lightning witch 02 - lightning legacy (15 page)

“Hey, Earth to Spock.” Troy’s voice broke through my mental barrier.

“Yeah, sorry, phasers set to stun, I know. Glad to hear you’re finally watching Star Trek,” I said, flashing him a smile. I hadn’t realized I missed smiling so damned much. I guess it felt foreign because in the past few months, I did it so little. A little piece of normal was inching its way back into my life and damn it I was going to hold on to it with every ounce of strength in my body.

“Hey, don’t go telling everyone. I have a reputation to maintain.”

I returned my attention to Monique Thomas, the stunning Earth witch standing mere feet from me. It made me more than a little nervous to have such a powerful Witch this close to me, but her being part to the inner circle of the Coven made me even more on edge. Reid walked over to the woman and proceeded to hug her. Then I heard a low growl. I looked around only to realize it had come from me. Oops
. Feeling a little possessive are we? Hell yes, I am. I only just got him back.
Troy elbowed me in the ribs.

"Sorry." Yeah, I wasn't a bit sorry.

“You lie like a rug.” He knew me well.

Reid raised an eyebrow at me and I just shrugged. I walked over and stuck my hand out to her in greeting.

“Hi, I’m Delaney. You must be Monique.”

She grabbed my outstretched hand, as soon as our skin met, she withdrew quickly. “Ouch,” she said as she cradled her hand.

I winced. Dammit. I hated hurting people I didn’t mean to. “Sorry.”

She eyed me then, a dazzlingly white smile slashing her dark face. She stepped closer and reached her hand out again.

I eyed it, not really understanding what she wanted.

"May I?" she questioned.

I had no clue what she wanted. I raised my eyebrow at her then shrugged. She stepped closer and placed her hand just over my heart. That's when I realized what she was doing. When I meet a witch, it’s easy, for the most part, to gauge their power level based on the thrum of power they are giving off. But touching them just over the heart will give an accurate feel for just how much power they have. When I did this to Troy, I pegged him for a nine, easy. Though I wouldn't tell him that. His ego would inflate his head and then he wouldn't be able to fit through doorways. There was a risk of letting a witch so close to you though. She could make one small pulse of power and boom, as Troy would say, dead. The one benefit I would have in this situation was that I could, in turn, gauge her power.

There was a small spark of power when she touched me. But the spark grew. It should have dissipated. I focused on her power. It felt like Earth, like being rooted to the ground. Her file said she was at a power level of a nine. It lied. She was a ten. Her power was so strong I was willing to bet she found mine to be a trickle compared to her ocean. I opened my eyes to see her mouth gaping in shock.

“Did I do something wrong?” I asked, biting my lip.

She removed her hand and eyed me before saying, “No, Delaney, I just wasn’t expecting that.”

My heart sank to my feet. Not that it mattered how much power I had, but her look made me feel insubstantial.

She saw my fallen expression and quickly added, “No, Delaney, you misunderstand. I have never felt any witch have as much power as you. On the scale of one to ten that we use, Delaney, you’re twenty at least. I-I don’t even know how to quantify it.”

I just stood there blinking at her. That couldn’t be correct. It just couldn’t. Mil had done this with me after puberty and said I was an eight.

I shook my head and explained, “No you need to try again. Mil said I was an eight.”

“Delaney, the power that I felt was more than I have ever felt in anyone. Ever.”

"Your file said you were a nine. That was a lie. You’re a ten easy." A look of shock flashed across her face then it settled into resignation.

“Bernard is the one who assesses all of the inner circles power levels. He does not do well with competition. It doesn't surprise me in the least that he lied. It’s nice to know though.” My head was spinning. I mean I thought I had some power, but that much power? I didn’t think I could wrap my head around it.

“D, you did that thing to me; what’s my power level?” Troy questioned brightly.

I sighed and mumbled, "Nine."

“I couldn’t understand that, try getting the dick …”

“Oh my God, Troy! You’re a nine. Same as Mil was,” I said, trying to cut off his words.

"Hell yes, bitches! I'm like a superhero." And there it was.
Insert ego inflation here
.

