Not for my protection.
But a chant about the gift of the Sacrifice, about her holy place in our coven.
My jaw tightened as I cast my eyes down, not wanting to show them my resentment.
It was easy for them to chant about the gift of the Sacrifice, about my holy place. When they weren't the ones going off to some unknown, horrible fate.
My mother's hands kept moving from my hair to my shoulders, giving them a reassuring squeeze. Each time, tears swam in my eyes, making me squeeze my eyelids tight, fighting them back.
I didn't want to cry.
I didn't want to beg to stay.
If I was the Chosen One, I wanted to go with some dignity intact.
I imagined there would be plenty of time for crying and begging for mercy in my future.
And, I reminded myself, my place was important.
If not for the Sacrifice, the treaty would be voided. And that meant the women of my coven would be free game to the whims of their evil souls.
I wasn't sure how accurate the tales were, if the truth could survive thousands of years, but the story we were told was that in the time before the Sacrifice, the coven had been constantly under attack. Women and girls had gone missing, never to be seen again, fates unknown, and there was very little that could be done by the coven to protect themselves.
When dark times came, witches were always targets for small men who were afraid of our power.
The Sacrifice gave us peace to practice, to live free of the ill intentions at the hands of men.
And, I guess, if you looked at the situation as a whole, it was a fair trade.
One woman.
To save dozens more.
I would be doing this to save my mother, to save the little girls with their bright smiles and carefree laughter, even to save my peers who had always been better community members than I had been.
I was the least useful member of the coven.
I was expendable.
My pride might have hurt with that realization, but there was no denying its truth.
And there was no stopping my fate.
Once my hair was braided, the sun was casting golden fingertips across the sky, and the small girls were walking into the circle dressed all in white, carrying hand-woven baskets brimming with flowers they each took turns placing in my hair, their soft little voices humming a lullaby we had all been sung as babes.
When they were finished, they each took a turn standing in front of me, clasping their hands in prayer position and pressing them against the top and centermost parts of their forehead where I had—and they would eventually have—a dark blue crescent moon tattoo: the symbol of our goddess—the pointy tips disappearing into my hairline.
I opened my eyes for them, taking in their innocent faces, reminding myself that I was saving them from terrible fates.
It was a salve over my resentment.
Because I knew that, should some man with ill intentions break into our paradise, I would throw myself in front of each one of them to save them.
This was no different.
It was simply far less dramatic.
A noble Sacrifice.
That was what I could be.
"Lenore," Marianne said, voice deep and firm as it often was when she addressed me. "It is time."
My heart darted around in my chest—a rabbit in the gaze of a predator—but I nodded to her as I reached for my mother's hands, giving them one last squeeze, offering her a smile I didn't feel, then falling into step behind Marianne.
We made our way through the woods in silence.
Marianne and I had never been close. On a good day, I never knew what to say to her.
Today was not a good day.
We reached the road an hour later, finding a single black van waiting, the back doors thrown open. The driver was nothing but the back of a head obscured by a hat.
My stomach flip-flopped as Marianne walked me to the van, climbed inside, then reached to help me in as well.
My gaze fell on the box there.
Pine wood.
Plain.
A line of air holes drilled into the top.
A coffin, of sorts.
My gaze skittered to Marianne, finding nothing on her face that betrayed her true feelings.
But that was the way of the High Priestess.
It was about the coven, not herself.
And, in a way, I finally understood what that meant.
Marianne pulled open the lid, revealing nothing but the inside but a strong wooden box.
Taking a deep breath, I stepped inside, lowering myself down into the space, folding my arms over my chest, and watching as Marianne lowered the lid.
The hammering came next, nails into place, trapping me in my coffin prison.
Doors slammed.
The van lurched to life.
And I was off to become a Sacrifice.
Come what may.
Chapter Two
Lycus
"This fucking rain," Ace grumbled, waving a hand out at the window where the yard was steadily forming pools of water after five full days of nonstop, unrelenting rain. The wet was seeping in through the house's stone, making all the fabrics inside start to feel damp, chilling all of us through.
We'd been around for longer than any of us cared to count anymore, but not a single one of us had gotten used to the cold and wet. It went against our nature.
What can I say? We spent most of our immortal lives in a very warm climate.
We all missed it.
Especially on days like this.
Ace—all six-foot-four of him—was pacing along the wall of windows. Dressed all in black, he looked paler than usual, something that made his red-flecked ice blue eyes even more dominant a feature. His blond hair was messier than he was typically known for, proof of the weather wearing on him.
"Have a drink," Drex suggested, already holding a glass of whiskey in his hand at two in the afternoon. The answer to everything, in Drex's opinion, was to have a drink.
Unlike Ace, if you came across Drex on the street, you would place him as the biker that he was. Six-two, wide-shouldered, and dark-haired, he was dressed in worn black jeans, a wrinkled white tee, and a leather jacket. His beard was a prominent feature of his face, obscuring the bone structure we'd all been looking at for generations. He also had blue eyes, but a darker, stormier color than Ace, with only a small fleck of red that looked like a small birthmark in his iris.
"I don't want a drink. I want this shit to stop," Ace grumbled, pausing his pacing to stare at the relentless rain for another moment. "Sounds like Seven is back," he said a moment later.
And over the pounding of the rain hitting the roof, I could hear the rumble of Seven's bike coming down the road that led to the house.
Maybe normal people would worry about his safety, riding on a bike in the rain.
But we weren't normal.
We weren't even people.
And since we couldn't die, there was no reason to worry about anything.
The engine cut, and a moment later, the front door groaned open and slammed shut before Seven's footsteps came down the hall, and into the front room where we were situated.
Seven was tall, but more solidly built and dark-skinned, with his long black hair loc'd. His dark brown eyes had a starburst of red from the pupil, making them look on fire, something that always made people take a step back from him.
"Fucking crazy," Seven said, shaking his head as he shrugged out of his dripping leather jacket.
"The rain?" Ace asked.