The Promise (The Coven Series) (21 page)

“We
will,” he promised and left.

Alone,
I started to shake.
 
I wanted to throw
up.
 
I learned more than I wanted to.

Dad.
 
They thought he
took the Book because of what happened to Emily, or rather Kay’s dad did.
 
Mr. Martin knew what happened to Emily.
 
I felt it in the very marrow of my
bones.
 
It was the way he’d said the word
accident, like he knew it wasn’t an accident.
 
Had he caused her accident?
 
If he
had…there wouldn’t be a place on this Earth he could hide from me.
 

I
would get to the bottom of this no matter what I had to do.

There
wasn’t a lot I could learn without the Book…or was there?
 
The Celtic symbol.
 
I could do some research online.
 
It was a huge part of our heritage, so it
might be a good place to start.
 
Just not here.
 

With
a plan of action in mind, I left the library and headed home.

It
was time to do some digging.

Chapter Sixteen

The
internet is a vast and wonderful place.
 
It’s also the most frustrating thing ever created.
 
I Googled Celtic symbols and literally a
thousand pages popped back.
 
I tried
pagan symbols.
 
Same
thing.
 
The morning passed slowly
as I sorted through the junk, but by afternoon, I started to feel a bit of
excitement.
 
I came across a website
listing Celtic gods and goddesses and the symbols associated with each
one.
 
While I didn’t find an exact match,
I did find two that would look like mine if they were combined.
 
Jackpot.

Arwan
was an old God of War and sometimes called the silver-tongued King of
Hell.
 
He rode, collecting souls for the
Underworld.
 
He was called upon when
vengeance was needed and mortal means were not deemed suitably harsh
enough.
 
Arwan would collect the souls to
serve in his Hell for eternity.
 
The
second deity I discovered was Agrona, goddess of war and slaughter.
 
There wasn’t a lot known about her except that
she was called upon in battle to ensure the slaughter of a clan’s enemy.
 

Our
school uniforms bore the combined insignia of the god and goddess of death,
destruction, and slaughter.
 
As did the
town monument.
 
In a way, I could
understand the choice.
 
Our families had
been betrayed by members of their own Coven, and anyone would want
vengeance.
 
The curse had to have
something to do with that betrayal.
 
Maybe the symbol was a way of reminding the future generations of what
their ancestors lost and to strengthen the desire to keep that hatred
alive?
 
Just because I understood it, didn’t
mean I agreed with it.
 

I
went on a fishing expedition and Googled the word curse and the thirteenth
daughter.
 
Useless.
 
Nothing relating to Salem or the burnings
came back.
 
I really didn’t expect to
find anything, but tried nonetheless.
   
I figured it was worth a shot.

One
thing left to check.
 
Ethan Matthew
Warren.
 
I surfed through hundreds of
pages, but could find no one remotely similar to Ethan.
 
No Facebook, no My Space, no Twitter, no
nothing.
 
Who in their right mind didn’t
at least have a Facebook page?
 
Apparently my boyfriend.
 
Was he really who he said he was?
 
The bigger question, and one I didn’t have an answer to, was why
couldn’t I just trust him like he asked?
 
I shook my head and turned my thoughts back to the symbol.

Even
though I discovered what might be the origins of our insignia, I was still
sitting at square one.
 
Emily’s Book of
Shadows was nowhere to be found,
then
someone had the
audacity to steal my damn Book.
 
Maybe Dad.
 
I knew
without asking he wouldn’t tell me if he had.
 
Worse, he’d want to know how I knew and I refused to lie to him
again.
 
I felt bad enough as it was for
doing it before.
 

I
was back to Emily’s Book of Shadows.
 
I
needed to find it.
 
But
how?
 
I’d looked everywhere I
could think of.
 
She said I knew where it
was, but I didn’t.
 
I’d read every Nancy
Drew mystery novel I could get my hands on when I was younger.
 
I should be better at finding clues and
solving mysteries.
  
Dammit, why couldn’t
something just be easy for once in my life?

“CJ!”

“Yeah, Dad?”
I hollered.
 

“Someone’s
here to see you!”

Jeff.
 
Maybe he could tell me what happened at the
meeting.
 
I wasn’t betting on it.
 
It wasn’t Jeff’s voice I heard, though, when
I reached the top of the stairs.
 
It was
Ethan’s.
 

“You
shouldn’t be anywhere near her,” Dad told him.
 

“Believe
me, Mr.
Bishop,
Cassie is safer with me than with
anyone else in town.”

“For
now,” Dad growled.

Ethan
remained silent.

For now?
 
What did
that mean?

“If
you hurt her…”

“You
already did that, I believe,” Ethan countered.
 
His voice held the icy bite of a blizzard’s sharp sting.
 
“Sir.”

Best
to stop this before it went any further.
 
I bounded down the stairs and
stopped,
my heart
in my throat.
 
He stood just inside the
entryway holding a bouquet of daisies.
 
His hair was tousled from the wind outside.
 
A black, long sleeved tee-shirt molded to his
biceps and abs and his poured on jeans hugged his ass indecently.
 
I wanted to drool.
 
Melt in your mouth M&M.
 
And he was all
mine
.

“Hey,”
I greeted him, a smile on my face.
 

