Read Online The Oath by Apryl Baker - Free Book Online Page B

spell.
    “Now tell me what you’re really doing here, why you changed everything about yourself.”
    “I’m here to murder the kids who murdered my sister.”
    My hand clamped over my mouth seconds after I spilled the truth. The little bugger cast a truth spell on me? How dare he?
    “There go your eyes again, Mel.” He frowned. “They’re going black.”
    My eyes widened. Was I turning into a dark witch? No, I refused to believe it.
    “Tell me what happened to your sister.” His voice still held that commanding tone, and the spell he cast compelled me to answer him.
    “They forced her to kill herself by using magic against her.”
    “So now you think they should pay the same price?”
    “Yes.”
    “Don’t you think there’s another way?”
    “No,” I told him. “The regular police won’t believe that they used magic to force her to kill herself. They already ruled it a suicide. The witches’ council won’t make them pay the same price because of their age. This is the only way. I have to do it.”
    “How do you know they forced her to do it?”
    “Her diary. She wrote it down in her diary.”
    Jeff stared at me for a long time, his eyes thoughtful. I hated him just a bit right then. He’d cast a freaking truth spell on me. On me!   He was so gonna pay for that.
    “Melinda James, I release you from this spell.”
    My hand came up to hit him, but I restrained myself. We were in a public place, and hitting him, no matter how good it would make me feel, would only cause me problems later.
    “I’m sorry,” he told me, his eyes shining with sincerity. “I knew something was wrong and you weren’t going to tell me. Sometimes you need to tell people stuff, Mel. This is big, and if you do this, it will eat you up inside, and it might make you turn dark.”
    “I won’t,” I told him. “I’m not a dark witch, and I will never be a dark witch.”
    “I know you think that,” he whispered, paying attention to the kids who’d just come in and taken a seat in the booth two down from us. “Taking a life by way of magic is a surefire way to become a dark witch. I’m sure none of them meant to be dark. They were only doing something for the greater good, but when you use dark magic or even good magic to do harm, there is always a price to be paid. You know that.”
    “What would you do if it was your sister they killed? Would you just let it go, let them go merrily on their way laughing at what they’d done? Or would you do everything in your power to make them pay for what they did?”
    “I’d hurt anyone who even tried to hurt Megan,” Jeff said automatically. “No one messes with my little sister.”
    “Exactly,” I said, nodding. “Only I didn’t know what was going on to stop it. They used magic to kill her. Magic, Jeff. What else can I do?”
    “I don’t know,” he told me thoughtfully. “Can I get you to promise not to do anything stupid until I can think about it?”
    “Sure,” I agreed. Not that he was going to remember this little conversation anyway. Memory spells were a bit of niche for me.
    “Don’t even think about it,” he warned, reading my intentions. “It won’t work on me. Emily used to hit me with those all the time when I was a kid. My mom put an anti-memory charm on me after I forgot my way home. You can throw memory spells at me all day, and they’ll bounce back off.”
    Well, dammit. “Who’s Emily?” I asked instead of screaming in frustration. I knew these people were going to get in my way.
    “CJ’s sister,” he replied, his eyes going softer, taking on a sad hue. “She was killed in a car crash about three years ago. We found out recently that our old Coven Master was responsible for her death.”
    “Why did he kill her?”
    “You remember me telling you he almost succeeded in killing CJ last month trying to fulfill a curse?”
    I nodded.
    “Emily found out that either CJ or her best friend Kay was the thirteenth daughter, the person the curse