Page 74 of The Coven

“If Susannah wanted you to leave the school, why wouldn’t she have arranged for someone to drive you to town?” Gray asked.

I swallowed as I tried to think of what I could say to that. It hadn’t even occurred to me that she might have arranged transport for me if I hadn’t been in the process of burying her alive.

“Maybe she didn’t want me to survive, and letting those things take care of me in the woods was a way to not get her hands dirty,” I said, echoing the same thoughts I’d already had on my own. There was something so tragic about thinking the only family I had would dispose of me like that.

Tragic, but unsurprising.

“Hmmm.” Gray straightened, releasing the arms of the chair. “Kairos,” he called. The door to Gray’s office opened as if the other man had been lurking on the other side, waiting for Gray to summon him. Kairos stepped in, shoving his hands into his pockets as he observed us. “Tell me what you saw.”

Kairos glanced at me, and there was an apology in that stare as he winced, turning to hold Gray’s inquisitive look. “Susannah followed Willow into the gardens. A few moments later, Willow sprinted into the woods.”

“And what of Susannah? Where is she now?” Gray asked, settling his deep stare on me.

My thoughts raced, my palms sweating as I picked at my fingers in my lap.

“Why were you watching me?” I asked, turning to look at Kairos over my shoulder more fully.

“Because I asked him to. I protect what is mine, even if it means preventing you from making stupid fucking decisions that threaten your own safety,” Gray snapped, leveling me with a glare that I swore could have made anyone wither on the spot.

“Bring Susannah to me. I want to know exactly what she said to Willow in that garden. Clearly, I am not going to get the truth from my witchling,” he said, ordering Kairos to do his bidding.

The other man shifted on his feet, and my eyes drifted closed. I knew what was coming next.

“That’s the problem, though. Nobody can find Susannah. She never left the gardens from what I saw,” Kairos said.

The weight of his gaze on the side of my face made me want to shrink back inside myself. There was a moment of silence, a beat and a pause where nobody dared to speak or move.

Gray’s stunned laughter broke it, and he reached down to run the back of his knuckles over my cheek. “Devious little witch,” he muttered, finally grasping me by my chin and forcing my gaze up to his. “You really are so fucking beautiful, even when you lie through your teeth.”

“I haven’t lied,” I argued, jerking back from his touch. “Susannah told me to leave Hollow’s Grove. I left because I was afraid of what she would do to me if I did not.”

“And you didn’t once consider coming to me for help. I wonder why that might be,” Gray murmured, dropping his hand away from my face. “Search in the dirt of the garden beds.” The order went to Kairos, who nodded with wide eyes and retreated from the room.

The moment the door closed behind him, Gray released a slow, steady sigh. The air tinged with something dark, my skin crawling as he stepped around the edge of his desk.

“It really is a shame. I’d hoped to hold on to these until everything was ready so it would be less traumatic for you.”

He approached the portrait of Lucifer Morningstar, slipping his fingers beneath the edge to pull it away from the wall. It swung out on hinges, revealing the metal of a safe behind it. Everything in me sat up straighter, my swallow getting stuck in my throat. Gray touched his hand to the safe, allowing the biometric technology to recognize all his fingerprints. The lock clicked open, and Gray didn’t so much as glance back at me as the runes carved into the metal glowed. He grasped the handle, swinging the door open.

I couldn’t breathe.

My lungs filled with raw, unfiltered power the moment the safe opened, and I could barely see through the haze of black as he reached into the safe and pulled something free. I gasped for breath, curling over myself as pain tore my insides in two, as my stomach cramped, and things felt like they shifted within me to make room for the new magic.

For what I’d never been able to touch.

Gray turned away from the safe, holding the unsuspecting velvet bag in his hand. It was the deepest black, the fabric smooth as he ran his finger over the surface of it.

The bones woke up. They rose to answer his call as my back bowed and then straightened.

“You’ve had them all this time,” I gasped, running my hand over my arm as he stepped around the desk. I’d wanted the bones; thought they were the key to completing my destiny.

Now I couldn’t wait to get away from them.

I pushed to my feet, swaying beneath the power trying to draw me in and consume me. I stepped around the arm of the chair as Gray’s voice lashed out like a whip.

“Sit down, Willow,” he ordered, the compulsion in his voice forcing me back to my chair.

He held out the bones for me, watching and waiting for me to take them in my grip. Despite a lifetime of training for this moment, I didn’t want them.

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