
“I got up earlier and went on patrol with Adrian and Dastien, so I’m much more awake than usual. This is my second breakfast,” Christopher said proudly as he shook his long blond bangs out of his eyes.
Teresa snorted. “What are you? A hobbit?”
I couldn’t help but laugh at that. I covered my mouth with my hand. If anything, being with the wolves was interesting, and the constant banter kept me from thinking about Luciana…
Great. Now I’m thinking about her again.
I dropped my fork with a clank and took a long drink of my coffee. When I set it down, everyone at the table was looking at me. “What?”
Teresa cleared her throat. “You know, if there’s anything I can do to help—”
“Don’t worry. I’ll be fine.” Raphael muttered something but I didn’t need to hear it to know what he was saying. “I’m going to try a few spells to break our oaths. I was reading a book before bed last night, and it mentioned a combination of ingredients I haven’t tried yet. That could make the difference we need.” I took a bite of my omelet, but it suddenly had no flavor.
“Do you think you can break it?” Teresa asked.
“I think so.” I cleared my throat, trying to sound confident and probably failing. “I’ve only tried a few spells, so there’s bound to be one that works eventually.”
“I wish I could help,” she said.
Teresa’s skin might be glowing, like every other wolf’s, but her eyes didn’t hold their usual lightness. “Are you doing okay?”
She shrugged. “Sure.”
Dastien reached over and grasped her hand as Teresa stared hard at the table. I’d always thought she was invincible, and she made it seem like everything that had happened to her was no big deal. But it was a huge deal. And it had only been a few days. I’d be stupid to think that she wasn’t still dealing with the repercussions.