The Promise (The Coven Series) (36 page)

I
stared in shock as Deputy Hall collected my mother, Mr. Martin, and Deputy
Sims.
 
He and a few others herded them
away from the clearing.
 

My
father wrapped his arm around my shoulder.
 
“You’re safe now.”

"What
is going on?" I asked him dazed.
 
"Everyone was so intent on killing me, now they're..."

He
smiled at me.
"The rain, Cassie Jayne.
Spirit
flows within it. It is commanded by your will. You have purged the hatred from
their hearts with the strength and love in your own. It will take time for us
to begin anew, but we will.
 
You made
sure of that."

"But
Mom..."

He
sighed.
 
"Your mother damned herself
when she conspired to kill your sister.
 
I'm not sure anything can heal the darkness in her soul or that she even
wants to be healed.
 
I'm so sorry,
honey.
 
If there's a way to help her, we
can try if you want.
 
It's up to
you."

“Everyone’s
calling me Mistress.”

“Because you are, sweetheart.
 
You were born to be the Coven leader.
 
The book chose you a long time ago.
 
It saw in you all the qualities it recognized
in the last true Coven leader.”

“I
don’t want this, Dad…”

“I
told you once before, Cassie Jayne, it doesn’t matter what you want or what you
believe.
 
You were born to be the Coven
Mistress and you will.”

“But
I don’t know how…I’m not ready…”

“I’ll
help you.”
 

“I…”

“Shh.”
 
He leaned down and kissed my forehead like he
used to do when I was little.
 
“It’ll be
alright.”

The
town began to clean up the clearing.
 
When they brought Jeff out of the woods, I beat his mother to the
stretcher.
 
He was alive. Relief swept
through me and the hard ball of fear that had been in my stomach uncurled.
 
I could breathe again.
 

“Thank
the Fates,” I breathed and grabbed his hand.
 
“You’re alive.”

He
tried to smile, but it turned into a grimace.
 
The bullet had hit him in the chest.
 
It was a miracle he was still breathing.

“We
need to get him to the clinic, Mistress,” John, one of the paramedics, gently
pushed me away.
 
“He’s lost a lot of
blood and the bullet is still in there.
 
Doc has a lot of work to do.”

“Let
me help,” I whispered and called upon the Spirit once more.

“Spirit, aide me again this night.

Settle
into your son and help him find peace and feel your healing balm.”

He
let out a painful gasp as the Spirit invaded his body, but I smiled
reassuringly.
 
The Element would keep him
alive until Doc could patch him up.

I
nodded.
 
“I’ll come see you in a bit,
Jeff.”

My
dad wrapped an arm around my shoulder.
 
“You know, sweetheart, love isn’t always fireworks and intensity.
 
Sometimes love creeps up on you slowly and
hits you when you least expect it.”

“Dad,”
I said in a warning voice.
 
I couldn’t
deal with this right now.
 
Not yet.

“I
know you’re hurting, CJ.
 
You loved
Ethan, but don’t close yourself off from love because of that pain.
 
That boy right there loves you more than life
itself.
 
I think he’s more than proven
that.”

He
had proven it, over and over again.
 
Truth was
,
I realized something when I saw him
fall in the woods, when I didn’t know if he was alive or dead.
 
My dad was right.
 
Love did creep up on you when you least
expected it.
 
Over the last month, I’d
gotten to know Jeff really well and had seen him for the person he was.
 
I loved him.
 
Not like I did Ethan, but I loved him nonetheless.
 
I just wasn’t ready to deal with it yet.
 

“I
know, Dad.
 
I just need a little while to
think, okay?”

He
nodded.
 
I pulled away from him and
started walking away from the clearing.
 
Once everyone was out of site, I ran.
 
Hard and fast.
 
I ran from the screaming in my own head, from the shattering of my
heart.
 
My world had cracked into a
million tiny pieces.

I
ended up falling to my knees under the tree in the park I thought of as mine
and Ethan’s.
 
It was here the tears
finally came.
 
My shoulders shook and I
shoved my fist into my mouth to keep from screaming.
 
Ethan was gone…my family torn to pieces…I’d
lost everything.
 

“No,
little sister, you haven’t lost everything.”

My
head snapped up.
 
I blinked several
times, but she didn’t disappear.
 
Emily.
 
She stood not a foot from
me, smiling.
 

“How…”

“Samhain,”
she grinned.
 
“The night when the veil is
at
its
thinnest.
 
I was able to cross over for a few minutes.”

I
jumped up and threw myself at her.
 
I
passed straight through her body and landed on my face.

She
laughed herself silly.
 
“Oh, that was a
Kodak moment if ever there was one.”

“I
thought you were like Ethan…”

Her
face sobered at that.
 
“No, Ethan was
different.
 
He was made whole to make
sure the curse was fulfilled.”

“He’s
gone, Ems,” I whispered, the sob coming out despite my best efforts.
 
It felt like someone had taken a sledgehammer
and punched holes in every part of my body.
 
I hurt everywhere.
 
This was worse
than when Emily died.
 
I didn’t know if I
could bear it.

“You
really love him, don’t you?” Emily asked.

I
sat up and wrapped my arms around my knees.
 
“More than anything in this world.”

She
smiled.
 
“Well then, you’re gonna love my
birthday present, little sister.”

“Birthday present?”
 

