Page 60 of Which Witch Is Wicked?
As she turned to give the order, Aerin felt momentarily torn. It was a heady thing, having an army… even if they were mostly shriveled and gross. She didn’t want her sisters to hate her or to mistrust her. But she didn’t feel what they felt. She’d known what to do and she’d saved the day.
Why couldn’t they see that?
She knew why. Because deep down, they understood what Claire had prophesied was true… Tierra and Moira were both afraid. Afraid of their powers and afraid of their potential. They didn’t know what she saw, hadn’t been there when Julian had informed her what could happen if they decided to throw their hats in the ring for supremacy over the earth.
They’d only just heard the truth.
That they were powerful, and whatever they decided to do… No power in the universe, light or dark, could stop them.
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“Earth to release me from the land
Water to guide the task at hand.
Flame to hasten my course ahead.
Air to be the path I tread.
By earth, fire, water, and sky,
Goddess bless this broom to fly!”
Thwack. Thick grasses muffled the sound of the new broom hitting the ground… again.
It did not, however, muffle the string of creative epithets spewing from Aerin’s mouth. She couldn’t concentrate, could barely even breathe.
She was angry. Angry at her sisters for the rift that had opened up tonight. Angry at their worried silence or their spoken mistrust of her. Angry with Julian for his strange actions today. For the violence that had erupted between them before he’d withdrawn from her.
Why make a deal to see her if he was only going to push her away? Was it some kind of Four Horsemen Jedi mind game?
“I thought you were afraid of heights.” As though conjured by her tempestuous thoughts of him, Julian’s cultured voice melted from the darkness before the rest of him.
“What are you doing here?” Aerin spun on him. “It’s almost dawn.”
His hands were linked behind him as he climbed the gentle hill to the edge of the drop where she stood above the churning ocean. It hurt to look at him for too long, he was that beautiful. “I had a feeling I’d find you here after all the madness in town.”
Madness. That was putting it lightly. Frightened people. Walking dead. Chaos in the streets.
The world would never be the same…and a fourth of the blame was upon her head.
Or was it? Was all of this someone else’s fault? It was certainly someone else’s prophecy. They only thing she’d done wrong was being born.
Arguably.
Two of her three sisters seemed to think that she’d done something very wrong tonight.
Did Julian know? Could he sense the darkness inside of her? Did he realize that, even now, the undead were slowly converging on his Horsemen brothers at their cabin in the woods?
The assholes deserved it. Didn’t they? The undead wouldn’tkillthe stubborn immortals… but they would certainly keep them busy for a bit until the sisters could formulate a plan of some kind.
The de Moray sisters were floundering, stumbling about like blind toddlers in an earthquake. That had to change.
Now.
Aerin used the action of picking up her discarded broom to reach out and sense his emotions.
“You’re conflicted.” She studied the stark angles of his face and deep, pale eyes that wouldn’t meet hers. “And you’re sad.” It drifted to her on the sea breezes, his desolation. The darkness was after him, too, but he was better at running from it than she was.
