I was going to fucking kill him. In his sleep, preferably, when he couldn’t fight back. I lowered myself into the bathtub later that
night, wincing as the scalding water touched my sore muscles. Everything hurt, a deep throbbing ache that I hadn’t felt for years now.
My father’s best efforts had stopped being productive when I’d reached my teen years, quickly outmatching him, and he’d had to focus my training in other ways. With other opponents, trapped in a ring where he could place bets on whether I’d win or lose and make money off my attempts.
He bet against me more often than not. Some of the greatest joys in my life came from those days when I clawed my way out of the ring, my body broken and bleeding, in time to watch him hand a wad of cash to the man who organized those fights.
By that point, the earth answered my call when I needed healing. My magic hadn’t fully awakened until sixteen, but it still recognized me and the blood that dripped upon the earth as I stumbled toward my father’s car.
My injuries would disappear; nothing for my mother to see. My father’s threats toward my brother always rang in my ears when I didn’t tell her exactly what happened, keeping me quiet. She never knew the depths he would go for his vengeance, never knew exactly what he’d planned.
She envisioned a quiet search for the bones. A silent rebellion that would be over as quickly as it began, and then I could come home after claiming what was mine.
She’d loved my father, even if he never cared for her.
I rested my head against the back of the tub, my hands playing with the surface of the water softly. Bubbles ran over my skin, the tingling, popping feeling of them nearly enough to distract me from the feeling of someone watching me as my eyes drifted closed.
My gaze darted open immediately, and I sat up straight in the tub. There was no sign of anyone in the bath with me, and I swallowed as I sank lower into the water once more.
Willloooowwwwwww.
I sat up straight all over again, water sloshing as I grabbed the edge of the tub. Branches scraped against the window outside, startling me as I spun to glance at it. Silence reigned, claiming the bathroom as I held perfectly still.
Willllooowwwwww.
I swallowed, raising a hand to clutch at my mother’s amulet. The voice continued, a slow, drawn-out murmur that barely resonated with words. There was something serpentine about it, something slow and slithering as it sank inside me. It started at my toes, tingling over me like a lover’s caress.
I reached into the water with my free hand, panicking as I felt my legs and tried to find the source of the touch. But I was alone, the tub empty save for my body and the bubbles on the surface.
Come to me, witchhhhh.
I pinched my eyes closed, leaning back against the tub as the force of that voice hit my belly. It crawled over me, and I could have sworn if I’d allowed my eyes to open, I’d stare into the face of a monster.
My other hand covered my amulet, focusing my will on the crystal that protected me from compulsion. That protected me from the call of whatever creature tried to summon me from my bath.
“It’s not real,” I said, trying to reassure myself as I clutched that amulet.
The voice stopped, giving me a reprieve of silence. I waited several moments for it to return, for it to sink into my head all over again.
Nothing came.
I opened one eye slowly, peering out cautiously. The bathroom remained empty, and my lungs heaved with relief as my other eye opened. I sat in the stillness of the bath, wondering if I’d imagined the entire thing. If my exhaustion had taken a new life or if it was just the school itself.
If the ghosts of Hollow’s Grove had come to take me to the grave.
I swallowed, gathering my bar of soap into my hands and working it into a lather. I whispered words in Latin, warming the lavender within the bar to help soothe the chill that had covered my skin in goosebumps in spite of the hot water.
The door to the bathroom burst open, Gray’s frantic face filling my vision as I shrieked. I plunged myself beneath the surface of the water, keeping only my head above it.
“What is wrong with you?!”
“Are you hurt?” he asked, his relieved sigh making my fingers twitch. “I’m just sore from earlier,” I said, my brow furrowing. I didn’t want to
think about what had sent him rushing into my room at this time of night. “What’s wrong?”
“Get out,” he said, grabbing the towel off the rack beside the tub. He dropped it onto the sink vanity, reached into the tub, and grabbed me beneath my arms when I didn’t move quickly enough.
“Gray!” I protested, smacking his hands away when he set me on my feet on the floor. He paused, glancing down my body and taking in what he hadn’t seen. He’d seen it in bits and pieces, particularly the prime real estate, but I refused to cower or hide as his gaze swept over my body.
“Fuck,” he grunted, shaking his head and reaching for the towel as he gave me one for my hair.
I worked to dry the length of it, shaking it and wincing at the mess it would be the next day with such harsh treatment.
He ran the towel over my shoulders with rushed strokes, dragging it lower over the rest of my body as I tried not to focus on the fact that I was naked with him.
Naked, and we weren’t…
I swallowed. “What’s going on?”
“There’s been another murder,” Gray answered, catching my gaze as the towel froze on my skin. My heart throbbed, pulsing in my chest as I thought about the voice I’d heard.
Calling to me.
“Gray,” I whispered, catching his arm as he turned away. My mouth dropped open silently, the words getting caught in my throat. I couldn’t risk telling him about the voice. What if it had something to do with my bloodline?
He pulled away when I said nothing more, heading for the door to my bedroom. I wrapped the towel around my body and followed, tugging on the pajama shorts and t-shirt that he set out for me.
“There’s something you need to see,” he explained, taking my hand and guiding me to the halls outside my room.
Following behind him, I tried to shove down my rising dread. Students milled in the hall, giving me a passing glance before it darted away at the glare Gray gave them. We hurried down the stairs, taking them as quickly as I dared without risking falling on my face.
