Page 51 of Sticks and Stones and Broken Bones

I knew why we were here. I was just having trouble reminding myself this woman was Raevyn’s mother and I couldn’t do her any harm. I was just glad Raevyn was away from the Raathmores where she couldn’t be hurt anymore. It was just tragic that it needed her death to bring her freedom.

“Anyway,” Alice continued, “I decided to spend a night in Midnight just before my twenty-first birthday and I met the most captivating man. He was handsome, intriguing, intelligent and he swept me off my feet. I fell for him, and for one night, he made me feel like the most beautiful woman in the world. By morning, he was gone.”

“And you never knew his name?” Hawk asked.

“Never,” Alice replied. “I guess I just wanted one night of freedom before everything changed.”

“I can understand that,” Korbin said. “But I don’t understand why she thinks she doesn’t have any magic.”

Alice blanched and her eyes filled with tears. “It was for her own protection. When she was eight there was an incident. No one knew, not even my mother. We were walking through the cemetery and these creatures started appearing from nowhere. Ghosts and souls of people long since dead. At first, I thought Raevyn had found her necromancy powers, but it was more than that. She stopped time to pull them through from the voids.”

Hawk stepped forward and looked at Korbin. “Stopped time?”

Was I missing something here?

“Yes,” Alice said with a nod. “But the souls were twisted and angry. I don’t know where she pulled them from, but she called them into her own body. She consumed them and I couldn’t do anything to stop her, caught in the time field.”

“And she did this at eight?” Nox asked.

Alice nodded again, her soft brown curls bouncing around her shoulders, and Korbin cocked his head, like something had occurred to him. “What happened when she was fourteen?”

“How do you know about that?” Alice frowned and leant forward across the island.

“I saw part of her memory, but it felt incomplete.” Korbin steepled his fingers. “Did you take her to a memory demon?”

“Yes,” she said.

I jumped to my feet, a savage growl escaping my chest. “You did what?”

“I had to,” she sobbed. “Raevyn was getting too powerful. She attacked Nissa with a darkness that was beyond anything I’d ever seen before. When I found Raevyn, she was covered in blood and Nissa was suspended in the air, frozen. I called the memory demon to me and made a deal with him to remove any hint of her magic. I suppressed her magic, buried it deep in her mind so that my mother would never find out what Raevyn would be capable of.”

I stepped closer to Alice. “She’s not just a witch, is she?”

She shook her head, tears rolling over her cheeks. “I don’t think so, but I don’t know what she is.”

“You should have never sacrificed her,” I spat. “She is worth more than that and it’s your lies that cost Raevyn her life.”

“I know,” she cried. “I wanted more for her, but I didn’t know how. My mother is cruel, and she would have manipulated and used Raevyn for her own gains.”

“So instead, you let her be abused by your coven. How’s that any better?” Nox seethed, his blue eyes sparking with silver.

“It’s not,” Alice said. “But what else could I do?”

Hawk loomed over her, his amber eyes bright like fire. “You could have left the coven, found somewhere safe.”

Alice flinched. “But this is all I know. It’s my home.”

Fucking selfish witch. I shook my head in disbelief. “You’re not worthy to speak our name.”

“I agree,” said Nox. My eyebrows reached my hairline. First time for everything. “We hereby rescind any power granted in our name and will never more gift any to the Raathmore coven, as long as they shall live.”

“No!” Alice screamed. “You can’t do that.”

“On the contrary,” I stated, almost with a bored drawl. “We can and we will.”

“My mother will seek revenge for this,” she spat. “Mark my words, your days are numbered.”

I laughed, hard and cruel, and felt Deimos seep through a little. The temperature in the room dropped and the lights flickered.

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