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His jaw tightens, and Hardin spits out a curse. Gideon answers me. “He’s secure.”
I glance over at him. “Secure?”
Fielder sighs and leans forward, bracing his forearms on his knees while his green eyes burn into me. “He’s locked in a room with no way to get out. Is that sufficient information?”
I flinch, not liking the bitter tone of his voice. It pulls me back to when I first met him, to when these men treated me like shit, because Fielder’s dad told them to.
Anger bubbles in my stomach, replacing the woozy feeling and making me feel more… solid. “Don’t talk to me like that, Harris.”
His cold, mossy green eyes run over me. “How should I talk to you, Sweeney?”
“I don’t know? How about like I’m your girlfriend and not the trailer trash you tried to get rid of nine months ago? That might be nice.”
“Rosalind.” Gideon sounds like he’s chiding me, warning me away from this.
“You knew he was coming, didn’t you?” Fielder asks, still in that impersonal voice. “You told him where we are?”
I shake my head, running a hand over my face. “I didn’t know he was coming.” And then I meet his eyes. “But I did ask him for help.”
Ezra sits heavily on the coffee table. He, at least, isn’t looking at me like I’ve betrayed him, even though I have. “Why would you do that, Ro?”
I motion with one limp hand toward the front door and the driveway beyond. “You saw what he can do. How powerful he is all on his own. He has access to magic that none of you do. He learned to master it on his own, without the limitations laid down by a coven. Guys, he managed to keep all four of you from hurting him. I need to know what he knows. We all do.”
“You don’t think we can teach you what you need to know, love?” Hardin asks, sounding hurt.
I meet his bright blue eyes and shake my head. “I think,” I say carefully, not wanting to hurt him farther. Not wanting to hurt them anymore than I already have. “That you will teach me everything you can and we’ll learn a lot together, but I don’t think it will be enough.”
This last part is almost whispered, because I don’t want to make them feel inferior. Not in the slightest. They are the most powerful witches in their coven, even more powerful than the elders of their sects, but Cohen was able to hold them off. He could stand his ground against all four of them.
I look directly at Fielder and will him to understand. “Your father is trying to kill me. I need to be as prepared as I can be for these trials. There’s only two weeks to learn enough to not only pass, but also survive whatever he throws at me. I think I need what Cohen can teach me. I don’t want to die.”
“We can teach you,” Gideon persists. “They won’t test you on anything we can’t teach you. We might be…limited, but they are too. They’ll still be bound by the rules of the coven.”
I arch a brow at him. “Really? You think Robert Harris is going to stick to the rules when his only focus right now is to get rid of me? You don’t think he might slip an extra spell in there somewhere to hinder me some way, or hurt me? Kill me?”
Not one of them can deny it. Because he’s a sneaky bastard who isn’t above playing dirty to get what he wants.
“I don’t know why I have to work so hard to convince you that this is right. It’s my trial, my magic, mylife.I decide who has a part in it, not you. If I want to learn from Cohen, then I’m going to learn from Cohen. It’s really that simple.”
Ezra sighs. “It’s not that simple, Ro.”
“Well, I think it is.”
“Why are you being so goddamn stubborn about this, love?”
I glare at Hardin. “Why are you?”
“He kidnapped you!” Fielder yells, shooting to his feet and finally melting that icy cool he’d been nursing. “Call it whatever the fuck you want, Ro, but he kidnapped you. He took you from us, cut us off from you. We couldn’t find you. Couldn’t feel you. We didn’t know if you were alive or dead or hurting. The location spell that Ezra did? It didn’t work the first three times. Cohen blocked it. He kept us from finding you until it suited his purpose. We were terrified, Sweeney. So fucking terrified of what we would find in that cave.”
I see it now. He’s not angry, he’sscared.Scared of what it means to let this new person who already made him feel so much fear into our lives. He doesn’t trust Cohen, and he shouldn’t. I don’t fully trust him, either.
I nod. “You’re right. It was fucked up. I’ve admitted it was fucked up. I was pissed at him about it. Still am, if I’m being honest. But do you want to know what he did while we were together? He talked to me, and then he put his own protection spell on me. He did it by kissing my forehead, Fielder. That’s it. Just a brush of his lips on my skin and the protection spell was in place.”
Gideon scoffs. “That’s not possible. There’s no way to have a protection spell settle that quickly.”
I arch a brow. “I felt it. It was the same as the one that you guys did on me, but faster, so much fucking faster. Guys. I’m not saying he’s not an asshole. And I’m not saying we should trust him. I’m saying he has so much knowledge, so much power and he can show us how to cast quicker, with more power. We’d be idiots to not take advantage of this opportunity.”
“Well said, wildcard,” Cohen drawls from behind me. All four men lunge to their feet. Magic crackles in the air and I scramble up onto the couch, so I’m towering above them. Well, not really towering, but I’m taller than them.
