Chapter Six
Ripper tensed when Reena’s car came into sight moments later. It would have been smarter of the woman to have given Emberlyn time to calm down before turning up here. But the High Priestess had plans to put in motion, so he supposed she couldn’t afford to procrastinate.
Emberlyn exhaled heavily. ‘Well, this has taken a piss all over my morning mood.’
Kerr snorted. ‘Want us to make her leave?’
‘Nah, I’d rather get this over with. She’ll just turn up at the hub otherwise.’ Emberlyn looked from him to Ripper. ‘Not sure if you want her to know about the curse jar yet. But if not, keep it out of sight. You both hang back while I talk to her.’
Ripper couldn’t help but bristle.
She shot him a severe look. ‘We’re allies now, yes, but I’m a solitary witch who lives alone on a goddamn hill and will not be seen to hide behind anyone. If I did, I’d look weak. You backing me up as my ally is one thing. Being my voice is another.’
Ripper clenched his jaw. He got what she was saying. He did. She was, in a sense, a lone Alpha. She needed to show she could not only defend her own territory but that she didn’t need other people to do it for her.
But stand back the whole time and twiddle his thumbs? It wasn’t in his nature.
Ripper took a stalking step closer to her. Her magick dusted his senses, smelling of vanilla and pink pepper. Her pupils dilated – a sight that made his lower stomach clench.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘But I have to be seen to make my own statement so that she takes our being allies seriously. Which means if she stays too long, I come over there and make it clear I don’t like it.
That won’t be me taking over or speaking for you – you don’t need that from me.
It’ll be me ensuring she knows you have backup should you need it. ’
Emberlyn twisted her mouth, her gaze pensive. ‘I’m not so self-reliant that I don’t see we both need to give a little here, so fine. This situation is about more than just me anyway – we’re both on Reena’s radar.’
He blinked, a little surprised she hadn’t argued.
‘But we won’t always be, and it just occurred to me that you might then no longer consider us allies – it wouldn’t benefit you anymore.
If that’s the case, so be it. I won’t come for you as a result.
Unless you cross me.’ She leaned toward him, her gaze boring into his.
‘So don’t cross me.’ With that, she spun on her heel and walked off.
Kerr blew out a long breath. ‘She’s intense. I like her.’
‘Intense’ worked. Ripper couldn’t quite believe she’d threatened him. He couldn’t recall anyone doing it during the entirety of his adulthood. But, as he’d noted before, Emberlyn was an Alpha in her own right. She’d show no fear.
‘She clearly doesn’t trust easily,’ he said, not following her but moving to a position where he’d have a full view of the front of the house so he could better monitor the upcoming encounter. He’d hear everything just fine from here.
‘Why would she? From what I can tell, there’ve been few people in her life she could trust,’ said Kerr.
‘True.’ Ripper held the jar out to him. ‘Stuff this in your jacket pocket.’
Kerr did so, his gaze on the car that had finally pulled up outside the manor. Emberlyn stood outside her gate, her arms folded.
Reena slipped out of the car, hauling a bulky bag with her.
Catching sight of him and Kerr, she did the slightest double-take, her lips flattening.
But then she redirected her attention to Emberlyn and cleared her throat.
‘My behavior last night was uncalled for. I apologize. I’m just here to talk and to give you these.
’ She offered the bag to Emberlyn. ‘The dolls left to you by your grandmother.’
Emberlyn took the bag, her expression blank. ‘Thank you.’
Reena cast a look at the porch. ‘Could we perhaps sit?’
Emberlyn tipped her head toward the house, indicating for Reena to follow, and then strode up the path.
That walk. It was effortless grace with a touch of sensuality. She wore heels like she’d been born for it and, Christ, if he didn’t want to—
Ripper pushed the explicit thought right out of his head before it could take root.
Emberlyn placed the bag on the porch table and smoothly lowered herself onto one of the rockers, regal as any queen.
Reena took the other rocker, a tired sigh easing out of her. ‘I have quite the predicament on my hands here. I made promises to people. Promises of new homes, more space, a few stores, new jobs and even a children’s park for the little ones.’
‘So I heard,’ said Emberlyn, crossing one slim leg over the other.
‘Then you can imagine just how many unhappy people are looking to me for assurances, alternatives and reimbursements.’ Reena looked up at the manor. ‘I realize this was your home for a long time, Emberlyn, but you’re one person. One. The coven . . . We’re talking hundreds of disappointed people.’
A caw sounded as a crow soared down and settled on the porch rail.
