by May Dawson
Truby held his hands up, and a boar—taller than I was, enormous, yellow-eyed with jaws full of broken teeth—stepped out of the shimmer.
“Are you all right, Deidra?” he asked.
My heart hammered in my chest so hard that it hurt. “Yes.”
“You can try to take control of it, but I won’t let go until you’ve got it. Use these words.” He went on, and I followed his instructions.
Then suddenly, the ground shifted beneath my feet so fast I was nauseous. Suddenly, I could see Truby in front of me, still talking, and a girl with dark hair and her lips moving as she copied him—oh.
Truby’s eyes widened as he realized I’d shifted to control the beast’s mind. I was more powerful than either of us realized.
With a gasp, I pulled back into my own mind, but the yellow-eyed beast still watched me with its eerie gaze fixed on me, its mouth hanging open to reveal all those wicked teeth.
Funny. Magic worked for me now. I’d spent all that time exasperated by my inability to coax flames into existence in my palm, and now I could open the rips between world and call the beasts between them, and yet I didn’t feel even the smallest sense of triumph.
“Send it back,” Truby told me.
Bringing down the boar with a sword had been hard, hard enough to cost a lot of Hunters their lives since Truby began controlling the beasts.
“Are they easy to kill with magic?” I asked.
“Send it back,” he repeated, a note of warning in his voice. “I’m not quite ready to see you practice the killing arts.”
“Could you stop me?” There was a cold note in my voice.
“I don’t want to stop you.” He sounded weary. “I want to get to know you, and I’d prefer the person that I get to know isn’t one who terrifies me.”
I shoved the beast back through the gate before slamming it shut behind it.
Truby stared after it a second, slack-jawed, before he came back to life. “Well.”
I shrugged. I was powerful, and maybe a week ago, I’d have been elated by that. Everything about magic was tainted for me now. I’d pulled the loose thread on my memories, and now I couldn’t stop them from unspooling.
As if Truby knew what I was thinking of, he asked gently, “What happened to your sister?”
I shrugged, trying to play it off as if it was nothing. “I was jealous. Like a lot of little kids. Unlike a lot of little kids, when I had a tantrum, the house shook and things fell and…”
Things fell onto my fragile newborn little sister.
“It wasn’t your fault,” he said.
But his voice wasn’t louder than the memory of my mother screaming, or how she’d pushed me out of her way when she ran to the phone to call 9-1-1. She’d left me behind with a neighbor when she rode on the ambulance.
I’d been crying by then. I wasn’t angry anymore. I thought she’d never come back.
My mother did come back, though. Without my little sister. And somehow she’d even kept loving me.
“What else do you want to learn?” Truby asked.
It was a valiant attempt to change the subject.
Nix had always said that he offered up the worst day of his life like a sacrifice to ignite his magic. I held my hand out in front of me, curious.
Blue flames of magic sprouted from the tips of my fingers, then danced across them. I could feel the energy of that magic tingling in my hands, eager to be used.
Truby was watching me. I shook my hands out, letting the magic die.
“Nothing,” I said. “Nothing more tonight.”
I had so much power, and I probably shouldn’t be trusted with any of it.
But then, who should?
“Can I show you one thing?” Truby asked. “One more thing?”
“Okay.”
He touched his fingers to his heart, muttering in Latin, and a dozen ghosts shimmered into existence around us.
I took a stutter-step back, my magic flaring in my fingertips as if to protect me, but the ghosts that surrounded us seemed…benign.
Maybe even friendly.
“My coven,” he said after a second. He gazed around at them like old friends. “I’ve missed them all so much.”
I knew that feeling. I stared around at the shimmering white figures as they raised their hands, as if they were greeting me.
Then they fell away. I twisted back to Truby, who had snapped his fingers.
“It’s time to move forward, I think,” he said. “Time to let them go and move forward.”
He smiled, and I realized that he meant to move forward with me.
When he started walking again, I followed him out of ghost-haunted woods.
Chapter Thirty-Three
I was exhausted that night, but I couldn’t sleep. I sat up in bed, in the lavish bedroom in Truby’s house, and gazed through the window at the silver moon high above.
It was the first night I’d slept alone since Liam died.
That very first night, I’d slept in Cade’s bed, and I could see him sleeping on the couch. Then I’d slept in the room I shared with Hanna, knowing that Tristan and Cade and Nix were all right down the hall from me. Lately, I’d slept even closer to one of them or another.
And now I was alone.
I wondered how they were, and where they were. Maybe I could find a spell to use to reach them.
The truth was, I longed to hear their voices.
Even if they were going to yell at me.
As I pulled a sweatshirt out of one of the shopping bags piled at the foot of my bed, and then over my head, I almost hoped they would still scold me. What if they’d really, completely, given up on me?
They didn’t know yet what I’d done to my sister. But after how I’d left Tristan behind, it wouldn’t surprise me if I’d fractured their trust permanently.
I headed down the dark stairs to the unfamiliar first floor. I wasn’t sure where Truby kept his books, but I was sure he had a good library of magical texts.
The kitchen light was on, and someone was humming. A soft, feminine pretty voice.
