Chapter 30. Ambrose
My eyes were glued to Priscilla, the welt on her cheek already swelling, her right eye darkening into a sickly purple. My heart clenched for her—she’d only just seemed to heal from the last black eye her mother had given her.
Her mask of disinterest was firmly in place, her posture loose, her expression bored. Only her eyes betrayed her, locked onto mine with an intensity that felt deliberate. As if she were trying to tell me something without daring to move her lips.
I reached out with my senses.
They recoiled the instant they brushed against the vile thing she had for a mother. Isadora’s scent clung to the air like oily rot, and it took all my effort to push past it. But when I did, what I found beneath it was not fear.
It was steely resolve.
Unfortunately for Priscilla, while I could sense emotions, I had never been particularly good at interpreting them.
What did that resolve mean?
That she had a plan?
Or that she was bracing herself for something far worse?
Fear began to roil in my stomach. Every instinct I had screamed to unleash my shadows and tear Isadora limb from limb.
The only things holding me back were the promise I’d made to Priscilla—to give her time to learn what had become of her father—and the pulse of hesitation radiating from Caitlyn. For reasons I couldn’t yet grasp, she was doing everything she could to keep us from attacking.
Had Caitlyn realized something I hadn’t?
I glanced at Blaise, who met my gaze with the same tight knot of confusion pulling at his brows, concern etched across his face. He wouldn’t strike either. Not until we understood what had Caitlyn holding us back.
“Why are you doing this, Isadora?” Caitlyn asked.
The question seemed to catch Isadora off guard.
Her carefully drawn brows lifted as she crossed her arms, a red heel tapping into the grass in irritation.
“You have no idea what it feels like not to belong,” she seethed.
“To be a creature of the sea and yet unable to summon scales or a tail. To be a witch without a calling. No one on this earth understands the lament that tears my soul apart—traveling from coven to coven, trying and failing to find my place in this world.”
It spoke volumes about Isadora’s disassociation that her own daughter stood beside her, having faced the same struggles of not belonging, and yet Isadora saw only herself.
“And what does that have to do with us?” Caitlyn asked, folding her arms and tapping her Converse against the ground, mirroring Isadora.
Isadora’s face twisted with disdain.
“Oh, come on, Isadora,” Caitlyn said lightly. “You’ve already had my mate under your compulsion for over a week, and now you’re about to try to steal my house. The very least you can do is tell me why.”
“I owe you nothing,” Isadora snapped, but her scent shifted, turning rotten and floral, the unmistakable tell that she couldn’t resist an audience.
“But if you must know, being exiled by Briar Coven was my last straw.” She straightened, chin lifting.
“I finally found a coven that promised me everything I wanted. An easy life. A mate I could summon—one bound to show me pleasures that this one’s father”—she jerked her head toward Priscilla—“could never provide, no matter how thoroughly I compelled him.”
Her lips curled. “And a house that would pander to my every whim. But even when that idiot Lily Cole let me join out of pity for a single, soon-to-be mother, the magic never accepted me. No incubus mate for Isadora Raisin. No sentient house to help raise the brat I’d been saddled with.
A brat so useless she couldn’t even befriend a few children and invite them home for me to compel,” Isadora continued, eyes glittering with crocodile tears.
“Do you have any idea how easy it would’ve been to get you all to run home, dig through jewelry boxes and safes, and bring everything back to me? ”
She shot Priscilla a withering glare, then turned back to Caitlyn with a dramatic pout.
“And no matter how hard I tried, even using my siren song, I couldn’t seduce a single male in that cursed coven. Couldn’t convince a single house to make me a cup of tea, let alone accept me as its owner.”
Caitlyn wore a look of genuine bafflement. “So... what? You think that just because you want something, you can just take it?”
“You have no idea how hard I tried to forsake my siren side, little girl,” Isadora hissed.
“The pain of being a siren who didn’t belong to the sea.
Forsaken by my own kind.” Her voice wavered, then sharpened.
“And when I tried to fully embrace my witch side, I wasn’t accepted by them either.
So what? Briar Coven took me in. The magic never did.
It never embraced my witch side. And none of you witches ever accepted me.
I mean, none of you even tried to get to know me. ”
She scoffed. “So what if I tried to steal an incubus of my own. So what if I tried to steal a house. So what if I tried to become head of the coven, hoping that finally the magic might accept me.” She jabbed a finger toward Caitlyn.
