Page 62 of Which Witch Is Wicked?
Don’t show them you’re afraid.
“We cannot say her name,” War stated.
“You can’t tell me even though I’m about to eat it, here?” she demanded. “Jesus Christ, you guys.”
“No.” Julian shook his head. “The Devil.”
That shut her up.
Julian walked forward with his brethren; the sight they made in the gathering dawn was truly something to behold. If Aerin wasn’t so afraid, she’d be awestruck.
“You’re… you’re really going to let them kill me.”
Julian looked away, the silver streaks in his hair flashing as the cresting sun illuminated them all. “If not for her, it would all be different. But I can’t allow her to destroy the good that I see in you. That I—Iloveabout you.”
“Don’t youdaresay that word to me!” The darkness surged within Aerin, and with it, a power she hadn’t before felt.
“Goodbye, Aerin de Moray,” he murmured. “Knowing you has been my greatest pleasure.”
“Fucking me would have been your greatest pleasure,” she said coldly. “But I guess you’ve done that, in a more figurative sense.”
The fear was gone. She looked down at the churning ocean and felt… nothing. A beast of pain gnawed at its cage in the pit where she’d thrown it, but it would soon be smothered with her signature chill. She wouldn’t let it end like this, there was so much left to do. So, instead, she put her broom between her legs, murmured the flying spell… And jumped.
Instead of the waves and rocks coming up to meet her, Aerin paused in mid-air for a few moments, then shot ahead.
“OhshitohshitohSHIT!” she screamed as the calm water bounced the pink reflection of the sunrise and her own ridiculous image, straddling a kitchen implement and rocketing toward who-the-fuck-knew-where.
All those movies had been right… witches flew on broom sticks.
Who knew?
Flying would have been in-fucking-credible if she hadn’t spaced one tiny detail.
Killian Bane had big, scary black angel wings.
Well, wasn’t that shittastic?
She could feel the kiss of Death on the back of her neck, and she looked back in time to see him barreling after her like an avenging angel, grim intent set in his strong jaw.
“You’d better back off or—or—I’m telling Tierra on you!” she called, all mature and shit.
He laughed, and the sound speared fear through her bones. “Not if I catch you first.”
With a flap of his great wings, he gained on her, and Aerin knew she was fucked.
She squeezed her eyes tight, waiting for the touch of Death. If only she could disappear. If only she was back in the kitchen with her sisters.
If only she could see them one. Last. Time.
Poof!
Or, rather…CRASH!
Aerin ran headlong into the refrigerator and clattered to the ground, the small branch of her broom feeling like an entire two-by-four beneath her aching back.
Oh man, that was going to bruise.
“What the hell?” Tierra shrieked, standing so quickly she knocked the kitchen chair over.