I followed the sound, then felt like an interloper when Briar and a young teenager with dark hair looked up.
“Deidra!” Briar exclaimed. Her long blond curls swayed as she straightened from pouring tea. “Do you want a cup of tea? I have really good local honey. It comes from this farm just down the street. The bees come here during the summer!”
“Those exact bees.” The dark-haired girl hid a smile. “Briar talks to them.”
I gazed between the two of them. “I have to be honest, I’m very tired and I’m not sure I can tell truth from sarcasm.”
“Why can’t it be both?” The dark-haired girl asked glibly. She raised her hand in a wave. “Hi, I’m Emily. I’m a friend of Briar’s and Janey’s.”
“Janey?”
“Janey said she met you,” Briar told me. She used her finger to mime a circle around her face. “The girl with the pretty face?”
Oh. The one who adored my father. “Yeah, I remember her. Hi, I’m Deidra.”
“We all know who you are,” Emily said.
People usually do. Lucky me.
“Emily should already be going home, but we got to talking too much,” Briar said pointedly.
Emily rolled her eyes. “You could just say I’ve overstayed my welcome.”
“Never in your life. You couldn’t overstay your welcome in Jonathan’s house,” Briar told her.
“Well, maybe I couldn’t before.” Emily gave me a look that was half-wistful.
Discomfort rippled through my gut. Everyone I’d met lately seemed to adore Jonathan Truby.
Was he just that good at fooling people?
“But you’re right,” Emily went on. “My parents will kill me if I break curfew again. Nice meeting you.”
Emily flashed me a bright smile, then hugged Briar goodbye.
“So do you live here too?” I asked Briar.
She shook her head. “Corson and I visi
t a lot, though. Janey does live here—she’s not comfortable living alone anymore—and Emily is here quite a bit.”
My father had a bevy of teenage girls coming over to his house. Great. Not creepy at all.
“Are he and Janey…” I trailed off, trying to figure out a good way to put it, and Briar stared back at me with her eyebrows raised over innocent blue eyes. I wanted to say dating so neither of us would be uncomfortable, but I couldn’t make myself use such a mild phrase. “Having sex?”
“Oh!” Briar’s eyes widened. “No. No, it’s not like that at all.”
“Okay. Good.”
“To be honest, Janey and Emily are both a little jealous right now,” she said, “because they worry that Truby’s always used them to replace you. They think you’re the daughter he’s searched for all this time.”
“I don’t know what to say to that.”
She pushed me over a mug, and I took a long sip of hot, honeyed tea. It was so hot that it burned my throat, but it felt better than this conversation.
“You don’t owe him anything, do you?” Briar asked. She drew her feet up onto the edge of her seat, wrapping her arms around her knees. She reminded me of a child, with her outspoken words and bright innocent smile, but I wasn’t sure that Briar was as simple as she looked on the surface.
I shrugged. I’d thought I owed him something—his own death.
But I wasn’t sure anymore that I wanted to kill him.
“I think maybe I made a mistake coming here,” I said slowly. “I think maybe I didn’t. I’m not sure which is more terrifying.”
Briar said, “You came here sure that he was a villain, and now you don’t know.”
“I came certain that I wasn’t a villain, and now I don’t know.” I corrected. “But that’s dramatic of me. It was when I was very little…”
“You were barely more than a baby yourself,” she said firmly.
Wait, how did she know? Corson must have told her. The two of them didn’t seem like they had any secrets.
“Does it matter?” My chest was suddenly tight as I remembered watching that scene play out. “All I’ve ever wanted is family. All I had was Liam, and I was always so jealous of kids with parents, sisters, brothers, grandfathers… turns out I have one of those, but he didn’t even tell me…”
I stumbled, remembering the day in his office when Julia’s father had stormed in. He’d talked about how I was dangerous. As if he’d known that I’d killed my sister.
Malcolm knew what I’d done, didn’t he? Maybe that was why he’d been so reluctant to get close to me. He hadn’t even told me that he was my grandfather until I learned it myself, even though I’d longed all my life for a grandpa.
“Deidra?” Briar asked.
I didn’t want to know what she’d seen on my face. I made myself smile. “I was just thinking.”
Briar smiled back at me, a sad, slow smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “As long as you’re spending all that time thinking, I’ve got one question for you.”
Oh, god. I didn’t know what Briar might say next. Half weary, half ready to be amused, I asked, “What’s that?”
“Did you see the baby die?” she asked. “Or is that just what you assumed?”
“That’s a hell of a question to ask.” Anger flared in my chest. I rose quickly from the chair, then rocked on my feet uncertainly. The room seemed to wobble around me.
“You’re tired,” she said. “You’ve used a lot of magic tonight. Let me help you to your room.”
Briar held my arm to steady me as I wove back upstairs. I could barely keep my eyes open as I stumbled across the floor.
“You did something to me,” I muttered. “You poisoned me.”
“I’m on your side,” she said, which wasn’t exactly a denial of guilt, either. “Tomorrow, I’m going to tell them that we’re going shopping together so they won’t know where you are. There’s more you need to know about who you are, Deidra. About what you are. I hope you’ll see it in your dreams, and then tomorrow, we’ll find the proof…together.”
