Witching Tree (Alice Gray Book 1)

49

                 
It was a short drive to the priory from the restaurant. We spent it in silence.

Soon the old building came into view silhouetted against the full moon in the clear dark sky. A violent shudder wracked my body. Hunger made me hollow and weak.

Thomas took my hands in his. His cool skin did nothing to warm me. I shook him off, the memory of him crushing my hand refusing to let me accept the gesture.

Hurt flashed over his face, but that was his problem. He needed to learn to control that temper of his. I wasn't getting pulled in by those wounded puppy dog eyes. I was stronger than that.

Well, I would be if I refused to look.

The priory was deserted, the eerie stillness of the air made it seem held in suspension. Without inhabitants and the signs of modern life, it could have been any point in the priory's long history.

I had thought it quaint when I first moved here, but now it filled me with a sense of foreboding. This place had stood by as the world changed around it. How much of that time had it belonged to Evan's family?

It felt like the very building was judging me for abandoning him.

How could he have changed from that caring, easygoing, cute guy to the twisted, nasty pervert that had attacked me?

Was that him, or was Jonathan controlling his actions?

Worst of all, had my magic driven him to it?

I really didn't want to victim blame here, especially as I was the victim. But there was no denying what I'd seen with my own eyes.

It had been silver running through his life-force, infiltrating and changing his essence. Corrupting him.

Silver.

Just like me.

I had to get Evan out of there so that he could answer for his actions. I would not leave him as one of those twisted, grotesque gargoyles; Jonathan's pets, arranged for his perverse amusement.

My conscience wouldn't let me.

Nausea bubbled in the pit of my empty stomach.

Stephen and Emily cracked their doors and stood in the empty parking lot, giving me some space. No such consideration from Thomas. It seemed doubtful that he'd ever leave my side again.

With the exception of Evan, all the priory's occupants were here. I'd followed them blindly away from Anne, my only family.

The only family that I would acknowledge, anyway.

But Anne had stayed behind with the other witches. Those people feared me, but they hungered for my power more. I had seen that same keen greed in Jonathan's eyes when his mask of control slipped.

It had been silver that killed the tree mosaic at Hazel's; silver that provoked the coven's greed.

It was my silver life-force that they all coveted - its power and vitality.

More terrifying than that. They knew how to strip it from me with that song, the White Paternoster.

Cold, creeping fear slithered around my heart and squeezed. Betrayal was all around me.

I had known Stephen for years, had loved him. I had believed that he loved me.

Stupid!

Hard cash was all that it had taken for him to break my heart. After he had prostituted himself to be with me in the first place. That knowledge soiled all the memories that I had of him, debasing the pure feelings that I'd thought we shared. My skin crept with the filth of it.

My other champion, Thomas, was an overbearing vampire with anger-management issues for Christ's sake!

I didn't even know what that meant, besides the obvious - a hunger for blood, and that was hardly reassuring considering the ominous red stains that disfigured his designer shirt.

I had to face facts. These people weren't my allies. They were just a disparate group of mercenaries and misguided devotees thrown together by their belief that I was the reincarnation of the Pendle Witch, Alice Gray.

They didn't know what I did. The original Alice Gray had been creeping into my dreams for months. And she was after something, like all the rest.

I was on my own, and I had to be clever. I would get the information I needed to free Evan and then I would cut them loose.

All of them.