Page 84 of The Witch and The Cowboy
“Don’t,” an old familiar voice said from behind me.
I half-turned and saw my coven. They’d portaled in soundlessly—and they stood on my side. Even Gloria, our oldest elder who I never thought cared much for me, had shown up. It was her gravelly voice I'd recognized. I’d never been so relieved to see the Elders and their persnickety velvet robes.
They came.
We were still egregiously outnumbered, but their mere support strengthened me. Despite my slip-up with Walker, they’d still shown. If not for me, they did it for my mother, and that was enough.
I mouthed the words ‘thank you’ and faced Josephine again. I twisted my expression into the foolish girl she thought me to be. As if there were any story she could tell that could make her betrayal bearable, I stared at her in earnest.
It wasn’t too difficult to fake. I wanted more than anything to hear an excuse that could wipe my pain away. I just knew it didn’t exist.
“It began years ago.” Her eyes grew distant. “When I met Lilly.”
I racked my brain for the name and furrowed my eyebrows at the memory.
“Lilly,” I said, “she was that human girl you’d been seeing.”
Josephine shook her head. “I wasn’t just seeing her. I was in love.”
I fought a gasp. Witches rarely fell in love, but witches like Josephine never did. I’d never even heard her speak about her lovers beyond the physical level. Tears pooled in Josephine’s eyes.
“I wanted more than anything to be with her forever,” she said, “but I was willing to settle for a few more decades. I was happy. Then she got sick.”
I recalled a lesson about combat magic I’d had with Josephine a little over a year ago. It was the only time I’d seen her make a mistake.
“I’m in too good of a mood,” Josephine had said. “It makes draining things hard.”
It was true that magic had the tendency to follow our moods, so I had dropped the incident. I certainly wasn’t bringing it up after I’d chuckled, and Josephine had whacked me with one of her many plants. Now, I wasn’t so quick to dismiss her slip-up or just how happy and distracted Josephine had been those couple years. She’d never attended every coven meeting, but she had skipped more than usual. Damning sympathy squeezed my heart.
Had Josephine really been in love?
“Did you try to heal her?” I asked.
It was against the rules to do such a thing for a human, but it happened here and there. If Josephine were truly in love, Mom would’ve turned a blind eye for her friend.
“Her body rejected all of it.” A tear slipped down Josephine’s cheek. “Your mother and I found the best healers in the world, and they couldn’t do a damn thing about it!”
The Elders behind me scoffed at their insolence, but I couldn’t tear my gaze from my goddessmother. Her green eyes blazed with anger, and her face twisted into something unrecognizable. She paced in front of me like a rabid dog, lost in her own rage. Now that I’d unmasked all the torment she’d hidden, it was all I could see.
She seethed. “They failed me.”
Josephine stopped to stare at me. Like a simple shift of wind, her sneer turned into a pleading frown.
“There was no other option,” she whispered. “I couldn’t lose her.”
Slowly, the wheels in my head turned. Reality had become too fantastical for my mind to keep up with.
“You,” I said. “You—”
It all made too much sense. There were only two atrocities my mother couldn’t have forgiven Josephine for, and she’d done both of them.
“You turned her,” I finally said. “You made her a witch.”
I scanned the crowd for the madwoman Josephine had saved. Witches were not vampires. They were not meant to be created—they were born. My coven stirred behind me. They probably searched the crowd too, though I wouldn’t turn my back on Josephine to check on them.
She was a rabid animal—so desperate and afraid she’d lost all reason.
“Josephine,” I pleaded, as if I could undo the past. “You had to know it wouldn’t work. You have warned me about Marie Laveau.”