She
pointed to the edge of the trees.
 
I saw
the same silver light I’d seen in the clouds.
 
Ethan stepped through it.
 
He
looked confused and more than a little shocked.
 
But alive.
 
My heart stuttered.
 
Alive.
 
He was alive
and here.
 

“Ethan?”

He
heard my whisper and his eyes met mine.
 
We stared at each other for the longest time.
 
Then he smiled that devilish smile of his and
started toward us

“Happy
birthday, Cassie Jayne,” Emily whispered into my ear.

“But how?”

“It
wasn’t easy, let me tell you.
 
I have
been arguing for days with the other side.
 
He was made flesh and blood so he could fulfill the curse.
 
The only way to do that was to kill you, but
he wouldn’t do it.
 
They told him in
order for you to
live,
he had to give up his
life.
 
The sacrifice would taint the dark
magic and ruin the ritual.
 
The man died
for you, CJ.”

“I
know.”

“Anyway,
I wasn’t about to let you lose the one person who made you happier than I’ve
ever seen you when you were about to lose everything else.”

“What
did you do, Ems?”

“She
threw the most god awful fit you’ve ever seen,” Ethan laughed as he reached
us.
 
“And quoted old laws I didn’t even
know existed.”
 
He pulled me up and
wrapped me in his arms.
 
He spun me
around in a circle before kissing me soundly.
 
He was here, alive.
 
Ethan was
really here.
 
I couldn’t believe it.

“Yup,”
she grinned.
 
“Sacrifice yourself for the
greater good and
They
owe you.”

“They?”
I asked.

“Sorry,
can’t tell you.
 
It’s against the rules.”

“Rules?”
 
There were
rules in the afterlife?

She
nodded.
 
“I have another reason for
coming back, CJ.
 
I came to warn you,
little sister.”

“Warn
me?”

“Before
I died, I was having dreams of a darkness coming.”

“I
know.
 
I read your diary,” I nodded.
 
“I thought you meant this, the curse.”

“No,”
she shook her head.
 
“What I saw is still
coming.
 
It’s dark and truly evil.
 
That’s all I’m allowed to tell you.”

“But…”

“No
question.
 
You have to figure it out
yourself.”

“That’s
not fair, Ems.
 
You can’t give me some
cryptic warning and expect me to not ask questions!”

“You’re
a smart cookie, kid.
 
You’ll figure it
out,” Emily smiled.
 
“I have to go now,
Cassie Jayne.”

“Now?
 
You have to
leave now?
 
But Dad…”

“I
already saw him for a minute.
 
He’ll be
okay.”

“I
miss you so much, Emily.”
 
I couldn’t
stop the tears.
 
“All
the time.”

“I
miss you too, little sister,” she whispered.
 
“I love you, Cassie Jayne.”

“I
love you too, Emily.”

She
smiled at me one last time and walked away and into the silver light Ethan had
come through.
 

I
buried my head in Ethan’s chest and cried.
 

“Shh,
Cassie, it’ll be okay,” Ethan soothed.

“I
know,” I hiccupped and looked up into eyes the color of the fog after a
rain.
 
They were so serious, but full of
joy.

“I’m
sorry, Cassie.
 
I know you were scared,
but I had to act like I was going to let them kill you.
 
If I’d taken you and run, it wouldn’t have
helped.
 
They would have tracked us
down.
 
There was only way to stop the
curse.
 
I had to taint the ashes.
 
The only way I could get near the ashes was
to let Martin believe I was on his side and for that to work, you couldn’t know
I was working on a way to save you.
 
It
almost killed me to let you think I didn’t care, that I wanted you dead.”

I
shivered, remembering the look of ice in his eyes, remembering how he hadn’t
moved to help me when Mr. Martin hit me.
 
I understood he only acted that way to try and save me, but it would be
a long time before I forgot it.

“Don’t
you ever try and keep me safe by not telling me something again,” I told
him.
 
“I will forgive you this time,
Ethan Matthew Warren, but never again.
 
Do you understand me?
 
I won’t go
through that ever again.”

“Cassie,
you heard your sister.
 
Something is
coming.
 
I’ll do whatever I have to if it
means keeping you alive and safe.”

“Never again, Ethan.
 
I mean it.
 
I’ll leave your ass
sitting here right now.
 
I have to be
able to trust you.”

“Cassie…”

I
glared.
 
This was not something I was
going to back down from.

“No
more
lies
, Ethan…or should I say Matthew?”

He
sighed and ran a hand through his hair.
 
“Call me Ethan.
 
Matthew died a
long time ago.”

“The
night Sara died?”

He
nodded.

“Why
didn’t you stay with Sara?”
 
I had to
know.
 

He
sighed.
 
“I loved Sara, avenging her
death became my soul purpose in life.
 
It
gave me strength, but it filled my heart with hatred.
 
When you came along, Cassie, you made me feel
something other than hatred.
 
You made me
feel alive and whole.
 
You gave me
strength through your love.
 
I loved
Sara, I did, but I don’t think I was ever really in love with her.
 
You taught me what it means to be in love
with someone.
 
I have lived hundreds of
years, and was never truly alive until I met you.”

“How
did that happen anyway?”
 
He wasn’t a
ghost, but he was something.

“The
curse basically gave me immortality.
 
I’ve been alive since that night.”