Reena gave it the side-eye, clearing her throat.
Without lifting her arm from the armrest, Emberlyn raised a finger.
‘First of all, that you’d expect me to put the wants and needs of your coven before me – a person most of them refer to as “the devil’s witch”, in case you’ve forgotten – is pure and total lunacy.
Secondly, whether or not I live at the manor has no impact on them.
It’s the land you need. I don’t have it. It belongs to Ripper now.’
‘As the owner of the manor, you could contest the will,’ Reena reminded her.
‘I’m not going to. I would never disrespect my grandmother’s last wishes, especially when those wishes were fair. It’s wolf-clan territory. In their position, you’d want back land that rightfully belonged to the coven.’
‘Since when do you care what’s fair?’ Reena snarked.
‘When haven’t I?’
‘You have misused magick many times; attacked many of my coven, even as a child.’
One of Emberlyn’s brows slowly winged up.
‘Oh, you mean the gang of bullies who thought I’d make an easy target?
A group led by your daughter? If you had dealt with them – because yes, I eventually discovered that my teacher did talk to you about it – instead of dismissing it, I wouldn’t have had to.
And let’s be frank, I could have hurt them much, much worse than I did. ’
Ripper felt his brows lift at the latter. None of the rumors had mentioned that Reena had been informed of the bullying and declined to intervene.
‘It should be noted,’ Emberlyn continued, ‘that a lot of things you’ve held me accountable for were actually committed by the rebellious faction in your coven that you insist on swearing doesn’t exist.’
Ripper had heard some rumors about that as well.
‘Because it doesn’t, you just like to shift blame.’
Emberlyn frowned. ‘I’ve never, not once, denied anything that I’ve done. Why would I, when it was always in an effort to make a point?’
‘And you’ve been making “points” since you were too young to use even a whisper of aggressive magick.
You haven’t only hurt people. You’ve caused damage to countless pieces of property.
Like the swimming pools, for example. What did they ever do to you?
What so earned them your wrath that you turned the water to blood? ’
Another crow swooped down out of nowhere. It, too, perched itself on the rail.
Reena cast both birds a wary look.
‘The pools had done me no harm,’ Emberlyn replied, her words coming slow and calm.
Too calm. An emotion that wasn’t present in her eyes – they were dark, hard.
‘But the owners of those pools? Each one laughed on hearing that Michael turned Rabid; said that being mated to me had fucked him up. And they chatted that shit knowing I could hear them.’
Ripper exchanged a surprised look with Kerr. He hadn’t known that any of the coven had blamed her for what happened to Michael.
‘You like to make out that I’m some sort of menace to society,’ Emberlyn went on.
‘I have largely kept to myself. A certain percentage of the coven has left me alone, and I have done them that same courtesy. But others didn’t let me be, and so I dealt with them.
It’s not as if you would have done it on my behalf. ’
‘Magick should not be used to cause harm,’ Reena clipped.
‘Did you tell that to Tyra? Or to the fifty-two-year-old witch who tried hypnotizing me into going home with him when I was sixteen? Or to Sera, who tried magickly punching her way into my mind a few years ago?’
Ripper felt himself go stiffer with each angered word she spoke. He’d been very aware that a large chunk of the coven wasn’t ‘nice’ to her, but he hadn’t known that things had been quite that bad.
‘I could go on and on, Reena,’ she added, the small hairs around her face fluttering as magick crackled around her. ‘All I did was make it clear that, contrary to what they believed, they don’t have the right to come at me whenever they please, however they please. So do not. Fucking. Demonize me.’
Caws again split the air, and then two more crows appeared. One settled on the rail, but the other landed on Emberlyn’s shoulder.
Either she was calling to them or they were responding to her distress – he couldn’t tell which. But as it occurred to Reena right then that just a signal from Emberlyn could likely make those crows divebomb her, the High Priestess uneasily straightened in her seat.
‘You’re right,’ Reena finally allowed. ‘Ninety-nine percent of the time, you acted only in retaliation. It was unfair of me to imply otherwise. I’m simply frustrated. Carver is on my back, the coven isn’t happy and the—’
‘And the manor isn’t finally in your possession,’ Emberlyn finished.
Reena’s nostrils flared. ‘Millicent set this up so that you’d end up here, didn’t she?’
‘Maybe. Doesn’t much matter.’ Emberlyn raised her chin. ‘I’m here. And I’m not leaving. You should, though.’
But the High Priestess didn’t, her expression desperate. ‘An entire coven is looking to you to put this right.’