Total pages in book: 50
Estimated words: 47894 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 239(@200wpm)___ 192(@250wpm)___ 160(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 47894 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 239(@200wpm)___ 192(@250wpm)___ 160(@300wpm)
The silence dragged on, but I was always good with being quiet.
“Speak,” she ordered.
“What if Giles can’t make you into a hedge-rider like him, but into a skilled master who could move from realm to realm, astrally, and all the while learning?”
“Then he lied to me, and he will die.”
“If you just want to go back to your realm, have him return you there.”
“I need to be stronger than I am now, Xander, to retake what was lost.”
“I see. How do you plan to kill him? He’s very powerful.”
“If he lied, I will find a way.”
“Did you put a spell on the mirrors so he couldn’t see he was aging?”
Quick nod.
“Because if he’s weaker, and you find out he lied, you can kill him.”
“You’re far smarter than Giles gave you credit for.”
“Story of my life. I get underestimated all the time.”
I got a smile from her then and realized she really was stunning. “I didn’t want MacBain for anything but a soldier,” she told me. “I wanted him under my influence so if I needed to kill Giles, he could help me.”
“How would you influence him?”
“Now suddenly I think I gave you that compliment too soon,” she said, her eyes narrowing. “I tried to bespell him, and next I would have seduced him to bind him to me.”
“And you believe you could do this?”
She scoffed again. “My conquests are legend, Xander Corey.”
Of course they were.
“You don’t believe I could take him from you? A man is an easy thing to take and have. They are as changeable as the wind, and only very few are loyal and good.”
“Like your father.”
“Yes.”
“Which is why he needs to be avenged.”
“You sound like you understand.”
“Okay, then, let me keep MacBain and I will be your ally.”
“Oh?”
“If Giles has lied to you, I will help you dispatch him.”
“Why?”
“He’s done great damage to me and to Corvus. I want my own revenge.”
“And yet, he’s a member of your family.”
“You of all people understand there are greater concerns.”
“I do.”
“And really, I would make a better soldier than MacBain. I’m a witch, after all.”
“I don’t know that I can trust you, Xander Corey.”
“Trust that I don’t want you to take Lorne from me.”
She nodded, because that she understood. “Take me to the graveyard of your ancestors, as that is where Giles will go.”
“Certainly.”
Moments later, we left the path we’d been on, and I forged ahead, taking us in the most roundabout way possible back to where we’d started. If everything had righted itself, then the cottage should be where the mansion was, just a bit back from the road. But because the road had been altered as well, I wanted to give everything time to reform before I showed up. Most of all, I was hoping that everything would be as it had always been when we arrived, and that Lorne would see me coming up the path and would rush out the front door and onto the porch. I wanted that desperately.
I crossed my fingers inside my mittens.
NINE
It was slow going, the snow thick and heavy, with ice underneath. Fortunately, because she didn’t know Corvus, she had no idea I was leading her in a giant circle. Not a chance I was taking her anywhere near my family cemetery and risk finding Giles there. I had to try and talk to my land before I faced him.
“Is there no more direct route?” she asked for what had to be the seventh time.
“Corvus has no roads on it and sits beside a nature preserve,” I reminded her. “If you had walked the space you inhabit, you would know that.”
She muttered something under her breath.
“Did you say something?”
“Only that if you are trying to trick me, you will die first.”
“Would you divulge something?”
“If I must.”
“Are you a witch or something else?”
“What else would I be?”
“You said you’re a practitioner of the dark arts, but I don’t know any witches who characterize their craft that way.”
She was quiet.
“What could it hurt to say?”
“As though it matters if I tell someone as lowly as you.”
“That’s right.”
“I am an enchantress,” she said like that should have been evident, “and you should know this—an enchantress uses seduction and sex magic as part of her craft.”
As far as I knew, being an enchantress had no correlation to any of that, but arguing with her was a waste of time. Still, I could now write it all down correctly in my journal. “The enchantress Ilara has a nice ring to it,” I assured her.
“Yes, it does,” she agreed right before we stepped out from behind a copse of birch trees and she could see where we were going.
There, built back from the road, was a little stone cottage that had smoke coming from the chimney.
“You lied to me!” she roared, and it was scary how fast she lifted her head, chanted in a language I didn’t know, curled her hands into fists, and enormous wolves materialized, one instant not there, the next charging toward me.