Chapter 20 #2
“My family can eat it,” she muttered, setting her question aside for Aggie to answer later. Jena puffed out her cheeks at his side-eyed glance. “I can sense bad karma—sin—and pull it through me. The negativity gets sloughed off, and I get access to all that power after I sift through it.”
“Where does the bad stuff go?”
Jena glanced up at him, surprised that he actually sounded interested. She shrugged. “I dunno, it evaporates, I guess. My mom died before she could teach me how it works.”
His brow furrowed. “Aggie doesn’t know? I thought she was your aunt.”
“No. I’ve just always called her that. She was my mom’s best friend, but we’re not blood related. Her line’s power is divination,” Jena said, turning the page. “Technically, I think she’s my godmother.”
“Wait a sec. Can I take this out?” He pointed to one of those insta-film photos.
She shrugged. “Yeah, sure. Why?”
He held the photo up to the light. “Because my mom’s been in all the pictures on the last three pages, and I swear I know where this was taken.”
The photo was of Jena’s mom and another girl. They were in their mid-to-late teens, and the two of them had wide smiles on their faces, their arms around each other’s shoulders as they stood at the end of a dock. Damn. They had been friends. “Really? Where?”
“A cove on the south side of the bay. My brother Luke keeps his boat there.” He flipped the page.
“And now she’s not in any of these…but this…
” he pulled out an odd photo of trailhead with a path leading into the woods.
All the other photos had had people in them.
“This is on pack territory. It leads into a nasty track of swamp bordering Fayet. Why would there be a picture of this in there?”
Jena wasn’t sure, but it glowed with sin in her mind’s eye. “I don’t know, but I have a bad feeling I’m about to find out.” She took a deep breath and reached for it, her fingers trembling—
A wave of nausea rolled over her, and magic prickled over her as a spell took hold.
Jena was in another memory, trapped in another woman’s body—not her mom’s this time—and whoever she was, she was filled with terrified anticipation.
She stood naked at the fringes of a flooded woodland.
Her breath came too quick as she stared out at the diseased and dying trees listing from the algae-choked waters.
She forced a deep breath and spun on her heel, cold mud squishing between her toes.
A low fire burned within a circle of toppled stones. Jena’s stomach roiled at the sin rolling off it. Oh God, there’d been a dark altar, here, in Havers?
The woman retrieved a cage with a rabbit in it, and brought the frantic beast to the blood-stained slab of stone. Jena fought to close her eyes, knowing what was coming—
She couldn’t, and the rabbit’s end was not quick.
The woman chanted as she splayed the poor beast’s entrails, and the flames behind her begrudgingly burned blue.
Whoever she was, she wasn’t a true practitioner, but the dark side of the art wasn’t picky.
Enough blood in a place of power with strong enough intent would be enough to cancel out a lack of inborn ability.
The woman spun at the flames crackle, a gust of wind howling through the circle with the parting of the veil.
A sidhe stepped through, and Jena’s breath caught.
Tall, broad, and blond, there was no question that it was Chase’s father in his true form.
The sidhe stepped forward, a golden circlet of elder leaves rested against his brow, and a kilt rode low upon his slim hips.
A torc of antlers encircled his throat. His azure eyes narrowed and a wide smile slid across his face.
“Are you ready to fulfill the next part of our bargain, my vengeful one?”
The woman trembled, falling to her knees. Her breast heaved as she nodded, and he reached forward, tipping up her chin. His long nails bit into her flesh, and she whimpered.
The sidhe snuffed at her, sucking in a great chestful of air. His kilt strained against his growing erection. “So full of fear. You should be. I will not be gentle.”
“But I’ll have my prize in return?” she gasped, clutching at his wrist and meeting his gaze.
“Greedy thing.” He chuckled, grabbing her throat and raising her to her feet. He walked her backwards, butting her against the altar. “Did I not deliver all that I promised before? All those who wronged you, writhing beneath your teeth and claws. A new life in exchange for the old—”
“But she saw it. All of it. Everything I’ve done—I want her dead and everything she has!”
Jena started at the woman’s shrill. Holy shit, she knew that screech. She’d been on its receiving end at Sal’s right before she’d gotten fired.
“Shh…I hear you, little serpent. Save your cries,” he murmured, lifting a much younger Ms. Montgomery onto the altar and laying her down amongst the viscera. “It is of no import, and her fate has already been written, as has yours. Deliver me a child and queen of this dunghill you shall be…”