The Eternal Witch (The Coven: Elemental Magic Book 5) Read online

  “Takes one to know one,” Tegan said, still holding our Moon Card close. From behind, her raven hair was a bit wild and tangled. The tips that had once been a vibrant violet were now a lackluster lavender.

  Henley gasped and pulled back from Tegan with her jaw dropped and eyes wide. She looked her up and down. “How are you feeling? Are you okay?”

  “How is she feeling?” Paulina snapped. “You were the one possessed!”

  If Henley heard Paulina, then she ignored her. She gripped Tegan’s arms and shook her. “You took that potion! Are you crazy? Why would you take that one?”

  Evaline frowned and moved toward them. “Which potion did she take?”

  “Sleepless Moon!” Henley’s voice raised a few octaves like the name should’ve meant something to us.

  Evaline gasped. “When? When did you take it, Tegan?”

  “October seventh!” Henley answered for Tegan, who still hadn’t turned to face us.

  Why won’t you look at us? I had no idea what this potion was, or why it rattled the others so much. Larissa’s face was pale. Devon’s eyes were sharp and calculating. What do you know?

  “Oh Goddess, Tegan.” Evaline cursed and ran toward the kitchen.

  “Sleepless Moon…” Larissa sat her now empty bowl of soup on the coffee table. “Tegan, that potion is dangerous…”

  Emersyn frowned and sat up straight. “What is the Sleepless Moon potion?”

  Tegan’s shoulders rose and fell, like she was intentionally taking a deep breath. Her feet turned toward us. “A necessary evil.”

  As she spun around, I had every intention of chewing her out and demanding answers...but all that died on my tongue when I saw her. She was still wearing the same outfit: skinny jeans, tank top, combat boots. All black. But her face was clean. No heavy black eyeshadow. No bright red lipstick. Her eyebrows looked natural. She’d gone upstairs and washed off all the makeup she’d been wearing for two weeks. She looked like her again. Like the girl I fell in love with. Tegan.

  My chest burned. My breaths grew shallow. Each one was harder and tighter.

  “Necessary, my ass!” Henley ran her hands through her inky-black hair. “You could’ve…could’ve…”

  “Endangered one of my Coven-mates by asking them for a safer option?” Tegan shrugged. “I told you I’d try every damn thing I could. I did. You’re welcome.”

  I frowned. My thoughts buzzed in my head like a million gnats. There were too many. Too many unknowns. Too many questions. None of it made sense. I needed to ask, yet my mouth wouldn’t open. All I could do was stare at her like some love-sick puppy. It was that bubble of hope in my heart. It was so big it was taking over. I was going to explode.

  “You know how thankful I am. I will never be able to repay you for this.” Henley sighed. “But we need you… You can’t risk yourself like this again.”

  Tegan’s green gaze met mine. I had absolutely no idea what face I made, but she frowned and looked down to the ground. “It wasn’t just for you,” she whispered.

  Easton stood and put his hands on his hips. “Can someone please explain what the hell is going on?”

  The side door flew open and slammed into the wall. A picture frame smashed on the ground. Evaline ran across the room holding a dark-brown vial in her hand. White smoke billowed from the top. She grabbed Tegan by the elbow and pulled her over to the bench opposite the couches. “Sit. Drink. Now.”

  Tegan plopped down on the dark leather seat then took the vial from Evaline’s outstretched hand. Her pale-green eyes narrowed on the smoke. She licked her lips, took a deep breath, then poured the potion into her mouth. She closed her eyes and scrunched her face. After a moment, she shivered and shook her head.

  “Tegan?” Devon moved to sit beside her daughter on the bench.

  “Give it a second,” Larissa warned. She leaned forward and put her elbows on her knees.

  Henley ran over and took the empty seat beside Tegan. She patted her back. “T?”

  Tegan’s eyes opened slowly, like it was difficult for her. She blinked. Her eyes rolled. She shook her head and blinked a few more times. “I don’t like it.”

  “What is the Sleepless Moon potion?” Emersyn all but growled. She’d fisted the flannel blanket in her hands. “And what was that?”

