Her exit was slightly dramatic, but I had to give her points for flair.
“That one is trouble,” Susannah admitted, dropping her arm to her side now that she possessed no apple to look upon.
I nodded, not bothering to argue the point. I’d thought the same more than once.
“All the more reason for you to stay away from her. Keep your teeth to yourself and your dick in your pants where my granddaughter is concerned. Whatever this is between you two ends here,” she snapped, turning her back on me as if that was the end of it.
“And if I don’t agree?” I asked, crossing my arms over my chest as I stood from my perch on the edge of the desk.
The Covenant froze, turning to face me as her jaw clenched. “You know the rules.”
“I can wait until the Reaping,” I said, shrugging as the heat of her stare struck me. There was a warning there, one that I chose not to heed.
“You intend to invoke dominium?” the Covenant asked, clasping her hands in front of her. “I have plans for Willow. I will not tolerate you getting in my way.”
“Dominium is my right. You cannot stop me,” I answered, grinning as I approached her. If anything, knowing how vehemently she opposed my claim of ownership over Willow only drove me to enact it more.
“A right which you have not claimed in centuries! Why her? Why now?” she asked, her fury rising. Her magic might have been taken from her in its natural state, but she still possessed raw magic that had been given by all the houses of the Coven to bring her back.
Combined with Charlotte’s magic to reanimate what was already dead, it enabled her to be more than just a shell.
“I like the way she tastes,” I said, shoving my hands into the pockets of my slacks.
“This is a mistake,” the Covenant said, backing away a step. She didn’t try to dissuade me, just moved toward the doors, which she blew open with a burst of air.
“Susannah?” I asked as she stepped over the threshold. “She’s not to know.”
“You don’t want her to know that you’ve invoked dominium over her?” she asked, her brow furrowing as she tried to work out exactly what game I was playing.
She’d never know, or if she did, she’d already have one foot in a grave she wouldn’t escape a second time.
“I’ll inform her when I’m ready,” I said, waiting until she gave her nod. She couldn’t argue with me, not in this.
Willow was mine.
16
WILLOW
Days passed where I didn’t speak to Gray. Where I didn’t see him outside of his class, and he didn’t send breakfasts to my room. I refused to acknowledge the sting in my center that felt like disappointment, chalking it up to the fact that my duty would be far more difficult than I’d anticipated.
How was I supposed to find out where the Vessels had hidden my aunt’s bones if I couldn’t be in the room with the fucker for two seconds without wanting to tear out his throat?
It felt like a pointless waste of time, and I would have much rather been back in my home with Ash at my side, finding a way to cope with the loss of Mom. At least we would have had each other to lean on. Instead, I was trapped in a school I didn’t want to attend, contemplating all the ways I’d already failed.
I couldn’t push past my father’s teachings, his reminders that men preferred women to be seen and not heard. To seduce the headmaster, I’d need to be quiet and demure instead of brazen. I felt fairly certain I’d fucked that seven ways to Hell and there would be no backtracking now.
Besides, I’d seen the way the other witches watched him during class. My attraction to him, as much as I wanted to deny it existed, wasn’t unusual. Even those who had grown up in the Coven and learned to hate his kind still felt the pull to him.
His Vessel was unusually handsome, even in comparison to the others. The Vessels were all unnaturally beautiful, but his was just somehow… more.
That was how I’d found myself in the library after class under the guise of studying. The curved windows in front of me were covered with the fine mist of rain, making the woods outside the school appear hazy and distant. The room was too dark to be practical for reading, but I preferred the calm, muted atmosphere of this library to the fluorescent lights at the public school I’d attended as a child. The library walls were covered in wooden shelves. Books far older than I lined them and were organized in a fashion that probably only made sense to the woman in charge of the space. It had embarrassed me to need to ask her for books on what I was looking for, with no digital search function to enable me to seek out a topic.