Total pages in book: 142
Estimated words: 134501 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 673(@200wpm)___ 538(@250wpm)___ 448(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 134501 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 673(@200wpm)___ 538(@250wpm)___ 448(@300wpm)
Confused, Emberlyn frowned. Storming the manor? ‘Explain.’
‘You!’ a male voice called out, his tone a whip.
Emberlyn’s head snapped to the side. A man stormed out of the house next door, his eyes blazing, his face splotchy with anger. Bennet was a schoolteacher, a pillar of the coven’s community . . . and he was currently carrying a little girl who could be no older than five. His daughter, Emberlyn noted.
‘Look,’ he hissed at Emberlyn. ‘Look what you did!’
It was only then she realized that the child sported several bandages. Concern creased Emberlyn’s brow, but the emotion quickly became buried beneath the shock of his accusation. ‘What I did?’
‘You bespelled that Rabid and sent it here; it attacked my daughter!’ He hugged the child tight, his hold protective. ‘She could be dead now!’
Shocked down to her core, Emberlyn turned to fully face him. ‘A Rabid came here?’
‘Don’t play stupid,’ spat Getty. ‘We thought we had someone in our coven working against us. Sera’s right – it was you all along.’
Getty’s teenage son nodded. ‘You set up our coven to take the fall!’
Bristling, Emberlyn raised a palm to stay their words. ‘Back the fuck up. Where did you get the insane idea that I was responsible?’
Hank pushed to the front of the crowd, his chest puffed up. ‘None of our coven would send Rabid to Bellcrest. We wouldn’t risk our own.’
Emberlyn inwardly snorted. ‘That’s clearly not true, because I had nothing to do with it.’
Scoffs rippled throughout the crowd.
Frustration grating at her nerves, Emberlyn looked away from him with a sigh. Her lips thinned as she noticed that many of Bennet’s neighbors were straining to witness the little scene unfolding here. Heads were poking out of windows while some people stood on their doorstep.
‘It has to be you,’ Hank insisted.
She rolled her eyes at him. ‘Think. If I’d hatched some great plan to make the clans turn against your coven, why would I do something like use magick against you when it would expose me as the guilty party?’
Silence momentarily fell, but it was broken by Bennet. ‘Maybe you don’t care about the consequences. Maybe you’re crazy like Millicent.’
‘And maybe you’re just so accustomed to using me as a scapegoat that it was all too easy for you to assume I was involved,’ Emberlyn shot back.
‘We know it was you,’ Hank upheld.
Emberlyn arched a brow at him. ‘Oh, so you have proof?’
Hank spluttered. ‘We don’t need any. It’s obvious that you’re behind this.’
‘Not obvious,’ she contradicted. ‘Just your opinion. And you have not one thing to back it up.’
‘You won’t convince me that you’re innocent,’ said Bennet. ‘You may not have meant for a child to be harmed, but you recklessly let loose a Rabid on Bellcrest.’
Emberlyn cocked her head. ‘You’re not interested in reason, rationality or truth right now, are you? You just want a target for your anger. Someone you can blame for the harm that came to your daughter.’ She looked down at the child and noticed she was trembling. ‘You should take her inside. She’s already shaken; she doesn’t need to be witnessing this as well.’
Bennet shot her a scornful look. ‘Don’t act like you give a damn. This is exactly where she should be right now. She should have the opportunity to watch as the person responsible for her attack is confronted and held accountable.’
‘Perhaps she should, but that person isn’t me.’ Positively done with this little scene, Emberlyn shook her head. She wasn’t going to stand here while they tossed false accusations at her. She’d done enough of that over the years.
She couldn’t stop them from being determined to think the worst of her, but she sure didn’t have to listen to their crap.
Contempt and resentment roiling in her belly, Emberlyn turned without a word and headed down the path.
Two male witches on the sidewalk slid in front of the yard’s gate to block her access to her car. Both were Watchers, and both glared at her with something close to revulsion.
Emberlyn halted, annoyance crawling up her spine and snapping it straight.
‘You’re coming with us,’ declared the taller of the two, who also happened to be Ward’s younger brother, Patrick.
If Emberlyn wasn’t seething right now, she would have chuckled at the audacity of him. ‘No, no, I’m not.’ He was a damn fool if he thought she’d allow him to detain her.
His fellow Watcher, Ruben – who was also Getty’s nephew – planted his feet. ‘You’ll do what we say when we say it. And we say you’re going to our unit to be questioned.’
‘You can say whatever you like,’ Emberlyn told him, her tone clipped. ‘I’m not leaving with you. You want to question me, you can do it right here.’
Ruben’s cheeks flushed. ‘You don’t get to dictate what we do.’
‘Right back atcha. You might be Watchers, but you have no grounds to take me away like I’m some criminal.’ And going with them, even to avoid a scene for the sake of the little girl who’d been attacked, would have been like an admission of guilt.