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My own garden at the Coven House looked limp and lifeless compared to the abundance here. Well, some things grow better than others. I could grow belladonna without a thought, but my basil struggled. If I needed marigold for a spell, I had to haul myself to a nursery and buy some.
It even smelled nice here. Like lavender and baking bread and freshly tilled earth.
I’d gone a bit nose blind to sulfur.
As though being around a portal to the Hell plane had an effect.
Not that we have a Coven House anymore, if what Kelsey told me was true.
Yes, and if you’d been there you would likely be dead, so you should probably thank her for bringing you someplace nice.
I wasn’t sure what that voice was trying to do, but I intended to shut it the fuck up the minute my sisters freed me.
I was sure that was exactly what they were going to do as that awful clanging surrounded me and I watched all the Fae creatures rushing toward a place I couldn’t see.
My sisters would come for me. Oh, Kelsey had killed the two closest to me, but more would be brought in. Myrddin wouldn’t have replaced me, but he would absolutely raise up another two worthy witches to take their places beside me. Those sisters would be here, fighting against my captors.
Not because they loved me. Love was a ridiculous reason to stay with a person. What my sisters and I had was more important.
A joined purpose. To raise our kind up and show the supernatural world they couldn’t kick us around anymore, that we could rule as well as any vampire. Fear was in there, too. They should understand that if they didn’t save me, I would be cross when I inevitably escaped.
But they were here and they would have been given some of the master’s power, and they would defeat the vampire king.
Yeah, not even my delusion-riddled self truly believed that. Unless Myrddin himself was here for me, they would probably fail because Donovan was a force of nature, and now so was his son. Two fucking vampire kings.
How would Myrddin handle them, unless…
The clanging stopped and so did my hopes. They wouldn’t have turned off the alarm if the raid had gone well.
If there had been a raid at all…
I couldn’t help but think about what Kelsey had said. Myrddin had appointed a new Profane.
She could be lying. Except she never lied. It was hard to remember that she hadn’t changed. She’d only been gone for a few days. She was still the same stubborn idiot she’d always been, and that meant she wouldn’t lie to me. And why should she lie when the truth hurt far more?
I turned and realized I’d let my guard down because there was a vampire standing in my doorway.
Sasha Federov. A massive pain in my ass.
Also the one person I might really fear because he was ruthless and had zero ties to the me I used to be. If Sasha thought the children he’d spent years protecting would be made a bit more comfortable with my beheading, he would do it and not think twice.
I didn’t have a single power to call on because my “friend” had taken them all from me.
Yes, I needed to hold on to this feeling whenever I started to wish for the old days. I needed to remember Kelsey wanted all the power for herself.
“Shouldn’t you be rushing out to fight the battle, General?” I asked the question with far more bravado than I felt, but then I’d learned to mask my emotions.
Emotions didn’t serve me well at the Coven House. Emotions were weakness, and weakness did not serve the cause.
The dark-haired vamp stared at me for a moment. “There’s no battle. It was a medical emergency. I came by to ensure you didn’t use the distraction as a means to escape.”
My gut tightened when I realized I hadn’t even tried. I’d stood at the window and hadn’t thought to poke holes in the wards those dumbass witches had thrown up hastily. What had I been thinking? “Well, I’m still here, big boy. What are you going to do about it?” And then it struck me. Sasha Federov was standing in the light of day. He wasn’t an academic like most of the other vamps here in the village. He should be dead. My eyes hit on the chunky ring on his finger. “Who killed Alexander?”
Alexander Sharpe had been given that ring by my master for being a loyal soul. Oh, sure he’d been Jack the Ripper in another life, but this was war, and beggars couldn’t be choosers. Alexander had given us vital information. We’d known about Frelsi and the base somewhere in the South Pacific because of Alexander, though he’d always been portalled in and out, so we hadn’t been able to pinpoint them. The ring had been his reward.
Myrddin certainly hadn’t allowed the man to go back to his favorite craft. That was a rumor at the Coven House. That was all. People liked to gossip. There were a lot of nasty rumors about Myrddin out there, and he started some of them himself. A fierce reputation was important even when it wasn’t earned.
Sasha looked down at the ring, flexing his hand around it. “Ah, yes. The queen, actually. He murdered her son.”