  Evaline sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. “The Sleepless Moon potion is one of our most ancient concoctions. It’s in the Book of Shadows, or so I was told. Whoever drinks the potion will not sleep until the moon completes a full orbit around Earth. Thirteen times.”

  “In other words, for a whole year.” Henley shook her head. “And then when the potion wears off, the drinker—”

  “We don’t have a year,” Tegan interrupted, then yawned. “We have ten days. When I took it, I had to make a choice, and I didn’t have anyone I could ask except the Book.”

  Hunter scratched the back of his head. “But why did you have to take it?”

  “Would you be willing to fall asleep next to demons, Dad?” Tegan arched one eyebrow. She yawned again. “The only way my plan worked was if I stayed awake and stayed one step ahead of it. I was afraid if I slept, it would hurt one of you— What did you give me?”

  “A reversal potion. You’re going to pass out”—Evaline looked down at her watch—“any minute now.”

  Tegan frowned …and yawned. “A little warning, Eva?”

  “Like the one you gave us,” I heard myself say, though it sounded more like a growl.

  Tegan’s gaze snapped up to mine. Her eyes were sad and heavy. “I tried to warn you—”

  “When?” I yelled. I’d never screamed at her like this before, but I couldn’t stop myself. She’d hurt me too much. “You’re a damn telepath, yet you couldn’t find a moment to tell me what you were doing? To tell me you hadn’t completely lost your mind?”

  She jumped to her feet and threw a pillow right at my face. Her green eyes glistened and her cheeks flushed a deep pink. “You have no idea what it was like! Don’t you dare stand there all high and mighty like you don’t do the same damn thing on a daily basis!”

  “I don’t!”

  “Hypocrite!” she screamed. “How about when Leyka sent us to the Sirens, and you straight up lied and forced me to stay on the boat so I wouldn’t get hurt. Or did you think I didn’t notice?”

  “I was protecting you!”

  “No shit, Sherlock!” She swayed on her feet, and her eyes rolled. She blinked, trying to fight the fatigue. Devon pulled her back down to the bench, and Tegan shook her head. “Newsflash, Tenn. People love you. There are things I’m willing to risk, but you’re not one of them. You can be mad at me if you need to. I’m a big girl. I can handle that.”

  “You can handle me being mad at you?” I snapped back. Is it that easy? Does it not bother you at all?

  “Of course it bothers me! Of course it’s not easy. Of course it kills me to see you look at me the way you are right now.” She slammed her mouth closed and scrubbed her face with her hands. When she pulled back, her eyes were red. “But you’re alive and unharmed. And I know you would’ve made the same decision if you were in my shoes.”

  I clenched my teeth and looked away from her. It didn’t matter that I’d spoken my thoughts out loud on accident. It didn’t matter that our entire Coven was playing witness to me falling apart. I didn’t want to look at the pain in her eyes. I didn’t want to make nice. I didn’t want to let it go that easily. I was mad. I was hurt. I was cracked glass on the verge of shattering.

  And she was right. I would’ve done anything to keep her safe and alive.

  I didn’t want her to see that in my eyes either.

  My father cleared his throat, cutting through the heavy silence in the room. “Tegan, you said you tried to tell him… What happened?”

  “That potion she drank is going to knock her out very soon,” Bentley said. “Tegan, why don’t you start from the beginning and tell us what happened?”

  “Don’t interrupt with que
stions,” Henley said. “We’ll fill those in after.”

  “It started at the dance, didn’t it?” Royce asked.

  “Yes…and no. So, what had happened was…” Tegan sighed, and the rawness in the tone made me look back up. She reached up and tied her hair into that messy bun I loved so much. “It started that first day back to school. Tennessee was in the infirmary. I couldn’t focus, so I ditched class to study the Book of Shadows—”

  “Wait, where’s the Book at?” Cooper interrupted with a frown.

  Tegan gripped the crystal hanging from her necklace. Her magic pulsed around her hand, and then there was a flash of light. When it subsided, the Book of Shadows sat perched in one palm. She held it up for everyone to see, then it morphed back into a crystal necklace. “As I was saying…I’d just texted Tenn to tell him I learned how to do a cloaking spell. Do you remember?”

