Mrs. Mancuso inhaled Taran’s magic. Her eyes closed briefly, then with quick determined steps she returned to her house in a trance. “Heathens,” she snapped before slamming her red door shut.
Larissa narrowed her eyes at my nose. She was smart enough not to directly challenge my tigress. “What do you want?” I repeated once more.
Larissa rose to her full height. “Your sister’s not a witch.”
I frowned. “No, she’s not.”
Larissa pursed her lips. “Yet she wields magic.”
No, just fire, lightning, and the occasional mind influence. I didn’t care to share that with Larissa and her gal pals, though. “Yes, she has great power.”
Larissa honed in on Taran. “How do you do it? How do you work your enchantments?”
Taran stormed forward, her platform pumps clicking against the wooden floorboards. Larissa stood a good six inches taller than my petite sister, but you wouldn’t know it by the way Taran faced off with her. “If you must know, I take the magic from the world around me and manipulate it to do what I want.”
A few of the coven muffled back gasps while Larissa gaped at Taran like she pimp-slapped her. I didn’t understand the issue until Larissa’s blanched skin reddened and she wigged out on Taran. “How dare you rob the earth of her magic!”
Huh?
Taran exchanged glances with me before scowling back defensively. “I didn’t rob anything. The magic doesn’t stay with me. I give it back the moment I’m done.”
A couple of witches scoffed with disgust. There were hushed whispers of “sin” and “blasphemy.” Their sanctimonious attitudes pissed. Me. Off. My tigress clawed on the inside, restless to defend Taran. I held her back. If she unleashed, blood would stain the streets. There was no need for blood. Yet.
“You disgrace our sister, and now you mock and spit on our faith.” Larissa motioned to the witch with the scroll. “Add the mortem provocatio.”
“No.” The dark-haired Genevieve’s voice was quiet but absolute.
“This isn’t your decision, Genevieve,” Larissa hissed back. “Add. It,” she repeated once more.
Larissa snapped her fingers. Four witches, all armed with staffs, stepped forward. They exchanged hesitant glances, but positioned themselves so that each one of them faced one of us. The spiky-haired witch stumbled her way in between them and handed Emme the scroll she’d prepared. Emme quickly skimmed it, her eyes widening with every passage. “It’s a decree challenging each of us to a fight to the death—”
I yanked the scroll from Emme’s hands and tore it in half before she could finish reading it. “I invoke the Ninth Law.”
Silence fell. The breeze stopped as if switched off, the morning doves ceased their song, and day abruptly became night. Creepy, hell yes. But I wasn’t going to let a darkening sky distract me from protecting my sisters.
Larissa smiled like one of those hyenas who’d caught a whiff of their prey. “You’re the head of the family?” I nodded. Larissa’s malicious grin widened. “Then you realize that means you get to face me?”
My tigress eyes replaced my own. “I know what it means.” I rammed the pieces of parchment into her chest, shaking with the need to change. Larissa clutched the torn scroll against her as she fell, my strike hard enough to make her topple down the steps. I hadn’t meant to shove her so hard; in fact, I’d fought to stay in control. Yet little remained to hold back my beast. She didn’t like being prey. And neither did I.
Anyone else would have fallen and cracked her head opened. There. Challenge over. But Larissa wasn’t just anyone. The amethysts on her toes lit the darkness with a ghostly light as an invisible force caught her and lifted her upright. She returned to her place at the edge of my porch, smiling her nasty smile like my hands had never touched her. She opened her arms and let the remains of the parchment fall as she faced me once more. This time, she didn’t avert her gaze. “What are your terms?” she asked, her tone casual.
“Celia.” I was the tigress, but it was Taran who growled. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Shut up, Taran.” Something in my voice made Taran heed my order. Emme and Shayna grabbed each of her hands, keeping her in place, and preventing her from using her magic. I took a breath, trying not to let my tigress unleash. She’d taken Larissa’s disrespect as permission to kill. But I needed to fix this mess, not make matters worse. My husky voice dropped an octave. “To be left in peace. If I win, we get to stay and you and your coven are to leave us alone.”
Larissa laughed. “And if you win, my coven and I leave Tahoe.”
“The Ninth Law doesn’t require a death.” Genevieve’s statement appeared more directed as a reminder to Larissa than as an explanation to my sisters.