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Of course, there was nothing stopping them doing a ceremony at any other time—a point we’d discovered the hard way not so long ago. But if we were dealing with the same sorcerer who’d killed Cat, why would he change his timing? The little I’d learned about dark practitioners suggested deviating from norms was rare, simply because when dealing with darker forces and demons themselves, alterations could be deadly.
I forced my gaze to the woman who lay in the center of the pentagram.
She wasn’t young—which was another difference from those long-ago murders—but she had the crimson hair and pale skin of a royal witch, suggesting she was either from Marlowe or Ashworth stock. She was naked, her arms and legs positioned so they pointed toward the elements of earth, air, water, and fire, while her head was close to spirit.
Her head wasn’t attached to her body, though there wasn’t much in the way of blood, suggesting the decapitation had happened after death. The top of her head had also been sliced off, and I rather suspected her brains had been sucked out of her skull. I wasn’t going to check though, because my stomach wasn’t up to it.
If my guess that we were dealing with the same sorcerer was correct, then that made two more points of difference.
There was obvious bruising on her wrists and her ankles, suggesting she’d been physically bound and possibly even drugged for at least a few days before she’d been killed.”
Why would he do that, though? Belle said. He didn’t need to last time.
Last time he attacked younger royal witches. He could overwhelm them magically.
Even at nineteen, your sister was far stronger than many here in Canberra, so that’s not exactly true.
She might have been magically stronger, but she wasn’t what anyone would term experienced. The last year has certainly proven that sheer magical strength isn’t always the best weapon.
Besides, I’d bested Cat’s killer when I was little more than fifteen. And okay, that had been due more to my psychic skills than magical, but it still rammed home the point that the latter wasn’t everything.
A fact I wished my father would cotton on to.
I still believe there’re too many variances in this murder for it to be Cat’s killer, Belle said.
I hope you’re right.
But fear I’m not?
Sadly, yes.
Her trepidation stirred through me, as sharp as my own. But why would he bother to come back here?
Revenge? If he did survive what we did to him, well, he’d be pretty pissed off.
How would he even know you’re here? We’ve only been here a couple of days—the gossip lines in the spirit world don’t work that fast.
I couldn’t help smiling. Your guides are certainly evidence enough of that.
She snorted. They heard that. They’re not impressed.
That’s okay. It’s not like I have to deal with them.
Did you touch wood when you said that? Because they’re suggesting you might want to.
My smile grew, but I didn’t reply because the gently stirring wind teased my nostrils with not only the smell of oncoming rain, but also a rich, woody scent that was vaguely familiar.
Before I could place it, Samuel Kang pushed through the shroud and then stopped. He was the picture of classic male perfection—an oval-shaped face, chiseled cheekbones, and somewhat shaggy, shoulder-length hair that was a slightly deeper shade of crimson than usual for a royal witch. His shoulders were lovely and wide, his frame lean and yet muscular. But for me, it was his eyes that drew the attention. They were mono-lidded and the most glorious shade of emerald green. The same shade, in fact, that mine had once been, and that meant there was human blood in his background somewhere.
Of course, his less-than-pure bloodline was the reason behind my father’s recent attempt to broker a marriage deal between our two families. He no doubt figured I’d be more inclined to accept the suit of someone who was not only closer to my own age, but who also came from stock that wasn’t “perfect.”
Meaning Mom’s bloodline, of course, not my father’s.
Although given what we’d recently learned about the Fenna and conception binding—which was the mating of a witch and a werewolf within a new wellspring, creating a hybrid forever bound to the wild magic—maybe my green eyes were actually the legacy of a distant werewolf bloodline. And given the sole purpose of the Fenna was to protect and control the wild magic, it would certainly explain why both Mom and I had survived immersion in it.
Samuel’s gaze swept across the pentagram and the body within, then moved to mine. He did something of a double take, and the hint of a smile tugged at his rather lovely lips. I hadn’t spent all that much time in this man’s orbit, but I’d gotten the impression smiling was something he did quite often. It made him rather a rare man up here in Canberra—especially considering he was the lead investigator for the high council and had to deal with all three royal lines on a regular basis.
Pleasant, they generally were not.