“I may not be a full-blooded witch, but I’m still part witch!
Don’t I deserve all the things you got just because you were born into the coven?
Don’t I deserve to feel the touch of an incubus?
Don’t I deserve a house that will look after me? ”
“Yeah...” Caitlyn said slowly. “You’re really giving me Debbie Jellinsky vibes.
” Isadora sneered, but Caitlyn continued, “And if you had even one ounce of sense rattling around in that sea-foam brain of yours, you’d realize that none of the witches in Briar Coven are full-blooded.
We’re all part succubus, you self-centered bitch. ”
If I hadn’t already started to fall for this beautiful witch I’d only met last night, I was falling hard for her now. I’d already noticed the way she rambled when she was nervous, but in this moment—self-assured and unflinching—she oozed confidence, and I loved every second of it.
“It was never about you not being a full-blooded witch,” Caitlyn went on.
“The magic never accepted you because you’re an absolute dog turd of a person.
You don’t deserve to find love. You don’t deserve a house that looks after you.
Because—guess what? You actually have to put the effort in too. You need to—”
While Isadora seemed perfectly content talking about herself, her patience snapped the moment she was criticized. Her mouth opened—but nothing came out.
Or rather, thanks to the earbuds, nothing I could hear came out.
A second later, it became painfully clear who she’d directed her song toward.
Priscilla’s eyes glazed over, her features smoothing into something eerily serene. Her arms, which had remained crossed until now, fell slack at her sides. Her hand slipped into her purse, and she drew out a large, iridescent shell.
Caitlyn barked out a laugh. “Yeah, I don’t think my house gives off seashore vibes. Keep your tacky decorations to yourself!”
“Do not let Priscilla anywhere near you,” I murmured to the house. I flicked my gaze toward the window by the door and spotted Creep, her little hand pressed to the glass as she watched Priscilla approach.
“She’s under her mother’s compulsion,” I continued quietly. “She can’t help it. But if she gets that conch to you, Isadora will make you try to hurt us.”
Creep’s eyes snapped to mine. Then she looked back at Priscilla, who was already more than halfway across the field.
“And as for you,” Isadora snapped, glaring me up and down. “I can see you’ve had a feed since the last time I saw you—”
“Blaise, protect Caitlyn. I’ll take Isadora,” I murmured, stepping in front of my mates and flaring my wings.
I caught Blaise wrapping an arm protectively around Caitlyn, ready to pin her in place if Isadora attempted another song.
I drew in their scents—Blaise’s cardamom and sandalwood, now laced with the coppery tang of barely restrained murder, mingling with Caitlyn’s honeysuckle.
Her scent still carried that faint undercurrent of caution, the lingering urge she’d been pushing down our bond, begging us not to attack just yet.
“Ambrose,” Caitlyn shouted, “you can’t! Not until she—”
Isadora barked a silent command, this one aimed squarely at Caitlyn.
My mate’s lips snapped shut. She struggled for a heartbeat before that familiar hazy look slid over her eyes.
Fuck this, I thought. Whatever it was that had Caitlyn urging us to hold back wasn’t worth putting her in even more danger.
I flared my wings, ready to launch into the air and slice Isadora’s throat with the razor-like blades of my feathers when Isadora’s gaze slid to Blaise.
The sung command that followed was drowned out by the earbuds—but judging by the way Caitlyn’s face contorted in horror, it was bad.
I had just enough time to register the murderous creak of rage rolling from the house, the splintering crack of wood as Creep finally lost her patience—
And then the oddest thing happened.
One second, I was staring at my mates standing at the foot of the porch. The next, there was no porch, nor a house at all.
I spun on my heel and froze. Where Isadora had been standing seconds earlier, the house now stood instead. Creep appeared in the window, lifted one small hand, and gave us a jolly little wave before disappearing back into the depths of the house.
Caitlyn finally managed to pry her lips apart just as Priscilla came to an abrupt halt in front of us, the conch slipping from her fingers and hitting the ground with a soft thunk.
“Did...” Blaise started. “Did... Creep just Wicked Witch of the East her?”
All four of us scanned the ground, searching for any sign of Isadora’s legs sticking out from beneath the house.
But no scrawny legs in red heels were visible anywhere along the base of the house.
Still, something had clearly happened to Isadora. Her compulsion over Caitlyn and Priscilla had broken.