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Destiny crouched in the back of the van, keeping a wary eye on the spirit of Brenda, who was currently lounging in the passenger seat. It’d been several hours since they left the fair and Brenda had forced her to drive south. Finally they’d reached this remote, wooded area where the dead woman had declared they were going to rest for the night.
And that was that. The spirit had tilted back her seat and settled herself in for a nap. Like they were besties at summer camp, not fleeing a murder scene.
She’d always known the leader of the coven was a coldhearted bitch. After all, she’d tried to murder her own daughter, right? But watching her drain that poor fortune teller, and create a massive stampede that had injured dozens of people, without an ounce of remorse was stewing like a noxious poison in the pit of her stomach.
“Did you have to kill her?” she abruptly burst out.
Brenda didn’t bother to open her eyes. “Kill who?”
Destiny shuddered at the realization she had to clarify which murder she was discussing.
“That fortune teller.”
“Oh. Her.” Brenda clicked her tongue. “Of course I did. Human emotion can feed me, but I need to increase my power.” Her voice was thick with disgust. “Not that the creature had much magic to offer. She was more a hack than a witch.”
Destiny scowled. “So this is what we’re doing?”
“Doing?”
“You promised greatness.” Destiny’s voice was harsh. “Does that mean driving from one backwater to another, terrorizing the yokels?”
Brenda leaned to the side, her head swiveling so she could study Destiny with glowing eyes. Destiny shuddered. It was spooky as hell.
“Do you thirst for more?”
“I…” Destiny was forced to halt and clear the lump of fear from her throat. “I just want to go home.”
The strange glow in Brenda’s eyes pulsed, as if she was amused by Destiny’s unease.
“Liar.”
“It’s true,” Destiny insisted.
“No.” There was an arrogant confidence in the spirit’s voice. “I see into your heart, Destiny Mason. You joined the coven because you were desperate to gain power.”
“I wanted to be a witch,” Destiny conceded.
Her parents had been horrified, of course. They couldn’t understand how she could walk away from a life of luxury to live in squalor in the middle of Wyoming. They thought she should be pleased to be traded to a suitable man who could add to the family coffers and vault them up the social ladder. It never occurred to them that she might have some worth beyond the ability to breed the next generation.
“You wanted to bemore,” Brenda insisted. “But as Peri began to grow into her powers you realized that she was the one who’d been blessed by the gods.”
Destiny flinched. Peri had just been dabbling with her magic when Destiny had arrived at the coven. But by the time the bitch had celebrated her twelfth birthday she could perform spells that most of the coven couldn’t manage. Destiny had watched her carefully, certain that she had to be cheating. It had to be a trick, she’d assured herself.
It wasn’t possible to have that much magic.
The truth, however, had been far more disturbing than her suspicion that Peri was an underhanded brat.
“She wasn’t blessed, she was cursed,” Destiny spit out. There was no way she was going to let anyone realize how deeply she envied Peri. Or reveal how willing she would be to gain the magic of a mage.
Brenda chuckled, easily sensing her dark hunger. “So much power in such a young girl. It reminded you that you were nothing more than mediocre, didn’t it, Destiny? And warned that you’d never be anything else.”
Destiny leaned forward, glaring at her tormentor. “I wasn’t the only one to envy Peri’s power, was I?”
“No, it called to me with the song of a siren,” Brenda readily admitted. “It still calls to me. We are one and the same, Destiny.”
Destiny sat back, grimacing at the raw hunger pulsing in the air. It felt weirdly familiar.
“Fine. I’m ambitious,” she conceded, not bothering to hide her annoyance with the conversation. “Too ambitious to waste my time in this nasty van while you terrorize humans and suck the life from pathetic women who can barely create a spark of magic.”