“Now, if you can stop burning shit down,” I quipped.

“I know, I know. But, this is all new to me. I could turn Reid here into Pam Anderson, with nothing but blush and some spackle. I’m the fucking MacGyver of drag queens. But this shit is way out of my purview.”

“New?” Monique asked Troy with a confused expression pinching her eyes.

I explained what I thought happened with Mil and Troy.

“Well, it’s possible. She would have needed a lot of power though. Like you, I thought it was a myth.”

Then I realized I had a lot of questions for her.

“Not to be mean, but why are you here? I mean other than Reid asking.” My hands flew to my mouth.
I did not just ask that? Shut up, Delaney!
Apparently, my brain to mouth filter was on the fritz.

“Damn, D.”

I rolled my eyes at Troy.

"I'm here to help, but I’m also here for a few other reasons." We all made our way to the couches to hear just what she had to say.

“Okay, when you called, I tried to tell you just what the Coven has been doing, you just hung up too fast,” she said.

I shivered at the memory of what happened after that phone call. My ribs ached slightly, just recalling it. I pushed the memories back and tried to focus on her words.

“The Coven started a breeding program a few years ago. They have found a way to breed more witches. They are forcing it on the witches on the reservations. They are brainwashing them and if that doesn't work, they are threatening them. I knew they were trying to breed more witches, but God, I never thought that this was even a possibility, much less a reality. They breed them, then take the children. If the children have power, they are kept. God, Delaney, the ones that don’t, I-I don’t know what happens to them.” Her eyes shimmered with unshed tears.

I was horrified. I think we all were, because no one could speak. The thought that they were forcing witches to breed like cattle, then the children are taken, and God knows what happens if they didn’t have power, made bile rise up and splash the back of my throat. I’d always been afraid of the Coven. Always running and trying to hide from them. Screw that. I’m done hiding from them. They want me? They can come and get me. It said in the prophecy I would take them down. Well, I didn’t need some prophecy to tell me that. It was fact. My vision wavered from color to black and white.

"Delaney, calm down." It was a distant voice, but a familiar one. I blinked, and the color slowly returned.

“Sorry.” My voice was raspy.

"That's just so amazing. You were sparking over your whole body," Monique commented with a look of awe.

I looked down at my clothes that were still smoking. I saw about a dozen tiny holes burned into the fabric.
Shit.

“Great, now I’m going to have a Delaney-sized ass print burned in my couch.”

“Monique, I want to help and I’m sure we all do, but Mitch is a problem we need to deal with," Reid explained, pulling me closer against him. I breathed in his scent. It was a mix of sandalwood and pine. It seemed to center me and bring my wild emotions back down.

“I want him dead.” My tone was cold and emotionless. I’d never in my life needed someone to die. They all looked at me. I had no more fucks to give. They could think me a monster if they liked. I wouldn’t lie.

"Me too," Monique added with a stony expression. Now that took me aback. She went on and told us just how she was connected to Mitch. I listened to every word. It had been her. That's how Mitch found out about the prophecy. She had never meant for him to hear, but it had been her. She couldn't meet my eyes as she spoke. I tried to be mad at her. I tried to blame her for all that had happened, but I couldn't. She had loved Mitch, and he used her like yesterday's underpants.

I flopped back on the couch. There was so much here.
So many variables in this
. Then I had this niggling question in the back of my mind. I looked fully at Monique and voiced the question as evenly as I could.

“I understand you want to help us with Mitch. That I understand. I guess I don’t get why you would leave your position at the inner circle of the Coven to help us bring them down.”

An emotion flashed across her face, though I had no idea what it was. Annoyance maybe, or even anger. Her face then went hard when she said, "Because what they are doing is deplorable. They are all following Bernard without question, and it's not right. I won’t have this on my conscience."

She seemed sincere, but there was something I couldn't place. Maybe her tone or the way her full, bowed mouth strained around her words. Something I didn't trust. Then again, after the shit I’d been through, I didn't trust myself, much less anyone else. I would have to keep my eye on her; I couldn’t turn down help at this point though. We needed all the help we could get.

