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Which I didn't. In spite of what I'd said to Izzy, I wasn't homicidal, or suicidal. The small dose of his smell was all I needed to get through these next few hours. Alive, with any luck.
Izzy sat in the seat beside me and loudly chewed her gum. She flashed me a smile, then leaned forward to talk to the driver.
I sat back and looked out the window as the car moved away from the sidewalk.
We travelled through darkness broken here and there by streetlights. Shapes of buildings appeared at the edge of each circle of light, but not enough to show more than neatly dressed stone and black recesses that might be doorways.
Where there might be sky, there was nothing. No stars, no moon.
"We're here," Izzy said.
I realised we'd stopped. For a minute or two at least, by the look of it.
While I had admired the city, Bain and the driver stepped out of the car and now stood waiting. Bain handed my suitcase to another man, who curled his lip at the ragged state of my case.
I gave Izzy a nod and opened her door.
"Do you need help?" Bain opened mine and looked at me as though I'd deliberately sat waiting for him.
"Thank you, I've got this." I gave him a brief smile.
He grunted and moved away.
Unless the goddess of bad luck heard and made me trip, I could get out of a car by myself. The bitch listened at the worst possible times, but I managed to step on the sidewalk without falling on my face.
Win.
Only after I closed the door behind me did I look at Bain again.
He stood with a couple of other men, speaking to them in a low voice. Both looked as cheerful as he did. One nodded and hurried away. The rest fell in behind me and Izzy.
I turned to take my suitcase from the man who held it. He looked like he might argue, but Bain gave him a sharp nod and he released the handle.
Damn right, bitch, I thought.My clothes are in there.
Not just that, of course. I gripped the handle a little tighter, aware of the eyes on me. Not on me, I reminded myself, on my suitcase and the box inside.
I heard the Covener's words in my mind. "Guard that box as though it were worth a lot more than you." To him, it was. I was nothing. Less than nothing. An escort, and a scapegoat if it went missing.
"Perhaps you should take it yourself?" I had told him.
"Then how would I be rid of you?" Covener Denis Crane looked at me from under his bushy eyebrows. His mouth curled downward behind his thick beard.
"I'm sure you'd find a way," I retorted. I shouldn't taunt him. My power was stronger than his, but if he ordered me dead, I wouldn't survive the day. Still, I wouldn't show him I was beaten.
"Yes, I would." He nodded. "In fact, I have." He looked smug.
I wanted to wipe the expression off his face, but no one touched the Covener without his consent.
"The artefact isn't that important, is it?" I guessed. "This is about Max." His brat of a son would be Covener one day, and he never let anyone forget it. Max Crane would give us a shit reputation amongst paranormals, if we didn't already have one. Denis hated anyone who wasn’t a witch, particularly me. My power was at least part shifter. My blood was tainted, according to them. As if I fucking asked to be different.
I sure as fuck didn't ask to be paired with Max during the coming of age ritual at midsummer three years ago. The memory alone turned my stomach.
Every witch within a hundred kilometre radius turned up at the Council's Ritual Chamber. There, anyone over eighteen would ask Hades for guidance. Or a lesser god if you were brave enough. And Hades, if he felt like screwing with us, would force the girls to kneel at the feet of the mate he chose for us.
I don't know who was more horrified when I knelt at the feet of Max Crane; me, him or his father. God-given or not, the Covener and his asshole son turned their backs firmly on me and encouraged everyone else to do the same. He must have worked in this plan to send me away since the moment my knee touched the ground.
"The artefact is vital to the shifters." His lip curled. "Buteverythingis about the future Covener. You'll do well to remember that." He crossed his arms and looked at me with eyes full of disdain. "I won't have him, or any witch, tarnished by tainted blood."
