Page 54 of Just a Little Wicked (Wicked Sisters #2)
A gust of wind ripped Nova’s winter hat straight off her blond head and dragged it to the closest outdoor heater, where it burst into flames.
Nova threw her head back and laughed. “The control! You are all so perfect . You belong on the Shadow Council, where you can wield your considerable powers the way nature intended. Isn’t that right, councilwomen? ”
The five women nodded, Melanie quite sullenly.
Winter watched from the corner of her eye as Opal Ring began to edge around the group, shifting closer to Erikson while Nova’s chatter distracted the Celestes.
Winter flickered her eyes to Erikson to let him know, and he nodded. Opal Ring was the teleporter.
Nova’s nostrils widened and she pressed the flat of her palm to her stomach. “Are there Witches here?” A line appeared between her brows, and Winter spun around with a frown, as if looking for Witches.
“No,” Winter lied. “We want to enjoy the wedding, not feel like we have to vomit the entire time.”
Every nerve in her body was frayed with anxiety.
She could practically feel Atlantes’ burning rage at her back.
These women were on the council that brutally murdered his mother, some of them old enough to possibly even be complicit.
But the council had taken her mother too, and now they were threatening the people she loved most in the world.
Winter was incandescent with the same rage, but she was keeping a cool front, and Atlantes had better do the same as he stood behind her, wrapped in Stacy’s invisibility.
Stacy, it seemed, was a shockingly powerful Mister, meaning she could make herself and others appear invisible, not just to the eye, but to the touch as well.
If Winter were to take a step backward, she’d walk right through the Witch.
Stacy had concealed herself, her two brothers, and Atlantes, so that they could position themselves directly behind Erikson.
The close proximity of so many powerful Witches was making Winter’s stomach muscles clench and her saliva glands tingle as she worked not to vomit.
They had to move this along, because the Shadow Council looked nauseated as well and Winter knew they would soon figure it out.
“I’ve made a decision,” Winter said quickly, drawing Nova’s attention back to her. Opal Ring continued her casual drift toward Erikson. “And I’m not going to join the council. You murdered my mother, and your council has terrorized our kind for centuries. You can go to hell.”
Nova’s eyes went black, and Winter shuddered at the wave of power that washed over her.
“You’re making a grave mistake, Winter. You are speaking about things of which you have no knowledge.
Do you truly think your mother was so innocent?
Do you think we passed her death sentence lightly?
We hate to remove anyone from the council, but unfortunately, those in power must occasionally take care of distasteful tasks. ”
The aunts gasped, and Winter took a sharp step toward Nova, Erikson’s hand still caught in hers, her entire body trembling with rage.
“You lying bitch! My mother wasn’t part of the Shadow Council.
She never would have worked for people like you.
She wanted to free Wickeds from your reign of terror.
She wanted to bring us into the light and give us community. ”
Nova tskd like Winter was a poor, delusional child.
Melanie, the other seer, was openly gleeful, and said in a high-pitched voice, “She wanted that in time, but not until she’d been a loyal member for years .
Lilac could fly, so she could escape almost any .
. . situation . . . without being seen. She was our most effective assassin. ”
Bile flooded Winter’s mouth and her eyes darted toward Aunt Rose.
Aunt Rose’s cheeks were as pale as her hair, her fingers pressed to her lips.
She hadn’t known, Winter realized. If it was even true.
Rose and Daisy had been librarians out of town and had rarely seen the girls until their mother had died.
They wouldn’t have had any idea what their sister was involved in.
If it was true. Winter still didn’t believe it, but even as she denied the possibility, long-suppressed memories struggled to the surface of her consciousness: Her mother coming home late, smelling of iron and sadness.
“Sorry honey, I spilled something on my shirt. I need to throw it out and then I’ll tuck you in bed.”
Her mother sitting with a book in her hand, staring out the window in a trance, sometimes for hours.
“Do you think Mom’s okay? She seems sad.”
Missy shrugging. “She’s always that way now.”
Her mother crying as Winter played the violin.
“Why are you crying, Mom?”
“Sometimes adults have to make difficult choices, Winter. Sometimes they have to do things they don’t want to do. Sometimes they hurt people they don’t want to hurt.”
