Page 11 of A Trial By Blood

He didn’t look up.

I strode from the room and out the door, taking the elevator to the ground floor where my car was parked. I needed to get to Rose, anyway. She’d asked me to return, so she could ask me something.

Whatever it was she wanted, I would give it to her.

I didn’t know why, but since meeting her, my instincts wouldn’t allow anything else.

CHAPTER 3

Rose

I stared out the window. It was breezy this evening. The light outside the front door below made the swaying trees glow, and as they moved, the lightly falling snow danced around their bare branches. It was pretty. I wanted to be out there. I wanted to feel the wind and snow on my face and soaking through my clothes.

I wanted a lot of things.

Nia was with me again, while my family bustled around downstairs. I could hear them on the wooden floor, their chatter, the clink of dishes as someone loaded the dishwasher, and the TV going in the distance. They’d left me to rest. It was all I did, all I could do.

Mags had brought up her laptop earlier, and we’d watched a movie. I’d stared at the screen blindly. My mind on the dream I’d had. No, not a dream. Something else.

Death had come to me again while I’d slept, and he was growing impatient. At first, I thought they were dreams, had hoped it was only a nightmare, but I quickly realized it was so much worse.

Last year, my family had removed the souls of two evil witches from Limbo and sent them to Hell where they belonged, and in doing so, unknowingly pissed off Death. Now he wanted my soul as repayment. He wasn’t taking no for an answer and was using his brother, Somnus, the personification of sleep, to reach me.

I could only assume he’d zeroed in on me because my time was almost up, but I hadn’t told anyone about his visits, that he often came to me, or what he wanted because it would only make my death so much harder on everyone.

“The debt must be paid.” His words rang through my mind, and the threat in his horrifying voice sent cold dread down my spine. I was terrified that if I didn’t let him take me, he’d come after someone else in our coven, someone I loved, and I wouldn’t let that happen.

But Death was only one of the reasons I needed to die. Soon, the mother, also known as Mother Nature—the Great Goddess, the Creatress of all life—would call for me. It could happen at any time, and if I didn’t go when she did, and I was still alive, my family would lose everything.

Both Willow and Iris had completed their tasks and passed their trials when the mother had called—and it was during Iris’s task that we’d gotten Death’s attention. The mother put witches through tasks and trials as a way of testing their skill. If they passed, we got to keep the magical gifts the mother had given our coven over the centuries. If the witch failed, the coven lost them all, making us weak and vulnerable. And if she called on me, that’s exactly what would happen.

I couldn’t even stand, let alone fight my way through a demon-infested forest, which was expected when she called you. I wouldn’t even make it through the meet and greet with the giant serpent she possessed for the occasion—let alone when she bit you, leaving you with permanent tattoo-like markings made by her magical venom.

There was no way I’d survive that.

Willow was the oldest and now Keeper of our coven, a role that was never meant for our branch of the family. It was a long and twisted story, but here we were, and after Willow passed, the mother decreed that since the position of Keeper had moved to a new branch of the family, each of us—Iris, me, and Mags—had to pass a task and trial of our own to prove our line was worthy of keeping the magical gifts she’d bestowed on our coven. To lose those gifts would be devastating to not only our family but to our entire coven.

It had been two years since Willow passed, a year for Iris. The mother had given us all time to prepare, but it didn’t matter how much time I’d had, I physically couldn’t do it. I honestly thought I’d be dead by the time my turn rolled around.

But I wasn’t, and time was running out.

“I’ll stay with Roe,” Mags said outside my room. Her voice was hushed, but I heard her. I was frail and dying, but my hearing was just fine. My family forgot that sometimes. Probably because I was usually asleep.

“Rowena really wanted everyone from the family there tomorrow,” Willow said. My sister arrived a short time ago, conveniently in time for dessert.

“Rowena will understand.” That was Mom. There was a pause. “I understand why she wants to meet with us, I’m just…I’m not ready…”

“I know,” Wills said.

Mom sobbed, the sound muffled. Willow or Mags were hugging her.

This meeting with Rowena had something to do with me. She was the head of our coven and Mom’s second cousin. If she was in town, it had to be important—like what happened to the coven when the mother stripped us of her gifts because I was too weak to answer her call and do what was needed.

There was no way I’d let them suffer because of me.

The sound of a car door closing echoed outside, and I knew who it was instantly. I’d asked Ronan to come back, and he had. Anything I asked, he obliged. I didn’t know why, but I was thankful for it. For him.

I loved my family with everything in me. But Ronan was the reason I’d put this off as long as I had. It didn’t matter that he didn’t feel the way I did. I’d wanted to squeeze in every second with the male I was madly in love with before I died. But I couldn’t wait anymore, and the conversation I just overheard made that all the more clear.