  I swallowed around the lump in my throat. She’d told me we could make out right there and no one would see us. She’d called me babe for the first time. I nodded.

  “Yeah, well, when I looked up, the demon-Henley was standing there with those awful red eyes. I zapped her with my magic out of sheer instinct, and then suddenly, somehow, it was her standing there. Blue eyes and all.” She looked at Henley sitting beside her. “We had maybe thirty seconds, but she told me everything I needed to know.”

  “I told her I was still in there, and I could see and hear everything.” Henley shuddered. “I told her to read every single inch of the Book.”

  “Then she told me about the spell to protect us from being possessed.”

  “The one I found. The one you said Bentley told you about.”

  Tegan nodded. “The one Larissa made and handed out at the dance. But Henley also told me that we’d never be able to close the Gap in Salem if we didn’t close the one in Hidden Kingdom. She said we had to do it at midnight of the First Quarter moon, and that the demons would try to bring a greater demon through then.”

  “That was the last time I was in control,” Henley whispered, then cringed. “Keep going.”

  “I couldn’t figure out why the demon was approaching me but doing nothing…then the dance happened. I’d seen her—it—lurking in the shadows, but then after my tango with Deacon, I watched it follow Emersyn outside.” She looked over to her sister and frowned. “By the time I got out there, Em was under attack by some demons and I…helped her kill them, then sent her home. The second I was alone, the demon-Henley showed up and asked me to join the side of darkness, then it offered to show me why I should.”

  “But why did you go?” my father asked.

  “For intel. To spy. To find out what it wanted. I had every intention of returning home and relaying the information.” She yawned and her eyes fluttered. “But then I learned the truth. The demon told me about Salem’s Prophecy and how Emersyn and I had the power to rule the world—its words—and how the original twins failed. It charmed me with all these reasons I should sway to darkness, how it would make my life better. It told me how it turned the original twins against The Coven by showing the one what darkness could do for her and then she brought her twin with her.”

  “Because that’s the nature of twins in our species…” Henley fiddled with the charm on her bracelet. “One has darkness, and the other has light.”

  “So you gave in to your dark side?” Timothy asked.

  “I’m the dark one,” Emersyn whispered.

  “What?” Cooper scoffed. “No, you’re not. Obviously, it’s Tegan.”

  “Just be thankful the demon assumed so, too.” Emersyn shook her head and stared at the ground.

  “I knew I only had one shot to make it believe me, or otherwise it was going to move on to Emersyn. I couldn’t let that happen. So I handed myself over with a smile. I made the potion to keep me awake so I could watch over all of you while you slept, to make sure it couldn’t come for any of you.” Tegan blinked then looked up to me. “Then I went to school that Monday morning to find you, Tennessee. I was going to tell you. It was killing me to keep it from you. The demon said it was going somewhere else. I thought I had my chance to tell you.”

  “You didn’t,” I whispered.

  “I got there and found you surrounded by a herd of possessed Sapien girls drooling all over you.”

  Deacon gasped and his purple eyes lit up. “The parking lot…”

  Tegan nodded. “I saw you there, D. I tried to get to you, to at least tell you, but then it showed up and my whole game plan changed.”

  Cooper rolled his eyes. “So you got jealous?”

  “He’s my soulmate, Coop. It’s marked on my skin, on his skin. I have no reason to be jealous of other girls.” She peeked up at me, and her cheeks flushed a soft pink. “But that was when I realized the demon knew about us. It knew what he means to me. I’d only ever told Emersyn about the glyph, and I knew she hadn’t tattled on me. Yet it knew. It was testing my loyalty, my intentions, by playing with him.”

  She held my gaze for a long moment.

  “It scared me. I was in too deep. I had to protect you.” She glanced at Cooper. “I knew if I exposed us, my brother would lose his shit. I knew everyone would be watching you, and no one would let you go out alone.”

  Deacon cursed. “Tenn, man. She had to. I was there. I saw it taunting her.”

  I sat down in front of the fireplace and hung my head between my knees.

  “From there, I played the part it wanted me to. But everything I did was to help us close the Gaps.” She yawned then scrubbed her face. “I gave Em those bracelets so she could conjure her own fire—”

  “What about that demon attack at school?” Willow frowned. “You started that.”

