Page 82 of Which Witch Is Wicked?
"Do you haveanyidea how worried we were?" Claire asked in a voice that wasn't open to excuses.
"The least you could've done is leave us a fucking message," Aerin said. "If you didn't have your cell phone, you could have used your magical powers or written something in the dirt so we didn't spend all night looking for your sorry ass and thinking the worst had happened."
"I'm sorry," she started, realizing how much she'd hurt them by not letting them know she was okay, or at least not dead somewhere.
"Damn right, you're sorry," Aerin said.
"Before we get to the reasons why you were out all night and didn't call, I need an answer," Moira said. "How the hell did you ride in here on adeer? And are you wearing acrown?"
Self-consciously, Tierra reached up and took off the crown she'd forgotten she still wore. The solid gold felt heavy in her hand. She should have a headache, but barely felt the weight of it until she'd taken it off. "It was a white stag."
"You can ride a white...stag, but can't manage a broom?" Aerin raised an eyebrow.
"You need to explain yourself, Tierra," Claire said.
What a picture she must make.
A night spent rolling around on the ground with Killian, digging in the dirt for her inheritance, and traveling miles on a wild, mystical animal through the forest from Siren's Cry. Sounded like she'd been on an acid trip. "Mind if I take a shower first?"
"Fuck, yes!"Aerin and Claire answered together.
"You think your walk of shame will wash off with a shower? Think again, sister," Aerin said.
"Fine." Her anger ignited, sparking against theirs. It was easier than dealing with her embarrassment and the hurt she'd caused them with her thoughtless actions. "You three flew off to goddess knows where and just left me to fend for myself."
"It wasn't our fault you couldn't figure it out," Aerin followed up.
"We told you to stay within the wards and practice," Claire said.
"How hard was that?"
"Well, I got all turned around and ended up outside them. I didn't mean to. I just wasn't meant to fly. I'm an earth witch, and forcing me to do something before I'm ready, or willing, wasn't helping!" She'd felt like a child who couldn't ride a bicycle and all the neighborhood kids were making fun of her.
"All right, everyone calm the fuck down," Moira said in a voice meant to both placate and command. "Where did you go, Tierra? By the looks of you, we have a good ideawhoyou were with all night. But how did you disappear so completely?"
"We couldn't even find you when we scryed," Claire admitted. "It was like you'd dropped off the planet."
"And with Death being able to move between realms, he could have taken you beyond our reach," Aerin said. "Did you think of that?"
No, she hadn't. "It all happened so fast. Killian appeared from out of nowhere and grabbed me."
"That fucking son of a bitch," Aerin muttered, obviously remembering how it had felt when Killian had come after her in his stealth-bomber winged-form. She'd poofed and ended up materializing in the kitchen—a new power that she hadn't been able to reproduce with any measure of control since. It seemed to be a "fight or flight" response to extreme fear, with emphasis on the flight.
"He took me to the Standing Stones," Tierra admitted.
"Why?" Moira asked. "It's not as if that place has a lot of pleasant memories for you."
"Such a romantic, that one," Aerin sneered. "But maybe fucking you where you died gets his rocks off."Ouch. The gloves were off.
"All right, chill your ass down," Moira said to Aerin. "I can help you with that if you'd like." Moira must be the middle child, the peacekeeper, or she just had the biggest, most forgiving heart of the four of them. "Death tried to save her, remember? He had a part in opening the
Fourth Seal,hisSeal, because of it."
Aerin pursed her lips and looked like she wanted to reply, but held her tongue even though it appeared it would choke her to do so.
"Now," Moira continued, "let's go inside and discuss this like grown-ass women. We don't need to put on a show for whoever might happen tooverhear. A bunch of pots callin' the kettle black will get us nowhere fast."
"It probably has something to do with her getting a piece of ass and us wanting some,"
