Chapter Two
Well, it looked as though her friend was right. Because however this played out, it would be painful for Emberlyn in some way.
She’d never get her hands on those earrings via one of her relatives. Those sly, greedy, arrogant asses wouldn’t give her shit. Which left her no choice but to go to the manor if she wanted her mom’s earrings.
One of two things would then happen.
Either the house would magickly strike to keep her out – and yeah, there’d be bruises as a result. Or it would bid her entrance . . . which would mean that it had ‘chosen’ her to be its new owner.
Emberlyn loved the manor. She would snap up the opportunity to live there again. But to do so would earn her the wrath of her family, Reena, and probably also the werewolf clan, who thought they’d be making a shit-ton of money by building all those houses for the coven.
Kage’s eyes danced. ‘You know that Millicent will be looking up at you right now, laughing her ass off, right?’
Emberlyn swiped her tongue over her teeth. ‘Yeah. Yeah, I do.’
‘This is unbelievable,’ Gill breathed. ‘Absolutely unbelievable.’
None of the amusement that Emberlyn could feel rolling from the twins could be seen on the faces of her relatives. As they eyed Emberlyn, all appeared a mix of furious and worried.
They should be worried. The manor’s magick fed on power, and she had plenty of that.
She found her eyes drifting to Ripper . . . only to realize that he was staring at her. There was nothing to read in his expression, though.
‘It isn’t necessary for you to put yourself through the bother of attempting to gain entrance to the manor, Emberlyn,’ Gill told her, all kindness. ‘Whichever one of us it chooses will pass your mother’s earrings to you, along with Lucie.’
Emberlyn snorted. ‘No, you won’t. You’ll keep the cat and claim you can’t find the earrings; that Grams must have tossed them out or buried them somewhere to mess with me.’
Gill hiked up an offended brow. ‘You think me that petty?’
‘Totally.’
‘You’re judging me by Millicent’s standards. She was the petty one. I was not close to Avery, but I would never begrudge her daughter a pair of her earrings.’
‘If my mother wanted you to have the house, Emberlyn, she would have left it to you,’ Dez cut in.
‘She might have raised you, but she didn’t care for you.
You weren’t family to her, you were her protégée.
One she loathed because, though she did a good job of corrupting you and your magick, you never lived up to her standards.
Which you shouldn’t take personally, because nobody did. ’
It hadn’t been about standards, but whatever. ‘“Corrupted” isn’t a word I would use.’
Gill scoffed. ‘You might look pure class at all times with your glossy hair and manicured nails and stylish clothes; might be all manners and grace and stuff. But there’s no hiding the crone within. It comes out somehow. With you, it’s in the eyes.’
Mari’s nod was hard and curt. ‘Just because you don’t wear tatty black clothes and robes and have scruffy long hair like Grams did doesn’t mean you aren’t like her.’
‘And you’re always smiling,’ Dez tossed out, his brows drawn together. ‘What has anyone who was raised by Millicent got to fucking smile about?’
‘She wanted to mold you into another version of her, and she did,’ Ames spat. ‘The difference between you and her is that she wore her evil on the outside.’
Emberlyn gave an uncaring shrug. ‘What any of you think about me is irrelevant. The manor will choose whom it chooses. Which may or may not be me. You can’t forbid me from attempting to enter it to play the odds. And you won’t,’ she firmly stated, her voice hard.
Reena sighed, long and loud. ‘She’s right, we have no choice here but to follow tradition – any Vautier witch can attempt to enter the manor.’
Gill’s eyes widened. ‘But she shouldn’t be allowed to do this! She’s not really family.’
‘And she hardly had anything to do with Millicent at the end!’ Dez burst out.
It wasn’t for the lack of trying. ‘None of you did. Aside from Ames. And my guess is that she only allowed him to visit so she could fuck with him.’ Emberlyn looked at Ames. ‘She told you that she’d made you her main heir, didn’t she? That you’d inherit everything?’
He averted his gaze, cricking his neck.
Dez scowled down at his son. ‘You never told us that.’
Ames spluttered. ‘She made me promise not to. Said she’d know if I went back on my word. And she was super clear that she didn’t want Emberlyn to inherit anything. I’m shocked she left her the dolls, earrings and cat.’
‘She said the same to me about Emberlyn,’ Mari piped up. ‘And although she didn’t tell me I’d get the house, she hinted at it. Said stuff like how I’d make a good lady of the manor one day. What about you, Emberlyn?’
‘I never asked; she never said,’ Emberlyn replied. ‘I figured she’d leave everything to your mom and Dez.’