  “What about Saffie? You shot her with magic!” Chutney cried.

  “The demon set those on the school, and I stayed to make sure no one got hurt.” Tegan looked down and spun the wave ring on her hand. “Saffie has a story we’ll have to hear one day, and both Tennessee and I made oaths we’ll have to live up to. I’d found the spell for returning Saffie to her natural form. I used that magic you threw at me to give something back to Saffie. It worked, too.”

  “And after that, when you tried to drown Braison?” Paulina snapped.

  Braison blushed a deep red. “Actually, I could breathe fine. I was in an air bubble the whole time.”

  Paulina gasped. “Why didn’t you say that?”

  He shrugged. “I didn’t realize you thought she was drowning me.”

  Tegan chuckled, then sobered. “I know y’all think I betrayed you, and I’m genuinely sorrier than I could ever put in words for the hurt I caused you…but everything I did was to help us. When I figured out what the prophecy meant, where the shells were, I knew I couldn’t retrieve them myself. I wasn’t about to risk the demon getting its hands on those, so I sent that dream to Cooper.”

  “Wait, you sent that dream to me?”

  “That was when I figured her out,” Bentley announced with a proud smile. “I used some tricks of my own to let her know.”

  “Then I told him the plan. I told him to get Saffie’s help, because as you learned, she’s been trapped there since the Gap opened.” Tegan grinned at her little brother. “Everything that happened after that was intentional, and y’all were incredible.”

  “So that whole time…you were like…undercover?” Willow asked.

  “Didn’t any of you stop to wonder why I never attacked you? Even when I threw Deacon across the courtyard, I placed him gently on the ground.” Tegan scratched her head. “I kept hoping you’d see the extent of my magic and then realize I didn’t use it on you.”

  I had seen. I had noticed. I had wondered why.

  Yet, it never crossed my mind that she was pretending to be evil. Why didn’t it?

  “What about tonight?” Constance spoke up for the first time.

  “The ironic thing is…the demon is the one who showed me how to use my magic like I can. It knew all about the Aether Witch, and what I could do, s
o it taught me. Then I used it against the demon. I found a way to get Henley back.” Tegan looked to our Moon Card and smiled. “It was by far the riskiest plan, but I had to try. I knew they would agree with me if I asked.”

  “You stole our magic,” Easton grumbled.

  “That was my idea,” Emersyn whispered.

  Devon gasped. “Emersyn?”

  “I told you I was the dark one.” She shrugged. “Tegan left me this book we both love and telepathically told me to read it. It took me a few days, but then I saw the message. The main character pretended to be bad to kill the monster. So, I went to her.”

  “And together we planned—” Her eyes rolled then closed. She gasped and shook herself. “Dammit, Eva.”

  Henley stood and pulled Tegan to her feet. “That Sleepless potion was the most dangerous thing you did. Let’s get you to bed.”

  I wanted to hold her. I wanted to scream at her. My relief was tainted by rage and pain. The worst part was that she was right. I would’ve done the same.

  Then why does it still hurt?

  Chapter Three

  TEGAN

  “Hey, Tegan, you want a Thanksgiving sandwich?”

  I frowned and looked over my shoulder at my twin. “A what?”

  Emersyn shrugged. She smiled and pointed to a sign above a booth across the street. “The Thanksgiving sandwich. Fresh-sliced turkey on top of homemade apple-sausage stuffing, homemade cranberry, and gravy. You want one?”

  I laughed and shook my head. “No, I’m good. Thanks.”

  “Tegan.” She groaned. “You have to eat!”

  My stomach turned at the mere idea of putting food inside it. Living with a demon had side effects. I rarely ate. Though I’d always had a more-than-healthy appetite beforehand. Bettina’s mom joked it was a byproduct of being raised by a single father and helping raise a younger brother. She said I had a boy’s desire for food at all times. I smiled, hearing her voice in my mind. Bettina. Thinking about my lifelong best friend only made the unease in my stomach worse. I hadn’t spoken to her since that night we crash landed in Charleston. My father swore he’d covered for my absence, but the guilt still weighed me down. Once this was all over, I was going to have to figure out how to tell her the truth.