Total pages in book: 142
Estimated words: 134501 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 673(@200wpm)___ 538(@250wpm)___ 448(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 134501 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 673(@200wpm)___ 538(@250wpm)___ 448(@300wpm)
The curtain fluttered. The lamp bulb flickered. The flames in the hearth puffed out.
Cold washed over, eerie and otherworldly and filled with a thousand frantic whispers.
Emberlyn sat up straight, instantly alert.
Well, well, well, it would seem that she had company.
Emberlyn pushed off the sofa, walked purposefully out of the room and headed into the kitchen. She stopped at the door to the basement, turned the knob and opened it wide. She didn’t clamber down the wooden steps that disappeared into thick pockets of shadow. She merely called out, ‘It’s time.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Every part of her body aching, Reena weakly lifted her head from the cold, hard ground. A ground she’d pitilessly been dumped on by one of the people now lined up in front of the manor. Her ears ringing, she blinked to clear her blurred vision and focused on the scene playing out in front of her.
Eight robed witches stood with their feet planted and their hands extended. All bloated with power that didn’t belong to them, they were chanting fast beneath their breath as they worked to take down the manor’s shield.
The taut air crackled with magick, hot and sticky and very other. A force not of this world. Not meant for this world.
They’d ‘borrowed’ it, she thought. Borrowed it from some creature or deity they’d summoned, and probably in exchange for a sliver of their soul.
They had to be members of the rebel faction. She couldn’t tell who exactly they were because each wore an animal mask. Going by the length of their hair and how slender their hands were, she felt sure that the goat, cat, rabbit and blackbird were female. The rest – a fox, wolf, deer and owl – appeared to be male.
Though the power they wielded only danced along the manor’s shield, dread licked through her. It wasn’t so much these assholes who worried her. It was that they each had a Rabid on a magickal leash that currently kept them docile.
Currently.
They likely wouldn’t remain that way for long. Reena was in no state to fight them. She could barely move.
The witches had come at her from behind, the little cowardly bastards. They’d not only attacked her with magick and sapped her of virtually all strength, they had also managed to suppress her own magick, leaving her weak and defenseless.
She had no idea how they’d managed to draw Ripper away from the manor, though she’d heard them gloating about it. Heard enough to understand they’d come here because the rest of the coven now wanted their heads on a silver platter. Only earning respect and fear would make the coven accept the faction as worthy. In these witches’ view, defeating Emberlyn Vautier would earn them both.
Reena inwardly snorted. They were underestimating just how powerful the lone witch truly was. Eight witches, twenty witches, forty witches – it would make no difference. Not even while they were tanked up on borrowed magick. They were fools if they thought differently. It was just as foolish of them to think that getting her alone would turn things in their favor. Emberlyn didn’t need werewolf muscle at her back.
Trying to sit up a little straighter, Reena winced as pain bloomed through her head again. Her belly churned and beads of sweat broke out on her forehead. Closing her eyes, she tried accessing her magick again. Failed. It was still buried too deep.
Hearing a flutter of wings, she looked upward. Three crows had gathered on the roof of the manor. Another soared down and settled on the porch rail. A fourth circled the building before landing on a turret.
If the faction noticed, they didn’t show it. They were focused on lowering the shield – their chanting growing louder, faster, more intense.
Reena’s gaze slipped down . . . and stopped as she did a double-take. Several partly transparent people stood in the manor’s windows, staring out at the scene below. Women and men dressed in clothes from varying eras.
Two in particular caught her attention – Lilith and Millicent side by side, shooting daggers at the faction.
Well, hell.
Magick hissed. Popped. Crackled. Sparked and spluttered in the air. Then the front door swung open . . . just as the manor’s shield fell.
And there stood Emberlyn. She took in everything with a glance – the masked witches, the leashed Rabid, Reena on the ground.
Did Emberlyn tense? No. Did she curse? No? Did she look in the least bit bothered or even remotely interested? No.
Her expression remained neutral. No surprise. No fear. No anger. Not even a hint of unease. ‘Well, that was rude,’ she remarked.
‘We couldn’t have exactly knocked on your front door,’ said the ‘goat’, her voice carrying a deep, almost mechanical echo that made it hard to identify her – a sure sign that she was struggling to ‘digest’ the power she’d borrowed. ‘Until now, that is.’