Page 72 of When Bones Whisper
“Damned to Hell,” she whispered, running her fingers down to the handle, her heart pounding in her ears.
Slowly, she opened the doors to the crowded ballroom, pushing her way into the fray. It was unlike any event she had ever been to. The beautiful dresses were torn, masks had been discarded and tossed to the ground, and drinks spilled over the marble floor.
Wisps of unruly curls flicked into her vision as she hurried toward the receiving hall. The deeper she moved into the room, the more debaucherous it became, with couples breathing kisses against each other’s necks, hands gliding up inner thighs. Groups of threes engaged in salacious activities enough to force a blush into Charlotte’s cheeks. One man dragged his tongue over the throat of a lord, while his wife hiked up the skirts of her dress and pressed her palm between her legs, eyes rolling back in ecstasy. Perfume, sweat and wine intermingled with the rising heat, making it difficult to breathe.
With labored breaths, she made it to the end of the room, her eyes fixed on the gilded doors. Her gloved fingers grazed over the ornate woodwork as she walked into the foyer, her breath catching when she spotted the Avery witches standing in the center of the foyer, mid-argument with Nathaniel, cloaked in deep purple, their velvet hoods embroidered with silver symbols.
Under the fabric, waves of auburn hair cascaded around their chests, their genes woven in each of their freckled diamond-shaped faces. Except for the man, who stood next to the tallest of them, and the elderly woman in the middle, with dark gray hair.
“You’re not getting to her,” Nathaniel warned, with Alexander, Irene and Zachariah blocking the entrance.
She spotted Katherine, standing to the left, while two servants stood frozen by the coats, terrified to move as they watched.
Charlotte hid behind a doorway, keeping to the shadows, her heart pounding as she watched the gray-haired woman take a step forward. Candlelight illuminated the dagger clasped in her bony fingers, and the scars marring her bulbous nose and cheeks. Chunky necklaces, strung with crystals and talismans, bounced around her chest when she walked.
“Do you want to feel the breadth of my power again, son?”
Son.
Were it not for the resemblance of her grave-gray eyes, she would never have guessed that she was Nathaniel’s mother.
“You never said how you returned,” he snapped.
“Like you, I found a way to slow the hands of time,” she said, shrugging the comment off as if they were discussing something as trivial as the weather.
“Yet, you have remained a witch,” Alexander said from behind him.
“Indeed,” she said, removing her hood. “Now, enough chitchat.. Where is my sacrifice?”
The possessive tone set Charlotte’s nerves on edge.
Nathaniel snarled, fangs pointing over his bottom lip. “She’s not yours. She ismine.”
Her heart fluttered unexpectedly.
Step aside, my son, and allow me to finish this,” she said, her eyes cutting to Nathaniel’s. “I do not want to use my power on you, but I will.”
“I overpowered you once,” he snapped. “I won’t hesitate to do it again.”
A woman stepped away from the throng, her fingers outstretched as she muttered an incantation under her breath. Nathaniel lunged at her before she could finish, his fangs sinking into her throat, ripping flesh from her like a savage beast. His fingers curled against the witch’s chest, her scream lost in a gurgle.
Charlotte yelped when she saw Gertrude and another of them grabbed the two servants and dragged their daggers across their throats, spilling a waterfall of crimson onto the polished floor. A loud hum of power lifted through the room.
Her palm flew to her mouth as she muffled her scream, eyes widening while she watched them die.
Alexander launched his way across to help Nathaniel as one witch that Charlotte recognized, the one who came to her home that night and called herself Beatrice, tried to pry him off his victim.
“Enough,” Gertrude shouted.
A predatory smile stretched her thin, wrinkled lips. She lifted her hand toward Alexander, who was about to bite one of them. He hunched over the floor before his fangs could reach her throat. On all fours, he let out a loud groan, and Nathanieldropped the body of the dead witch with a thud, before wiping the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand.
Gertrude let out a weighty sigh, clicking her tongue. “How easily you resort to violence. It should come as no surprise. Your father was a brute too and you still bear his name.Sallow.” The word dripped like venom from her tongue.
“I would rather have his name than yours,” Nathaniel spat blood on the ground, chin jutting out.
She walked to him, stopping just a foot from them both. “I miss when you were little. You had no time for your father, but you used to look at me as if I was your entire world. How so much has changed. Now, when I look at you, I see nothing of that little boy I loved so dearly.”
“You do not know how to love,” he snapped.
