Her Guardian's Heart Read Free Page B

gleamed in the darkness. Nick hissed as he crept closer to me.
    “I just want Melina. Give her to me, and I’ll let you both live. We have no qualms with you.”
    “She won’t be going anywhere. Anyone who attacks our mate, attacks us.”
    Eric’s eyebrows rose. “Mate?” The astonishment was clear in his eyes. “I never saw that one coming. I’ll guess you’ll have to be the one to explain why you were fucking these monsters and defiled yourself. It’s time to take your rightful place in the coven, Sis.”
    “I’m not going anywhere with you. Charles made it quite clear that I was never to return. Why should he want me now after all these years?”
    My brother’s gaze hardened. “You are in no position to ask questions. One pull of this trigger and one of these mongrels gets it. Don’t think I’m kidding.”
    I reached out my senses and connected with the crystals in the courtyard. Their energy filled my being. I tried to let it come in slow, hoping that Eric wouldn’t sense it. “I think I have a right to know, considering you’ve come here to kidnap me. I can only assume it’s because the one who the coven chose was not worthy of the goddess. What happened? Did she fry her brain? Elisa, wasn’t that her name? That nitwit who barely knew anything about magic, but was Charles’s puppet, even when we were kids. I remember her fucking anything that spread her legs.”
    His jaw locked. The veins in his temples pounded. Eric’s aura swelled from his anger. The red tinge of it became visible in the moonlight. “Shut up about Elisa. She’s not a slut.”
    I grinned, feeling the cool power of the moon and the earth flowing into me. “You have feelings for her. What happened? Is she a vegetable now? The goddess will do that to those who aren’t worthy of her power.”
    “And you think you’re so high and mighty! If so, why did Dad lock you away the way he did?”
    “Because your father couldn’t fathom that the power that ran through my veins wasn’t his. That the next one to rule over the coven wasn’t going to be from his line. That, and he was afraid of what was inside of me.”
    “You bitch. Mom never cheated.”
    I stepped closer to my brother, feeling him out to find the kink in his armor. His grip on the gun wavered. It bounced up and down in his hand. “Why don’t you ask her that the next time you see her? She’ll tell you the real reason I never called him dad and why he beat me for it. I’m not going home with you. The coven can die out. Turn back before you get hurt, big brother. Remember when we were kids and we had all kinds of fun? You don’t have to live by the rules of the coven. They’ve been brainwashing you all these years. Come on.” I opened my arms, hoping to hug him and send him on his way. I sensed his resolve. Saw it in his eyes that he didn’t want to hurt me. We had been so close growing up. Deep down the brother I knew who had wanted to escape the confines of the witches who raised us was still there.
    He lowered his gun. For the briefest second, I saw the little boy who I played with all those years ago. The one that I would hover candles with. The one who would check under the bed for me because I didn’t want the monsters to eat me. The one who had tried to break me out of the closet they locked me in. All of the things that I missed about having my family around threatened to take me down. I swore I would never open myself up to feeling again, but then I met Nick and Landon. There was too much darkness in my past that was still buried. I was afraid of what would happen if I opened it all the way. I smiled and stepped a little closer, but then he raised his gun and pointed it at me again.
    “I’m sorry. I wish it could be that way before, but it can’t. I’ll give you a free pass this once. Be warned; we will come back for you. It might not be tomorrow, but you will be high priestess of the coven.”
    I gathered my power, about to strike, when he turned