He
turned and looked me over from head to toe.
 
The intense look in his eyes made me blush.
 
Did he have to look at me like that and with
my father not more than a foot away?
 
I
glared at him.
 
He laughed.

“CJ,
why didn’t you tell me you were dating Ethan?” Dad glowered at me.
 

“I
don’t know,” I shrugged.
 
“It just never
came up.”

“Is
he the jerk who had you in tears?” he asked, eyes boring into Ethan.

“Yeah, but he apologized for being an ass and I forgave him.”

“Ethan,
dear,” Mom smiled hugely as she came out of the kitchen.
 
“It’s good to see you.
 
I’m glad you and CJ were able to work out
your differences.”

“I’m
just glad she saw it in her to forgive me,” he winked at Mom.
 
My eyes narrowed.
 
They seemed awfully chummy.
 
This could be a perfect time to find out who
was lying.

“So,
Ethan, Mom told me something very interesting.
 
She said your dad made sure to bring you to visit your granddad every
summer.
 
Here to New Salem.”

He
frowned and looked confused.
 
“No,
Cassie, we never came to New Salem.
 
Its
true Dad brought me to visit Gramps every summer, but we usually met him in
Statesville or Mooresville.
 
Dad promised
my mom he wouldn’t bring me here and he didn’t.”

Mom
nodded.
 
“I’m sorry, CJ, if you
misunderstood.
 
I met up with Ethan and
his father in Signal Hill Mall about two years ago while they were
visiting.
 
His father told me then he was
trying to convince his wife to let Ethan come spend some time here to learn
about this side of his heritage.
 
That’s
all.
 
I never meant to imply anything
else.”

Maybe
neither of them was lying and I was just beyond paranoid.
 
It seemed such a simple answer.
 
Dad’s thunderous face made me believe
otherwise.
 
He turned away and stomped
into the living room.
 
I chose to ignore
what I couldn’t understand at the moment.
 
Ethan was here.
 
My heart nearly
exploded at the sight of him.
 

“Are
those for me?” I asked him.

“What?
 
Oh, yeah, daisies.”
He handed me the flowers.
 
“You told me
they were your favorite.”
 
He sounded
distracted.
 

“Here,
CJ, I’ll get a vase and then put them in your room.”
 
Mom smiled and took the flowers.
 

“What
are you doing here?” I turned to him after she’d gone into the kitchen.

“I
just wanted to see you.”
 
He gave me a
smile that made my insides melt.
 
Why did
he have to have dimples?
 
They drove me
to distraction.
 
“Let’s go for a walk.”

He
grabbed my coat and bundled me up.
 
It
was cold out, but he wore only a long sleeved shirt.
 
Come to think of it, I’d never seen him wear
a coat.
 
Did he not get cold?
 
Ghost boy.
 
The phrase popped into my head without
warning.
 
Don’t be ridiculous, I scolded
myself.
 
He is not a ghost.
 
He was alive and warm.
 
Dead people were cold.
 
His hand around mine felt solid and
warm.
 
Definitely
alive.
 

We
ended up in the park under the same tree where we’d had our first date.
 
He sat there, staring out into the distance,
not saying a word.
 
It worried me.
 
He had the strangest look on his face.

“Is
something wrong, Ethan?”

“Hmm?”

“You
look like something’s bothering you.”
 

His
frown deepened.

“Where
were you this morning, Cassie?”
 
He
finally looked at me, his gray eyes cold.
 
I felt a shiver run down my spine at the frost in them.

“I
was online most of the morning.”
 
I
shoved my hands into my coat pockets.
 
I
didn’t want him to see them fisted.
 
I
needed to be careful.
 
He could always
tell when I lied to him.

“Earlier, Cassie Jayne.”
 
His eyes hardened.
 
“Before the Coven meeting.”

Shit.
 
He had to go and ask me that now didn’t
he
?

“I
was at the library.”
 
There, that was the
truth.

“Cassie.
 
Jayne.
 
Bishop.”

I
sighed.
 
“Alright, I was at the library
with Jeff.”

“Why?”

“He
needed help with his math.”

“Try
again, Cassie.”

“He’s
helping me with something,” I admitted.
 

“What?”
he demanded in a hard, clipped tone.

“It’s
none of your business.”
 

“The
hell it isn’t!”

My
eyes widened.
 
“Are you jealous?”
 
Ohmygosh – he was!
 
I saw it in his eyes and couldn’t have
stopped the smile from spreading across my face if I’d wanted to.

“No,
I most certainly am not,” he denied with an angry shake of his head.
 

“Oh,
but you are,” I grinned.
 
He was so
totally jealous.

He
glared.
 
“There’s more to it,
Cassie.
 
Something was stolen this
morning from the Hall.”

“What?”
Ohh
, this could be good.
  
Ethan might tell me what I needed to know
without ever realizing it.

“A
book,” he finally said.
 
“A very important book.
 
When Jeff’s dad told us he and you were out and about before the crack
of dawn, it was questioned.”

“You
think I stole a book?” I laughed.
 
It was
laughable.
 
I doubted I’d have been able
to get through the wards.
 
“If it was so
important, why wasn’t it locked up?”

“It
was, in a manner of speaking.
 
Do you
know anything about wards?”