“Right on time, little Priestess,” said Cain, resisting the urge to touch her—that could wait.
She nodded at both him and Azazel. “Maxim says my old coven is here.” She glanced around. “What room are they in?”
“They’re outside,” Cain told her. “After what they did to you, they’re not welcome here. They were told to wait at the gates. I will go out there first to talk with them. You and Azazel will follow soon after.”
She stared at him for a long moment, looking as though she might object, but then she briefly inclined her head. “All right.”
“So careful to keep your expression neutral,” he said. “I hope you don’t have it in your head that I’m about to make a deal with these people. I’ve assured you that I will protect you. I meant it.”
Not giving her a chance to respond, Cain stalked out of the manor and down the driveway. The iron gates swung open with a faint creak, but he didn’t step out of them. None of the dozen witches moved forward. They stood very still, eyeing him warily.
Finally, the woman in the center gave him a placid smile, her lips trembling slightly. “Good evening. My name is Esther, Priestess of—”
“Yes, I heard,” he said, sure to sound bored. “What do you want?”
She slowly inhaled, clasping her hands in front of her. “There is a rumor that a stray member of my coven is under your correction. I have come to take her home, where she belongs.”
“Have you now?”
“Her name is Wynter Dellavale. I have it on good authority that she is here. If you would be so kind as to summon her—”
“No one would ever describe me as kind.”
Someone from the slowly gathering crowd snickered, drawing the attention of the coven. These witches weren’t the first people to come searching for an outcast, and they wouldn’t be the last. The residents often enjoyed watching such people be turned away just as they were once turned away by those who mattered to them.
“What do you want with her?” Cain asked.
“To take her home, as I said,” replied Esther. “She is ours.”
Was shefuck.“Yours?” The word almost came out on a growl—a sound that would have come from Cain’s creature. It really didn’t like hearing another refer to Wynter as theirs. Like him, it wanted this bitch gone. “You didn’t seem to feel that way when you chose to cast her out of your coven.”
Esther licked her lips. “That was a mistake. We will make it up to her.”
“Hmm now, see, this is my problem … I don’t believe you. I don’t believe you give a whisper of a shit about Wynter. Of course, I don’t expect you to admit that to someone whose protection she is under—it would be unwise of you, to say the least. What I do expect is for you to leave here without drama.”
“But—”
“The bounty huntersdidpass on my message to the Aeons, yes?”
Esther cleared her throat. “Yes. They claimed she is now your property. Your kind protects what belongs to them—I know that. But you have no real idea of who she is or what she is capable of. If you did, you would not be so eager to keep her at Devil’s Cradle.”
“I know everything I need to know.”
“But Wynter is the source of that information, and she cannot be called a reliable source.” Esther sniffed. “I’m sure she told you that her magick is tainted because she was killed as a child. That is a lie. Her death was an accident. She was not tortured as she claims. She invented that lie so that she would not be held responsible for what she did to the boys who accidentally ended her life. Ten years old, and she murdered two teenage boys. Hacked their bodies with that dark magick of hers.”
“Sounds like my kind of girl,” said Cain, hiding his surprise at the latter revelation. There was every chance that the Priestess was lying, of course. She’d certainly lied when claiming that Wynter’s death had been an accident—he’d heard the note of deceit in her voice. But that note had been absent during her latter claim. He needed to have a talk with his little witch for sure. “I’m pretty sure I’d have done worse.”
Esther’s face tightened. “Her magick isn’t merely dark, it is death itself. She has ruined the land at Aeon. You think she will not do the same to your town?”
“Since I don’t intend to exile her as the Aeons did, no, I don’t think she’ll make any such attempt.” Cain heaved a bored sigh. “I’d say we’re done here.”
“Protecting her would be a mistake,” Esther blurted out.
He narrowed his eyes. “Now that almost sounded like a threat.”
She swallowed, her eyes flickering nervously. “The Aeons asked me to pass on a message.”
“This ought to be good,” he muttered.