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I don’t have the chance to run or defend myself as my face is smashed into the wall again and darkness consumes me.
****
My head throbs painfully. At least it’s dark outside when I open my eyes. I think sunlight would only make the pain worse. Outside? Where the hell am I? Looking around I see I’m home with my coven. I am in the clearing we use for all our formal ceremonies and meetings.
Every survival instinct I have kicks into hyperdrive. I’m not supposed to be here. Nothing good can come of this. My nerves are frayed at the simple thought of what this can mean. Initially, I thought I was alone, but I am becoming acutely aware of the fact that there are people just beyond my field of vision.
“Why am I here?” I croak out.
Silence is the only answer I receive. Standing, I look around trying to see who is watching me. What the hell are they waiting for? But I get my answer as I turn around. My mother strides through the trees followed by the elders and Owen. She is sneering at me as she draws near.
“Will you shut up, Cassandra!” she yells in my face when she comes to a stop. “All you needed to do was fall in line and all of this could have been avoided.” She gestures around us with her arm.
“What is happening? Why have I been brought here?” I ask, standing toe to toe with my mother for the first time in my life.
I hear the slap before I feel the sting. “I am your mother! You will respect me.”
Defiance crawls up my spine. The lies she has told all my life filter through my mind. Every backhanded compliment, every belittlement, all the verbal abuse. My magik rises and fills me. I won’t be treated like shit by anyone ever again.
“Respect is earned, Mother,” I spit the words in her direction.
“You little bitch!”
She goes to slap me again, but I catch her hand. I can hear the sizzle of her skin scorching as my magik burns her. Her shriek rends the night air before she rips her arm from my grasp.
“Did you see that?” My mother turns to the elders. “She has brought harm upon her own mother. Her High Priestess. She is clearly out of control.”
Watching her act, I can see now what I never could. The fakeness, the blatant lies. I walk in a circle around her, staying just out of her grasp. I won’t be held liable for my actions if she lays her hands on me again.
“High Priestess.” I laugh. “You are a fraud. Holding a power you don’t deserve. Lying to get more power.”
“You ungrateful little brat!” Her high-pitched voice makes me want to claw my ears from my head. “Cassandra is a liar. A defector. She has taken our magik to Runic, running away from her responsibilities to her coven.”
Raising a brow, I watch her put on a theater-worthy performance. “So, you kidnapped me?”
“You needed to be brought to heel.” Her mask slips as she looks at me and the disgust she feels toward me is clear as day across her features. “Besides, you don’t know what you are doing.”
“I know I am making my own choices for the first time in my life.”
“What choices?”
“I will take Nikolas as my Consort. Together we will rule Runic and control the Panala Coven. My powers have already been unlocked and are growing daily,” I state looking at each member of the elders assembled. “Isn’t that what is best for our coven? A strong High Priestess with a Consort that can support her.”
“I am the only Consort you will have, Cassandra,” Owen finally interjects.
I take him in fully for the first time since my eyes have been opened to my mother’s deceit. There has always been something off-putting about him and I am finally able to recognize it for what it is. Darkness, death, and decay cling to him like a cloak.
“No. Your arrangement with my mother is at an end,” I say loudly making sure everyone can hear me. “There will be no alliance between the Panala Coven and Quietus.”
A murmur runs through the gathering.
“What are you talking about?” an elder calls from within the gathering. “Owen is from—”
I cut him off with a raised hand. “No, he isn’t.” Drawing magik deep from within the earth, I use it to break the illusion that surrounds him.
A woman shrieks when his true face is borne to them. Half his face is that of the visage they are used to, the other half is a grizzly sight. His skin hanging in tatters from the bone, insects, and maggots crawling along the surface, and congealed blood dripping from his chin.
“My mother has deceived you all.”