My wet hair clung to the side of my face, chilling me to the bone as Gray guided me to the doors. The crowd that surrounded his body had formed in the exact spot Gray and I had sparred earlier in the day, where both our blood had spilled on the ground by the end of the training session.
I didn’t recognize the witch on the ground, but whoever had killed him had cut his throat. Blood covered the grass. The plants ignored it, as it hadn’t been given willingly. I swallowed as the crowd parted, revealing the stone wall of the school behind them.
Blood covered the stone, wedged into the crevices and dripping down the smoother parts of the surface.
Two.
I swallowed, staring at the words as my horror mounted. Gray had wanted me to see it; he’d dragged me here so that I could see the message written in blood.
“Are they counting their victims?” I asked, shoving the panic down in favor of rationale.
Any normal person would need answers. It was a natural assumption, and it still could have been accurate. I swallowed, hoping that was the case. My stare moved away from the body, sweeping over the crowd of observers studying not the body but me. Glaring at my hands as if I was the one who’d cut his throat.
“Before Charlotte Hecate was torn apart and her pieces scattered, she foretold a prophecy of the daughter of two,” Susannah said, stepping up beside me. She looked down into my eyes, and I felt the sweeping analysis of that stare.
My breath caught in my lungs, and I held it there, forcing myself to hold her stare. I hadn’t been around the Covenant since she’d tried to force me
into a deep sleep, and I hoped that the last interaction would cover any of my nerves about this conversation.
This was far too close to home. “What kind of prophecy?” I asked.
I barely knew anything about it, barely understood a single piece of what I was supposedly destined to do. All my father had said was that I needed the bones, that they needed to be returned to our bloodline.
What happened after I found them was a mystery. One I hoped would become clear once I connected with the other half of my magic.
“I hardly think that’s relevant today. The Covenant has done everything in its power to prevent it from coming to pass,” Gray said, scoffing as my blood chilled.
“I should think you’ve played some part in that,” Susannah snapped, finally turning her attention away from me.
I sighed, a tiny bit of my relief slipping loose, allowing Gray to take the focus off me.
“Of course. I have hunted down every male witch who tried to escape making the Choice on your behalf, Covenant.” He fiddled with his nails as if the topic of murdering male witches meant little to him.
I swallowed.
Not every one.
Running my hands over my face, I tried to steer clear of this conversation. But there was one thing I couldn’t ignore.
The opportunity to find out the information I’d been denied all my life. “What kind of prophecy?” I asked.
“Charlotte foretold of a witch born between two bloodlines who would restore what had been lost to time,” Susannah said, clasping her hands in front of her.
“What does that even mean?” I asked, glancing at Gray.
He shrugged. “All manner of things have been lost to time. It could have been anything. Charlotte was… troubled toward the end of her life. The way of things often left her deeply unsettled,” he answered, taking my arm despite the watchful eye of the Covenant. She didn’t seem surprised by the intimate touch as he led me away, heading back toward the school.
We entered through one of the six doors, my feet somehow functioning when I felt like the world had been tilted on its axis.
“Willow, wait!” Della called, following behind us. She caught up with us, walking beside us as Gray led me to my room. She swallowed as she cut in front of us, glancing at Gray and seeming to consider before she continued. “Did you hear it?”
“Hear what?” I asked, my hands clenching.
I didn’t miss the way Gray’s stare dropped to where my arm was looped through his, studying the tension in my body. He was too observant for his own good, and if I hadn’t needed him to find the bones, I’d have been far better off if he simply ceased to be.
Even if the thought of it made my heart hurt in a way I refused to acknowledge. He was my enemy, and when I found the bones, I would send his soul back to Hell where it belonged.
That was how it had to be.
“I heard something calling your name,” she said, swallowing as she looked at Gray. “I think it wanted you to be next.”
I dug my nails into Gray’s skin, forcing a smile. “I thought I was hearing things,” I said, admitting it when left with no other choice. To deny it would just seem odd, would only raise his suspicions, given that I hadn’t been the only one to hear the call. “It felt like compulsion.”
Gray tensed, a low growl rumbling in his chest.
Della nodded, clutching her own amulet as she looked at Gray. “It did. I followed it. I worried…” She swallowed, hanging her head forward. “I found him, but whoever killed him was gone by the time I got there.”
“Who else heard this voice?” Gray asked, glancing back at the small group that stared at me intently. I swallowed, dreading what was coming.
“I don’t know,” Della admitted, but there was no doubt in my mind that others had heard it call my name. The way they looked at me… They knew it should have been my body lying in the dirt.
“At least they won’t think I’m the killer now,” I said, trying to grasp at the silver lining.
“Don’t tell anyone about this, just in case, Miss Tethys,” Gray said, holding her gaze intently. “Until we know who we can trust, we need to keep this to ourselves.”
“You suspect someone?” she asked.
He nodded. “None of the Vessels do anything without my knowledge. I can attest to the whereabouts of each of them tonight.”
“So it wasn’t one of them. But who else could use compulsion?” she asked.
“The prophecy referred to a daughter of two. If one of those lines happened to be the Hecate line… that witch could compel if she managed the impossible and found Charlotte’s bones,” he said, but my brow furrowed.
That wasn’t possible. Because it certainly hadn’t been me who lured the witch from his bed.
I didn’t speak a word.