‘She should have,’ Gill insisted. ‘It’s our birthright. She might not have made you false promises, but she’ll have taken magickal measures to make sure that you don’t get inside the manor. By leaving the earrings in there, she ensured you’d never get them.’
‘No, she ensured I’d have to try to get them,’ Emberlyn said. ‘And I am going to try.’
Gill hissed and then turned to her High Priestess. ‘But Reena, she—’
‘Enough, Gill,’ ordered Reena. ‘May I remind you that though I was asked to read the will aloud, I am not the executor – Millicent’s lawyer is.
You are complaining to the wrong person.
If you are set on preventing Emberlyn from trying to enter the manor, you must take it up with him.
But I think you know it will amount to nothing.
‘Your mother did not state that Emberlyn could not partake in this – in fact, Millicent all but dared her to try to gain entrance to the manor. He will not favor your wishes over that of his client.’ Reena rose to her feet.
‘Let’s get this done. Ripper, I am sorry that you were dragged into Millicent’s games.
She was cruel to have done that. The land—’
‘Is mine,’ he finished, his tone non-negotiable. Standing upright, he pinned her with a serious look. ‘I’m not giving it up.’
Reena pressed her lips tight together. ‘You’re not thinking clearly.
I have already signed a contract with Carver,’ she said, referring to another werewolf Alpha.
‘I paid him a small deposit, not the amount in full, but he practically spent the rest of it in his mind. He won’t like hearing that the money will not be his. ’
No, he wouldn’t. Because Carver was a gambling addict with far too many debts.
‘Not my issue,’ said Ripper with a lazy, uncaring shrug. ‘You shouldn’t have gone ahead with plans that you had no guarantee you could follow through on.’
Reena’s cheeks went red. ‘None of us could have foreseen what Millicent would do.’
‘Maybe you should have. It isn’t exactly strange, given her character, that she’d take this one last opportunity to stir some shit.’
He had a point there.
‘We will be contesting the will,’ Dez told him. ‘The land won’t be yours.’
‘Seems to me that it already is.’ Ripper gave Emberlyn one last – and again unreadable – look before prowling out of the room.
Reena cursed beneath her breath and marched out, Ward trailing after her. Emberlyn’s relatives fell into step behind them.
Taking up the rear with the twins, Emberlyn said to them, ‘I was not expecting Millicent to leave the land to Ripper. And yet, it doesn’t surprise me that she did.’
‘She also left him you,’ Kage reminded her.
‘As a joke. When Michael first hinted at claiming me, she tried talking me out of it; said I’d be a fool to let a man own me. I told her that no man ever would, mate or not.’
‘So she “gave” you to a guy, thinking it’d rile you up,’ said Paisley.
‘Exactly.’
Outside the house, everyone hopped into their respective cars and drove through the neighborhood, past its outskirts and up the hill on which Black Willow Manor stood.
Emberlyn smiled as it came into sight. The tall building was magnificent. Regal. Timeless. Elegant.
Painted in both red and black, the house had a wraparound timber porch, elaborately carved doors, stained-glass bay windows, a steep gabled roof, beautiful decorative trim and grand towers and turrets.
To its left was a huge-ass black willow tree – hence the manor’s name.
Beyond the tree was a spacious plot of land that bled into the thick forest .
. . but not a plot big enough to build new homes on.
On its right, however, was a huge stretch of sparsely forested land. Land that now belonged to Ripper.
Pulling up outside the house, Emberlyn felt her smile kick up. Growing up there had been no easy ride, but it had been the only place that had felt like a true home.
As she slid out of the car, her gaze flicked to one of the other parked vehicles – a truck against which Ripper and a member of his clan leaned. Apparently they’d decided to see who the manor would choose.
Ripper’s eyes clashed with hers again, but she turned away, her focus now on entering the house in front of her.
Like the other witches, she stopped several feet from the front yard’s gate.
From there, she could feel the buzz of the manor’s defensive magick in the air.
If it read anyone as a physical threat to its owner, it wouldn’t allow them to get to the front door.
As it currently had no owner, they were all vulnerable to an attack.
Reena and Ward stepped away from the group, basically making it clear to the manor that they had no intention of attempting entry.
Dez rolled his shoulders. ‘I’ll go first.’
Gill’s brow pinched. ‘I’ll go first.’
As the two siblings quibbled, Emberlyn turned to the twins and whispered, ‘Out of all of them, Gill’s got the best chance at winning the manor’s favor.’
Kage nodded curtly. ‘She’s stronger than the others. Mari’s the least likely to be chosen.’