Read Online T*Witches: Dead Wrong by Randi Reisfeld, H.B. Gilmour - Free Book Online
Authors: Randi Reisfeld, H.B. Gilmour
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taught you how to shape-shift. Without me — despite the reknown of our family — you’d still be a lowly apprentice trying to pass your warlock initiation rites. I taught you and now I have taken back my gift! Do you hear me? Never, never again are you to unfurl those dragon wings or wrap yourself in that putrid, scaly skin — ”
“I didn’t!” Fredo cried. “I did what you said. I found him in the trailer. And I didn’t transform myself —”
“If ever you disobey this command, you are finished, my brother —”
Fredo gulped. “Finished?”
“I must have obedience,” Thantos ranted, slashing the air with his cane. “Total, unquestioning obedience. This is a time of exceptional opportunity. You will not destroy it for me. Karsh is ill. I saw it when we held him hostage. He can’t last long. And his charming companion, Ileana, a beauty like her mother —”
“And talented, like her father.” Fredo smiled his yellow-toothed smile.
Thantos aimed a silencing glare at him. “Once the elder is gone, she will do my bidding —”
“You know what I don’t get?” Fredo ventured carelessly. “What the big deal is about these twins. I mean, if you wanted kids, you could have had more of your own.” He ducked as Thantos’s cane soared toward his head. “Okay, okay,” Fredo whined, his hands protectively raised. “Sorry I mentioned it!”
Thantos composed himself. Leaning against the fireplace mantle, he looked up at the full-length portrait of his mother, once the most powerful leader of the Coventry clan. She had urged him to marry but had ridiculed his choice — Beatrice, an extraordinary girl from an ordinaryfamily. That was the problem. As bright and beautiful as Beatrice was, her roots were undistinguished. Except for one ancestor who, scheduled to be burned at the stake, had cast a spell on her executioner who then refused to light the fire; and another who’d survived the dunking chair in Salem and lived to a ripe old age as one of the first women doctors in New England — there was barely an important witch amongst them.
But Thantos had been young and besotted and on the rebound. His one true love, after all, had married another. So he allowed himself to be smitten by the girl’s golden good looks and by her strangely aristocratic, at times even arrogant, manner. He approved of the way she valued herself — as though not having a grand and powerful bloodline was more a flaw of fate than a fault of hers. And so he’d married her against his mother’s caution — and lived to regret it when she died in childbirth a year later.
“Yes, Ileana will do my bidding.” Still staring at the painting of his disapproving, willful mother, Thantos continued, “Because I know what she wants.
Who
she wants. I’ve known him since he was a boy. His name was Bevin then, a reckless orphan in my service. I took him in when he had nothing, was nobody, a forlorn little warlock. He has a new name now. Brice. He is famous, rich, and powerful. And he knows what he owes me!”
CHAPTER NINE
SNAKES AND STOOGES
The diner wasn’t really crowded, it just sounded that way to Alex. At one end of the smoky restaurant, she, Cam, Lucinda, and Evan were wedged into a corner booth. Andy Yatz was a couple of tables away, sipping the dregs of a Coke and mooning over Lucinda. At the counter, an elderly twosome was noisily sharing a meat loaf platter, and a couple of truckers were sucking down caffeine and yukking it up with the waitress.
Everyone was either talking or thinking too loudly when Alex spotted the trio outside.
Cam thought she heard her sister saying something, but caught up in her own horror movie about the body in the trailer, and with Luce chattering nonstop oppositeher, and Andy’s loud slurping, she missed Alex’s
Yo, it’s them!
Hello!
Alex cleared her throat, coughed, and finally got Cam to look at her.
Check out the door. Look who’s there.
Cam turned. “Who?” she asked aloud.
Alex
“I didn’t!” Fredo cried. “I did what you said. I found him in the trailer. And I didn’t transform myself —”
“If ever you disobey this command, you are finished, my brother —”
Fredo gulped. “Finished?”
“I must have obedience,” Thantos ranted, slashing the air with his cane. “Total, unquestioning obedience. This is a time of exceptional opportunity. You will not destroy it for me. Karsh is ill. I saw it when we held him hostage. He can’t last long. And his charming companion, Ileana, a beauty like her mother —”
“And talented, like her father.” Fredo smiled his yellow-toothed smile.
Thantos aimed a silencing glare at him. “Once the elder is gone, she will do my bidding —”
“You know what I don’t get?” Fredo ventured carelessly. “What the big deal is about these twins. I mean, if you wanted kids, you could have had more of your own.” He ducked as Thantos’s cane soared toward his head. “Okay, okay,” Fredo whined, his hands protectively raised. “Sorry I mentioned it!”
Thantos composed himself. Leaning against the fireplace mantle, he looked up at the full-length portrait of his mother, once the most powerful leader of the Coventry clan. She had urged him to marry but had ridiculed his choice — Beatrice, an extraordinary girl from an ordinaryfamily. That was the problem. As bright and beautiful as Beatrice was, her roots were undistinguished. Except for one ancestor who, scheduled to be burned at the stake, had cast a spell on her executioner who then refused to light the fire; and another who’d survived the dunking chair in Salem and lived to a ripe old age as one of the first women doctors in New England — there was barely an important witch amongst them.
But Thantos had been young and besotted and on the rebound. His one true love, after all, had married another. So he allowed himself to be smitten by the girl’s golden good looks and by her strangely aristocratic, at times even arrogant, manner. He approved of the way she valued herself — as though not having a grand and powerful bloodline was more a flaw of fate than a fault of hers. And so he’d married her against his mother’s caution — and lived to regret it when she died in childbirth a year later.
“Yes, Ileana will do my bidding.” Still staring at the painting of his disapproving, willful mother, Thantos continued, “Because I know what she wants.
Who
she wants. I’ve known him since he was a boy. His name was Bevin then, a reckless orphan in my service. I took him in when he had nothing, was nobody, a forlorn little warlock. He has a new name now. Brice. He is famous, rich, and powerful. And he knows what he owes me!”
CHAPTER NINE
SNAKES AND STOOGES
The diner wasn’t really crowded, it just sounded that way to Alex. At one end of the smoky restaurant, she, Cam, Lucinda, and Evan were wedged into a corner booth. Andy Yatz was a couple of tables away, sipping the dregs of a Coke and mooning over Lucinda. At the counter, an elderly twosome was noisily sharing a meat loaf platter, and a couple of truckers were sucking down caffeine and yukking it up with the waitress.
Everyone was either talking or thinking too loudly when Alex spotted the trio outside.
Cam thought she heard her sister saying something, but caught up in her own horror movie about the body in the trailer, and with Luce chattering nonstop oppositeher, and Andy’s loud slurping, she missed Alex’s
Yo, it’s them!
Hello!
Alex cleared her throat, coughed, and finally got Cam to look at her.
Check out the door. Look who’s there.
Cam turned. “Who?” she asked aloud.
Alex
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