Total pages in book: 142
Estimated words: 134501 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 673(@200wpm)___ 538(@250wpm)___ 448(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 134501 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 673(@200wpm)___ 538(@250wpm)___ 448(@300wpm)
Licking his lips, Ward backed away even further. ‘You’re just like her. Millicent.’
Emberlyn felt her mouth curve. ‘Hmm, maybe a little. Just a smidgeon.’
‘She made you into her,’ said Reena, a slight shake to her voice.
Emberlyn waved a hand. ‘No, silly. Millicent liked being a singular being. She was never going to want a mini-me. But she had wanted me to join her in embracing the darkness – that much is true.’
‘And you did,’ snarked Gill.
‘Nope. What I embraced is reality. You all use terms like “the benevolent path” and “the malevolent path”. They don’t exist. No one always uses magick for good, just as no one always uses it for bad. I follow my own path using my own moral compass – we all do. I’m willing to own it aloud, unlike any of you.’
Feeling eyes on her, Emberlyn looked to see Ripper watching her somewhat speculatively. Turning away, she stepped onto the porch and advanced into the house, which kindly closed the door behind her.
CHAPTER THREE
‘Now that was impressive,’ said Kerr.
‘It was,’ Ripper conceded. Reluctantly. Because he quite frankly begrudged that any witch would have the ability to make him feel impressed.
He had no personal beef with Emberlyn Vautier. He barely knew her. She’d never done harm to him or his clan. But he’d known a witch like her once – one who’d used magick to exact revenge. And she’d fucked with the lives of so many, including his.
Kerr glanced at the witches stood near their cars talking rapidly while jerkily gesticulating. ‘If their shock is anything to go by, Emberlyn hasn’t shown them exactly what she’s capable of before now. Either that or they were sure “the benevolent path” would prevail,’ he added with an eye roll.
Ripper hummed, sliding his gaze back to the manor. ‘They underestimated her. And she let them until now.’ It was cunning, really. And an indication that she’d felt absolutely no need to prove herself to them.
‘Which sets her apart from Millicent. That woman made sure everyone knew exactly what she had in her magickal arsenal. Emberlyn showed the coven just enough to make them wary of crossing her.’
And they had been wary. Yet, her family had tossed a lot of shit at her today. She hadn’t flinched under the weight of their disapproval, insults or accusations – not here, not at Reena’s house. In fact, Emberlyn hadn’t appeared in the least bit fazed. She’d regarded them with a bored disappointment, as a teacher would unruly children. And when they’d thought to attack her, she’d fucking laughed.
It had almost made Ripper smile. Almost. Not much did that.
‘Makes you wonder if she even showed the full extent of what she can do just now,’ said Kerr.
It did. Especially when Ripper took into account something that Millicent had once said to him when he’d purchased a potion from her . . .
‘The coven talks like my Emberlyn is evil. Pfft. She’s no angel – I couldn’t have abided an angel; I would have drowned her at some point. Truth is that girl has the ability to commit every magickal heinous act you can imagine. But she has a code; lines she won’t cross. Unless you push or corner her – then she has few limits. That doesn’t make her evil, it makes her ruthless.’
You would never imagine, at a glance, that such ruthlessness existed within Emberlyn. She was elegance and poise and style. Friendly but slightly aloof, like a cat. Forever dressed in silk or cashmere or satin or other refined clothing, she looked like she belonged in a goddamn fashion magazine. She never had a hair out of place or a slump in her shoulders.
But if you got close enough, you could sense that there was more to her. Emberlyn’s presence hummed with a charged, quietly fierce warning. Like the air a dominant wolf gave off that calmly asserted its power. It had caught his attention from their first up-close encounter.
Not that he hadn’t noticed her before then. A guy didn’t not notice a woman who looked like her.
Emberlyn Vautier was . . . unusual. Unearthly. Hauntingly beautiful.
Slender and average height, she had glossy iridescent hair that made him think of a raven’s wing. Her facial features were as delicate as her curves. Except for her mouth – it wasn’t delicate, it was carnal. Her eyes were an ethereally pale hazel that he’d heard some describe as eerie.
They weren’t spooky. They were fucking bewitching.
There was a little scratch in her voice that tickled your awareness and dug in hooks to keep your attention. Everything about her snared a man’s attention.
Compelling. In a word, she was compelling. And it galled the ever-loving shit out of him that he couldn’t be immune to it.
For a while, he’d been able to combat it by holding the image of her in his mind as a one-dimensional wicked witch. But that had become impossible after Michael vanished – she’d been lost back then, her eyes shadowed by pain and panic.