Winter had the power to rifle through the past and find the truth, but right now she needed to stay firmly in the present, even as her stomach burned with acid.
She did not dare—could not even consider—the possibility that her mother was responsible for Atlantes’ mother’s death, even though she knew he had to be mulling that very possibility; knew it because his magic was pulsing at her back hard enough to dim some of her power.
Please hold it together, Atlantes , she silently begged. She would help him find the truth about his mother’s death if he wished, but they had to deal with their current predicament first.
“Why do you think she married such a loser?” Red Scarf asked, casually buffing her nails on her peacoat.
“She chose a waste of life to procreate with because he wasn’t worthy collateral.
We couldn’t control her by threatening him, because she didn’t care if he lived or died. She simply wanted his sperm.”
The hits kept coming. Holly blinked rapidly, her jaw slackening.
Winter and her sisters had always wondered what their mother, someone who’d been so brilliant and fun and beautiful, had seen in their father, a selfish, lazy alcoholic who’d abandoned them after her death like they were old garbage.
They’d never been able to understand why she’d married him, and now they knew.
The fact that he’d possessed no redeeming qualities was what she’d found attractive.
She’d given up a chance at finding real love because if she’d allowed herself to care for anyone, it would have only put that person in danger.
Which meant . . . did that mean their mother really had been on the Shadow Council?
“We couldn’t touch you or your sisters,” Red Scarf continued, as if she wasn’t shattering Winter’s world, “because Lilac put powerful protections on the three of you. She must’ve worked with a local Witch to revive the old magic, but those protections disappeared when she died.
And yet we still showed you mercy, didn’t we? We didn’t kill you.”
“That’s because when we checked on them after the funeral, they didn’t seem powerful! They were duds. They barely had any power at all!” Melanie spat, giving away the truth of their “mercy.” “I don’t understand what happened.”
Winter wasn’t about to share that Aunt Rose, who stood firmly beside Aunt Daisy, had hidden the girls with her potions.
Nova scanned each of the Celeste women with cunning eyes and murmured, “I suspect there are many secrets in this family, secrets the council is very interested in unveiling. For now, Winter, I must insist you take the position. We want to look out for you and your family, but we can’t do that if you’re working against us.
We can’t leave Wickeds with your kind of power to run wild: it could be detrimental to humanity, and that is why the council was created, after all.
To protect both humans and our Wicked identities from out-of-control and irresponsible Wickeds.
Just think of those fires you started. What if someone had been injured?
If you don’t join so we can watch you and care for you, then we’ll be duty-bound to neutralize the threat you pose. I’m sure you understand.”
Winter took a deep breath, praying Stacy and her brothers were in place. Praying Atlantes could hold his shit together. She pressed her lips together and tilted her head as if reconsidering, and then said, “Fuck off, Nova.”
Nova snapped. The ground shuddered beneath them, like they were standing on a fault line. It’s an illusion, it’s an illusion , Winter chanted to herself.
Power crackled around her, and Winter felt her own power pushing to the surface as tensions rose. “I think you’ll come to see it our way,” Nova hissed. “ Now! ”
Opal Ring darted forward and wrapped her hand around Erikson’s arm.
Everyone froze as if in a strange tableau, their action movie paused in the middle of a scene.
It took a full second for the council to realize Erikson was still standing there, his eyebrow raised as he removed Opal Ring’s hand from his arm.
“I’ll have to decline your teleportation trip, as cool as it might be to experience.”
“What . . .” Nova gasped, staring at Opal Ring, whose pallor was ashen.
“I’m . . .” Opal Ring looked down at her arm, where suddenly a hand appeared, and then two more, until Stacy and her two brothers became visible, all three of them holding onto Opal Ring’s arm, effectively silencing her power.
Atlantes remained hidden, barely keeping his magic in check. Winter could feel it vibrating across her skin, as if it wanted its freedom.
“What is this?” Nova screamed, her eyes narrowing on the Witches. It was only then that she truly looked around, taking in the empty chairs and the absence of a band. The wedding would take place—but in a few hours. “You planned this! How did you know? How could you know what we intended?”