Page 55 of Just a Little Wicked (Wicked Sisters #2)
Winter released Erikson’s hand and took a menacing step forward, calling her Wickedness to the surface so that it sang in every cell of her body.
Power pulsed off her in a wave so strong that Melanie fell to her knees and Red Scarf’s eyes widened.
The enforcers were about to step forward, but Missy and Holly were suddenly standing between them and Winter, their own powers so overwhelming that instead of moving closer, the enforcers took several hurried steps backwards.
Holly was a stunning vision in her wedding gown, her pupils taking up most of her eyes and clouds whirling in a funnel overhead, tearing at the tablecloths and the tree branches.
Missy was grinning in her blush gown, black sparks flickering over her knuckles.
“I know everything,” Winter said, knowing her voice had taken on that otherworldly tone that signaled she was rapidly approaching full-on-Wicked. “I know you want me to travel to the past and find what the Witches hid.”
Nova, whose own power was sending thousands of black, hairy spiders skittering across the ground in a horrifying illusion, blinked, and the spiders paused in place. “You’ve been to the past,” she gasped, her excitement warring with her rage.
“I have,” Winter agreed, stepping even closer, crushing the illusion of spiders beneath her red pleather combat boots. “I wouldn’t,” she said loudly, not taking her eyes off Nova. Red Scarf halted her slow movements toward Winter.
“I’ve never hit a woman,” Erikson said to Red Scarf, “but you can be my first if you so much as touch a hair on her head.”
Red Scarf sneered at him, but then she caught Aunt Daisy peeling off her black leather gloves and all the blood rushed from her face. Aunt Daisy had a death touch. All it would take was a single brush against Red Scarf’s skin, and her heart would stop.
Aunt Daisy was nearly blind and one of the sweetest women on Earth, but at that moment she was the stuff from nightmares. Her bare hands were the embodiment of death as she strode to Winter’s side, her white hair whipping around her face from Holly’s wind.
They were all going to need to re-do their hairstyles before the real wedding.
Winter gave her aunt a feral smile and refocused on Nova, who was finally realizing she and the other five Shadow Council members were wildly outmatched.
Winter and her sisters may have been unpracticed with wielding their powers, but a blunt object could do just as much damage as a precision tool.
Then there were the three equally effective Witches on their side, along with Aunt Rose and Aunt Daisy, who was the final touch. Literally.
The council didn’t even know about the Pillar Witch still disguised a few feet away.
“I’ve been to the past, and I know what you want,” Winter said, focusing entirely on Nova.
This was the tricky part, because she didn’t know exactly what was in the book, or why the council was so desperate to find it.
All she knew was that it couldn’t be destroyed because it was Goddess-given, meaning Mother Mage herself had put it on Earth. “I found what you’re looking for.”
Nova stared at her through midnight eyes. “I don’t believe you.”
Winter shrugged and tried to pretend her heart wasn’t beating a hundred miles per hour. “I suppose it doesn’t really matter if you believe me or not, because I’ve re-hidden it. I would have destroyed it, but the book is Goddess-given.”
Nova’s lips parted at Winter’s casual statement of proof, and a piece of her blond hair got stuck in her pink lipstick. Her voice took on a demonic quality as it thundered, “ Where did you hide it? ”
“In a different time, in a different place. You’ll never find it.”
Nova relaxed. “You can’t move physical items through time. Did you think I’d fall for that?”
“Maybe she can’t,” Winter smirked, pointing her chin to Melanie, “but then she’s probably not a timewalker.”
Nova’s league of spiders vanished with her shock.
Winter closed the last of the ground between them, until she stood nose-to-nose with the other Wicked.
She beckoned forth all of her power, the inky potency arcing through her veins and sparking in her nerves and organs.
She didn’t just have power, in that moment, she was power.
It would have terrified her even earlier that day, but she trusted her ability to wield this part of herself as well as she trusted her lungs to inhale when sleeping.
Something had shifted irrevocably inside her.
She was no longer Winter and her power. She was simply her Wicked self.
“Don’t you want to know where I put it?” Winter asked softly, cocking her head.
Nova’s greed and fury were plain in her eyes as the earth trembled beneath them again. “Where is it?”
Winter deliberately turned her back on Nova in a power play, even though she wanted to throw up a little in her mouth at having her back to the Wicked.
Over her shoulder she gestured to Stacy, who smiled brilliantly at Nova.
The Witches had suggested the final solution, even though it made Winter uneasy.
“I’ve given it to the Witches,” Winter said.
Nova’s eyes darted to Stacy and her brothers, her top lip curling back to bare her teeth.
“Oh, not them ,” Winter clarified as she turned back and crossed her arms over her chest. “The Witch government.”
Nova’s head whipped back to her and she shrieked in rage. “You stupid, stupid bitch! Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”
Winter’s skin crinkled. What was in that book?
Rather than reacting to Nova’s question, she said in low, lethal voice, “That’s what you get for coming after my family.
If you ever again threaten me, my family, the Grimms, or those Witches standing right there, I will come after you with everything I have.
I will fuck with the past. I will fuck with your future.
Holly will rip apart your world and Missy will send disease specifically formulated for you .
We will suck the life out of you like you did to our mother, haunting you until you’re afraid of every future moment, every drop of rain, every cough.
Then, and only then, will I bury you where the animals scavenge.
Do we have an understanding, Nova? Or do you want to test me? ”
Nova was trembling along with the earth. The sky turned black with a swarm of bats, her rage escaping through her power of illusion. Her lips remained firmly pressed together even as she dipped her chin in a short nod.
Winter gestured to Stacy and her brothers, and they released the teleporter with a collective sigh. The teleporter hurried to Nova, and the rest of the Shadow Council clustered near them.
Nova tossed a lewd glance at Erikson. “You think you’ve won, Wicked, but soon your man will know— gahh!
” Nova screeched, clutching her gushing nose while Winter stood over her in a cold fury, not even feeling the sting on her knuckles.
Holly and Missy sidled up to her, each of them touching a shoulder, gifting her their power.
Wickedness flowed from them into Winter; immense, soul-singing power that should have burned her out, but only made her burn brighter.
“That’s your last warning.” Winter’s voice wasn’t even her own; it echoed like she was in a canyon. At the same time a wave of power pulsed from her, blowing over every chair, knocking branches off trees, and blasting the Shadow Council to their asses.
With one last, furious look, Nova scrambled to her feet and linked hands with the rest of the council. “You’ve put a target on the Witches. They helped you, and you harmed them in return. Because that’s what you are. You are nothing but wicked, and that’s all you’ll ever be.”
A moment later, they vanished.