Witch's Wrath (Blood And Magick #3)(2)

“She told you to leave,” Nicole said, “So you’d better leave.”

“I’m afraid I won’t be leaving until I’ve spoken to the person in charge. He is here, isn’t he?”

“I’m sorry,” I said, “I’m not telling you anything until you tell me who you are and what you want.”

She let out a sigh. “I’m getting tired of these questions,” she said, and with the flick of her wrist she sent a wave of magick sweeping through the room. I had barely enough time to cross my arms in front of my face and create a shield strong enough to counter the spell, protecting Nina, Nicole, and myself, but I couldn’t cover all the witches in the room and they fell to the floor, out cold.

High magick, I thought. She hadn’t had to speak to make the magick happen. Damn.

I was about to speak when the woman threw her right hand up toward us and, mimicking my earlier magick, sent a pillar of crackling lightning racing across the room. Since I’d had my hands up already, conjuring the shield was easy, but the magick that struck it caused my knees to buckle. Nicole screamed. The palms of my hands burned as I struggled to keep the shield between us and the powerful magick this woman seemed capable of producing.

Then the magick stopped, leaving me with red-hot palms and my pounding heart firmly wedged in my throat, and the smell of rotting eggs in the air. “You had no right to do that!” I yelled.

“That’s a formidable shield,” she said, “Where did you learn that trick?”

“That’s none of your damn business.”

“Nicole?” the woman said, “Care to explain to this young witch who I am? Maybe she can avoid more harm coming to you all.”

“You need to leave,” Nicole said, “You aren’t welcome in New Orleans.”

“Perhaps I wasn’t welcome before, but things seem to have changed, haven’t they? Remy Jackson, I hear, is no longer in control of the coven. In fact, there are many covens in the city now, each acting independently but working together. Remy is also, in fact, sponsoring this magick school operating out of his very own estate. I may have been discouraged from coming back under Remy’s rule, but since he no longer rules…”

My blood was starting to boil, causing anger to rise into my chest and cheeks. I scanned around the room, looking for something I could use to distract her long enough to give me the upper hand. When I saw the paint buckets and brushes stacked against the door, I found my target.

“Nicole, get back,” I said, “I don’t care who this woman is. This is our city, it’s our school, and if you say she isn’t welcome here, then she’s gotta go.”

“Madison,” Nicole said, “Don’t. Whatever you think you’re going to do, don’t do it.”

“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t.”

“Because this woman is Tamara Blake,” Remy said. He had started to walk into the room from the outer door and crossed to where we were. “Hello, Tamara,” Remy said.

Tamara’s lips pulled into a predatory smile. “Hello, Remy,” her voice softening now, taking an almost sensual tone. “It’s great to see you again.”

“I wish I could say the same. I also wish you hadn’t hurt our students.”

“Please, they’re only stunned. And if they were truly good students they would have been able to protect themselves like this one did. A high magician. Good find.”

“I didn’t find her—she found us. Now, tell me what it is you want, and keep it brief.”

“How about we talk in private?”

“I think we should talk out here.”

“Well, alright,” Tamara said. “It’s no great story, really. For a couple of weeks now I’ve been hearing rumors about you and about New Orleans, so I wanted to come over and check them out for myself. See if it was true what everyone was saying about you.”

“And what’s the word down the grapevine?”

“That you’ve gone soft like a rotting banana. That you’ve given up your power, your rights, to teach students how to do magick. That’s not the Remy I knew, and it’s definitely not the Remy I once wanted in my bed.”

Woah, holy shit; those two?

“There’s no need to get personal,” Remy said, “Now you’ve seen it’s all true, I’d like it if you left my property. There doesn’t have to be any more altercations.”

“I can’t promise either of those things, Remy. I actually don’t have any intention of leaving New Orleans. I used to live here. I was born here. Now I want to come back home. I worked just as hard as you did to make this place great, and I’m not going to let some upstart little bitches take what belongs to me.”

“Wait a second,” I said, as hot blood coursed through my veins. “Just who do you think you’re talking to?”

“I’m talking to a little girl who’s way in over her head. New Orleans isn’t your home, and if you think I’m going to leave town just because you’ve asked me to, you’re sadly mistaken. You’ll be seeing a lot more of me, I can assure you.”

“Fair enough,” Remy said, “But not today.”

Tamara flashed a wolf-like grin, and with a flick of the wrist she knocked over the paint cans and brushes I had been eyeing to toss at her. The grin turned into a smug, satisfied smirk, and she turned around, disappearing down the hall and out of sight, leaving only the sound of her clacking heels as evidence she was even here at all, and me feeling like a tornado had just swept through the area. Remy sighed and dragged a hand down his chin and jaw, a sign of a man trying to wash away a great deal of tension.