I fell into the soft blankets on my bed.
The last thing I saw before I fell into oblivion was Briar’s bright eyes as she held her finger to her lips, warning me to be quiet.
Chapter Thirty-Four
In the morning, I woke thick-headed and sick. I dressed hastily, still reeling on my feet, and stumbled through the empty house before heading outside.
The fresh, cold air eased my headache. I found Truby walking outside, talking to witches who hung around him as if they were a cult. He was leading an animated discussion. Well, it seemed like more of a monologue.
“Can I talk to you alone?” I broke in.
The five who surrounded him—including Janey—all looked at me curiously, then at him again.
“Not right now,” he said. “But you’re welcome to walk with us and listen.”
I didn’t want to blurt out in front of so many people that Briar had poisoned me the night before. I didn’t know what to make of everything she’d said, or of the dreams I’d had the night before, strange dreams of flying and of fighting with a flaming sword in my hand.
I walked away, and I could’ve sworn I felt them all watch me go. A prickle ran up my spine.
I made the wrong choice when I came here, and it was time to leave. Truby had his revenge for his coven; maybe he would stop killing Hunters. Maybe I could even convince the Hunters to leave him alone.
Maybe we could have peace.
I jerked my coat’s zipper up all the way to my scarf and glanced toward the house. I could go back there…or I could just walk down the long hill to the gravel path that led through the woods, and keep on going.
It was easy for me to imagine Truby coming after me, the witches with their powers all chasing me down, and I chewed my lip.
I wanted peace. But if they came after me, I’d show them just what kind of a fighter I was.
Part of me wanted to go back in and write a letter to Truby to say goodbye, but the two of us both had magic. I was sure he could find a way to communicate with me, and I could find a way to tell him what I wanted to say.
Whatever that was.
I glanced over my shoulder, but Truby and his witches were out of sight. Quickly, I headed down, past the houses that had been lit up so brightly the night before. Everything felt eerily silent during the day. The crisp cold air seemed to hang, the snow blanketing everything in silence. I shoved my gloved hands into my pockets to keep them warm, and my breath came out in a huff of cold air.
I made it all the way to the gravel road that led out before I heard the sound of truck tires rattling over the ground. I quickly slipped into the brown thicket at the side of the road—not that the thin branches would conceal me completely right now, when the leaves were all bare—and crouched there in the cold.
The truck’s tires rumbled by. Maybe it hadn’t been coming for me after all.
As the truck passed by and dipped into a rut in the ground, I caught a glimpse of someone in the bed of the truck. It looked like they were lying down, tied and bound.
It was a glimpse so quick that I might have imagined it. Maybe it was something in bags tied into the truck to keep it from falling out.
But my heart hammered a warning. I moved quietly along the snowy bank, staying off the road now. The truck reached the fork in the road that turned left, going deeper into the woods, or right, back toward civilization.
I’d made sure to memorize our way in when Truby brought me here. Just in case.
I gazed down the road to the right longingly, then kept moving to the left. I looked back over my shoulder at the trail of footprints I was leaving behind as I struggled through the snow. I didn’t have time to hide my tracks.
Instead, I broke into a run to follow the truck without going onto the road. When I heard tires again, I kneeled to hide. The snow under my knees melted and seeped through my jeans. Truby drove past, his gaze fixed on the road. Something about seeing hi
m made my stomach lurch.
I wanted to believe he’d be on my side and believe that Briar had poisoned me.
I wanted to believe he wasn’t sacrificing innocents for his magic.
But I didn’t.
I rose to my feet again to follow him, and heard a faint crunch of snow right behind me. I whirled to attack, but before I could, a strong arm slid around my waist, and a hand slapped over my mouth.
“Don’t scream.” It was Cade’s low, rough voice in my ear.
My heart pounded, and his rough palm pressing against my lips made it hard to breathe. I inhaled through my nose, trying to push away some of the sudden fury I felt. I needed to be calm.
And, with his hard lean body against mine, it wasn’t just fury.
His hand fell away, but settled on my hip. “You all right?”
“Where did you come from?” I demanded in a hiss. “You shouldn’t be here.”
When his body tensed, I realized he was furious. “You shouldn’t be here. You left Tristan.”
Guilt washed over me. “Is he okay?”
“He’ll be fine. He just feels like he failed you.” His voice was tart. Oh, he was angry because he felt protective of his brother. That was sweet.
“It wasn’t his fault.”
“You’ll have to convince him of that. I couldn’t. I told him that you were the one who let him down, letting Truby knock him out, leaving him to sleep in a fucking snowstorm—“
The image sent a jolt through me. “But he’s okay?”
Cade stepped back, as if I didn’t deserve to know. I turned to face him, my brows arching as my gaze found his familiar, scowling face. Despite the anger etched across his features, I still felt a glow of warmth and familiarity when I saw him.
I’d missed this asshole.
Not that I knew how to tell him that.
“How did you find me?” I asked.
“That’s complicated,” he said. “What isn’t complicated is that we’re surrounded by powerful, evil witches who absolutely live for disemboweling Hunters, so maybe we can talk about feelings and family later and just get the fuck out of here for now—”