“What are you gibbering about?” Jasmine asked him, suddenly appearing on my other side, forming the third tip of a triangle with our bodies.
I silently willed her to keep quiet. Samuel’s power was radiating from him and sending waves of aftershock our way. Pissing him off now wouldn’t be a good idea. Not before we put our plan into action at least.
“You let your underlings speak on your behalf like that?” he responded, with the slightest hint of a challenge in his voice.
I had no choice but to answer, now that he was addressing me directly. “She doesn’t really take kindly to being told what to do,” I said without sarcasm.
“Yet you are her leader. You are the one that runs this coven. Letting your subordinates step out of line and forgetting that you are in charge is what will be your downfall.”
“Really? In my world, I don’t control anyone. It’s called free will and I recognize that we all have it. If I were you, I’d worry about your own coven. I bet they’re a bit sick of following you around by now. Better be careful or you may just get a spell in the back.”
“They wouldn’t dare turn against me,” he said, brushing my comment off like it was ludicrous. “And if they did, I would put them in their graves.”
As he said this, a few among him began to look around at the others uncomfortably.
“At least I know how to dispense with those who choose to disobey me,” he said, lifting his finger warningly. We all turned to watch a figure float up from the side of the yard, arms overhead and legs dangling oddly as if broken. As the body moved into view, I nearly gasped.
There, being pulled through the air unconscious, was Asher. He was pale except for the welts and bruises that were all over his face and arms. I immediately wished I’d undone his cuffs and urged him to leave this place.
“It seems that poor Asher here made the wrong decision,” he said.
And with that, he let Asher’s body drop more than ten feet to the ground in front of him.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
“I thought that perhaps his loyalty toward his family would encourage him to do the right thing,” Samuel said, looking straight at me. “But I should have known that dealing with children can prove difficult at times. Getting my own niece to make up that story about Bridget all those years ago was nearly impossible. I had to use an encouragement spell just to pull it off. Still, I would have thought it easier to make this boy deceive you. After all, there was no allegiance to your coven when I sent him to you.”
Samuel gestured at Asher, who was still lying in a heap on the ground. I wanted to run over to him to make sure he was all right, but I knew the moment I stepped off that porch and away from the safety of the house, all hell was going to break loose. So I had to stay where I was. It was obvious by now that what Asher had said was true. He’d been forced into my life and had been pulled in two different directions. Either betray me or lose what was left of his family. I didn’t envy his choices.
“It is true—the boy was a disappointment, but this one proved worthy.” He pointed off to the side. Suddenly Emory was walking out of the shadows toward Samuel. She had a big grin on her face and strutted around like she’d just been announced the next Miss America. “She ended up surprising even me. Once given the proper encouragement, Emory went forth and made me proud. Oh, and to hear about her talks with you regarding your dearly departed… it was inspired. Come here, dear, and take a bow.”
I gritted my teeth and ignored the fact that my head was telling me to destroy the double-crosser. What Samuel was saying was true. Her deception was far worse than anything Asher had done, simply because she and her family had been members of the Cleri for as long as I could remember. We’d grown up together, trained together, even had family dinners together. The fact that she’d willingly set her sights on destroying us? Well, that was disloyalty that couldn’t be forgiven.
“Thank you, Reverend,” Emory said, taking her place at his side. There was no sign of the innocent girl she’d been with the coven while she was under our roof. The smile on her face now was devilish, which matched her all-black ensemble. Guess the flowery Emory was gone for good. “It’s an honor to serve you.”
“Why?” I startled myself as the question escaped my lips before I could stop it. I didn’t want to show that I even cared to hear the answer, but I knew it was what everyone else was wondering as well. And after all we’d been through, I felt we deserved a response. So I let the question linger in the cool night air.
Emory looked up at Samuel as if waiting for his approval. When he nodded, she turned back to me with a sneer. “Why?” she asked. “You seriously have to ask? Okay, how about this: The Cleri was a dead end, Hadley—emphasis on dead. There was all this power but no one was using it. We were encouraged by our elders to keep our magic hidden from the world, stifled. That’s no way for a witch to live.”
“They weren’t telling us not to use our magic. They were trying to teach us the right ways to use it. We can’t just use our powers for our own selfish reasons. It leads to chaos and disrupts the order of things. It’s not our purpose, not our way of living,” I said.
“And I think it’s time to do things differently,” Emory said. “I was sick of being weak. So when Reverend Parris came to our family and offered us more, I knew I had to do it. It was my destiny.”
“It was your destiny to be a traitor? Because that’s what you are. You betrayed your own coven, the ones who loved you… .”
“Loved me? Are you kidding me with this? Hadley, the only person you care about is yourself. I mean, why else would you come back here when you know that the only person we’re after is you? Do you even care that you’re going to get all of them killed?” Emory asked, narrowing her eyes at me. “Because that’s what’s going to happen. We will win and they will die. And it will be all your fault.”
I looked around at the rest of my coven, feeling momentarily guilty over the fact that she was right. There was no guarantee that any of us would live through the night. And this wasn’t a secret to the rest of my coven. In fact, I’d told them they could leave before the Parrishables caught up to us, and there would be no hard feelings. Yet, here they were. My eyes reached Fallon’s and then Jasmine’s and moved on to Sascha’s and Peter’s. I could see a resolution there that made me stand up straight again. Letting them make their own choices to stay, instead of running away and taking that decision away from them, was the difference between how I ran my coven and how Samuel ran his. With the Parrishables, no one had a choice. Samuel told them what to do and they did it. No questions, no free will.
In the Cleri, we all had freedom. And freedom is power.
“The Cleri are the bravest group of people I know. And they have more heart and determination than you ever could. Go ahead and do your worst,” I answered, placing my hands on my hips. “I’m going to have so much fun destroying you.”
The sound of applause rang through the backyard. My eyes flew back to Samuel, who was clapping enthusiastically. “Bravo! Good show! But might I point out that you chastise us for our desire for power, yet you have existed on these same principles yourself for so long? You have no qualms about doing whatever you can to get ahead, and you would roll over anyone to get what you want. My dear girl, you are no different than I. You thrive on the power you have over others. You get drunk on it. Nothing feels better than knowing you hold dominance over those around you. Just talking about it makes me shiver with excitement.”
His body trembled slightly as he said it. The sight of this made me want to gag, but I swallowed back the bile and then took a step toward him, almost stepping off the deck as I did so. The motion made Samuel’s eyebrows rise.