The Forever Witch (The Coven: Vampire Magic #4)

Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

SAM

I gripped the edge of the sink so tightly my knuckles cracked. Pain shot up my forearms. I didn’t care. I welcomed the pain. It meant this was real. It kept me focused on my task and not my regrets.

Regrets like why I hadn’t let The Coven rescue me that night or why I hadn’t fled with Everest. There were many more thoughts that haunted me, tortured me, but those were the main two.

I’d had my chances to get the hell out of here, and I’d volunteered to stay.

I’d chosen this path willingly, without much hesitation.

I lifted my head and met my own stare in the mirror of my bathroom. My cheeks were flushed from all the emotions swirling inside of me, which went well with the glassy tears threatening to spill from my gold and red eyes. “Why didn’t you run, Sam?”

I knew the answer, and I just hadn’t ever realized I was the type.

I hadn’t known I was this selfless, this brave.

No, that’s not it. This isn’t about bravery. This isn’t about selflessness.

This is penance.

I was the granddaughter of Lilith. No matter what else lay in my bloodline, that part would taint my soul forevermore. It wasn’t even my fault. It wasn’t like I got to decide who my parents were, let alone grandparents. I wasn’t Lilith. I wasn’t anything like her and wanted no part of her future.

I refused to live in a world she destroyed, even if it provided me with a golden throne.

When The Coven defeated her, I wanted our world to know I helped.

That I was on their side. That I made a difference, made an impact, on her failure.

Everest and I had the unfortunate fate of being born of her blood, and that provided us with unique opportunities no one else had.

My uncle had paid his dues. For a thousand years he played the spy.

The humans would never know just how much they owed to him for his sacrifices.

But Everest’s time in the dark was over.

His path finally, officially, aligned with Heaven’s, and by some grace from the angels, Lilith and Sweyn had not assumed I was on Everest’s side.

Every time Sweyn looked at me, I braced myself for her rage, for her to put the pieces together.

Every time Lilith summoned me, I expected her to kill me for my treason.

Yet there I was, still standing tall beside my enemies.

An angel in demon’s clothing. I knew eventually I would flee their side, I would join Everest and The Coven to fight at their side, but I also knew they’d left me here.

Tegan was a force of nature. She could have gotten me out.

Everest could have taken me with him whether I wanted to go or not.

Hell, apparently King Kothari and his dragons knew I held the shifter gene and could have gotten me out.

They hadn’t. None of them.

Which meant they knew they needed me on the inside.

For that, I stayed.

For them.

I traced my fingers over the pearl on my velvet choker, the one Jackson Lancaster had given me back when all of this had seemed like a fairytale . . . If only I’d known it was a fairytale within the horror genre.

“Sam, I have a task for you,” I heard her voice replaying in my mind.

I stared at myself in the mirror, remembering how I’d responded. “Yes, my queen? What can I do for you?”

“To know an Unseelie’s name gives you power over them.

For that reason, my brother’s name has never been said aloud.

” Sweyn’s gaze had glanced to the hall and then back to me.

She’d smirked and gestured to my body and the wall the Prince had just pinned me against. “Do whatever you must to get his name out of him.”

Him . . . as in the Unseelie Prince.

I closed my eyes and cringed. The Unseelies terrified me on a level I hadn’t come to terms with.

However, Sweyn had revealed very important information to me: knowing an Unseelie’s name gave you power over them.

I was scared, not stupid. That was huge.

The Coven needed to know this, but they also needed to know the Prince’s name.

If that piece of information was the key to defeating them, to keeping The Coven alive, then I had to do whatever I had to to get it.

“Do whatever you must to get his name out of him.”

I groaned. “Yeah, but how?” I whispered to myself.

The male was Sweyn’s older brother, and she was like a thousand, or nearly, which meant he was even older.

If he’d managed to keep his name a secret for that long, I didn’t know what power I could wield to get it out of him.

He had more knowledge of magic and the magical world than I did.

I was still a newbie. He wasn’t even partially human, which was another leg up.

Think, Sam. THINK.

The key to manipulation is knowing what your target wants, what motivates them, what lingers in their mind that you can use.

I thought back to my first interaction with him, not the one where he saved my life, but the one when he first caught me spying.

He’d watched me for a long moment, then reached up and took a strand of my blonde hair between his thin fingers.

He’d twirled it and then dragged me flush against his body.

I’d crashed into the silver armor strapped to his chest. My eyes barely reached his collarbones.

He’d then lifted his hand with a full fistful of my hair and held it up to his nose.

And smelled it. Then he’d dropped my hair like it burned him and growled, his upper lip snarling up.

I’d fled the scene at the time, totally freaked out.

Since then, his behavior toward me had been unlike his attention on anyone else.

Hell, he’d rescued me from the sunshine when he thought it was burning me despite his own sensitivity to the sunlight.

I remembered that moment too vividly. It haunted my dreams. Those yellow cat eyes had locked on my face and his upper lip had snarled back in disgust. But his grip had been firm.

I’d felt his erratic pulse beating through his fingers.

Smoke had hissed and swirled from beneath his armor.

Rescuing me had caused him pain, and he’d done it willingly.

All of it confused me, and I suspected it confused him as well.

“You’re a wicked little thing,” Pierce had said with his flirty voice, one he definitely didn’t know he excelled in.

It was right after I’d kissed him to ruffle the Prince’s feathers.

It had worked too. Worked well enough to give Pierce the chance to escape.

And then the Prince had covered for me. I had so many questions.

I didn’t think it possible he was on Heaven’s side—the rage from Everest’s betrayal was too real—but he definitely loathed his own sister.

The Unseelie Prince may not have been a human man, but he was still a male.

A male who didn’t understand his own attraction to me.

That moment in the hall a few minutes ago replayed through my mind in vivid clarity.

When he’d dipped his head and pressed his nose to my temple, my body had turned volcanic.

His breath almost caressed that soft spot behind my ear.

Even now in memory I cringed remembering how I’d let out a deep sigh with the slightest little moan.

His teeth had then grazed my earlobe. He’d pulled back quickly, the tip of his nose touching mine like he’d been about to kiss me.

I’d panicked and zapped him with my magic so hard he’d slammed into the marble wall.

There’d been glares and growls right before he’d lifted me off my feet with his hand wrapped around my throat.

I looked up at my reflection and saw the new flush in my cheeks and the way my eyes had dilated at just the idea that he might have been about to kiss me. I watched my mouth curve into a sneaky sideways grin as my game plan clicked into place.

His name would be on my lips before dawn.

I was going to enjoy this.