Why did this have to be so complicated? Why did I have to be in the middle of any of it? I could just take Troy and Reid and run off to Amsterdam. We could open a little bakery and coffee shop. Yeah, maybe I would have to learn to cook for that mess. I sighed. Well, when in doubt ask yourself WWSD. What would Spiderman do? I closed my eyes and tried to picture the superhero. The only thing I could picture were the words, "With great power comes great responsibility." I groaned because I knew I couldn't run. I owed it to Sierra, Mil and the rest of the witches Mitch destroyed before he found me.

“Welp, what do we do now?" It was Troy who broke the tense silence.

I lifted my head off the back of the plush couch and looked at the three other people in the room. There were four of us. Four people. Two witches, one werewolf, and me, whatever I was. How could so few of us take down not only Mitch, but get through his whole pack to get to him?

“I think Monique needs to teach Troy about how to control his power. And I want to take you out and teach you what I can about being a wolf,” Reid said, squeezing my thigh.

“I don’t think we have that much time. I mean, Mitch will come for me. It won’t take him too long to figure out where I am. It’s not like I had too many places I could have gone.”
We are so, so, so, screwed.
God, I just hoped we found some lube by the time he came for us, to make said fucking less painful. We needed something, a break, anything.

“I think we have a few days at least. Mitch will most likely go north. I mean he would think you would come to me. He would have no idea we were already here,” Reid said, though I don’t think he believed his own words.

“What about calling another pack?” The rest of the packs, if they knew what Mitch had done, should be willing to help right? Maybe I was grasping at straws here. I didn't know what else to do.

Reid looked grim. “I could try to call some of them, but there is so much disorganization among the packs that I doubt they would be willing to help. They tend to be of the mind that if it’s not in their backyard then they don’t need to get involved. And they also don’t take kindly to a lone wolf pleading a pack for help to attack another pack.” My last little bit of hope fell. I hadn’t realized I held that much hope out.

Troy cleared his throat as though to interject. I raised an eyebrow at him. Was he asking permission? Who was this person and what happened to the queen who questioned no one. I guess Garrett had a calming effect on him.

"Look, I haven't been a witch for that long, and I don't know shit all about anything. Well, unless you want me to turn Reid here into a woman …"

He was rambling. I motioned for him to get on with it. But his words did make me smile.

"Sorry. What I'm trying to say is, Delaney is a bad bitch. And God knows I'm a bad bitch. Monique here seems like a bad bitch and Reid…" He trailed off, eyeing Reid. He then added, "Well I think you get where I'm going with that. We are a group that one does not simply fuck with. Why don't we just go the hell up there with our badassness and fuck 'em up.”

Just as I was about to open my mouth to say something, my cell phone rang. It was the phone Mark had given me before I left. My mouth went dry, and my heartbeat went to supersonic speeds. Who the hell could be calling me? I fished the phone out of my pocket. It was an Atlanta number as it had a 770 area code. I glanced at Reid. He seemed as alarmed as I was. It was on the third ring. I accepted the call and held the device to my ear.

“Um, hello?” My voice was shaky.
Way to answer a phone, Delaney
.

"Hello? Is this Delaney?" It was a female voice, and she was upset and rushed.

“Yes. Who is this?”

“This is Kate. Mark's wife." My heart went from supersonic to nothing. All noise died, and the people, scent, and activity in the room paused.
God, please let Mark be okay.
I was ignoring what my brain was telling me, what my heart was telling me.

"I-I got a call from Mitch and …" She paused, choking on a sob. My throat tightened. I had to tighten down these emotions. "... He said I was soon to be a widow and then hung up."

And it was all because of me. One more person who wanted to help me would pay the price. Okay, it was time to end this
woe is me
shit. I swallowed the tears I knew wanted to be shed and clamped down on everything but my mind.

“Kate, you need to get out of the city. You need to run.”

"Mark told me to run the night of the new moon. I-I don't know how to breathe without him." I could hear her tears. A vice tightened around my heart and I thought it might explode with pain. "Mark told me to call you if I didn't hear from him. He gave me a number to give you and wanted me to tell you to call Anderson. He refused to tell me more."