Читать книгу Stripped - Julie Leto - Страница 7

“YOU CAN’T BE SERIOUS.”

Lilith St. Lyon slapped the newest muscle-car magazine on her coffee table and slammed to her feet. She really hated when her sister barged in without as much as a call. Or a simple knock. Hell, even a whisper along the lines of Excuse me, sis, but I’m about to shimmer into your apartment, so don’t get freaked would suffice.

Sometimes Lilith hated being a witch.

Especially when Regina showed up all regal in her deeppurple robes, flaunting how she could bypass Lilith’s psychic powers and appear without warning. One advantage of Lilith’s talent was that, for the most part, no one could sneak up on her. No one except the most powerful witch in the realm—her big sis. Yet here she was, startled, pissed and staring daggers at Regina, gorgeous as always with her flowing dark hair and penetrating lilac eyes, and the gray-haired, pinched-faced members of the Witches Council who flanked Regina on either side.

“Lilith St. Lyon, you are charged—” Regina started, but Lilith cut her off by kicking over the coffee table. Her boots shattered the glass and scattered her magazines to the floor in a glossy, jagged heap.

The councillors jumped back, their arms instantly stiff in defensive postures Lilith could bypass with another swift kick. Regina remained still.

So in control. So royal. So damned perfect Lilith wanted to puke. Or scream.

“Don’t do this, Reg,” Lilith ordered.

Lilith tried to ignore the pained look on her sister’s face. Regina hadn’t asked for this gig, but she sure took the whole power trip seriously. Had since day one. Not that she’d had any choice in the matter.

“Lilith, you’ve given the Council no other recourse.”

“You’re the freaking Guardian,” Lilith shouted, sweeping her hand toward Regina’s amulet, the silver-dollar-size alexandrite that dangled from a platinum chain and glowed red and blue and green just between her breasts. “You can tell the Council where to shove their asinine rules. Or, better yet, shimmer all their fogy asses over here and I’ll tell them myself. You can’t take my powers.”

As a powerful psychic, Lilith knew that was exactly what her sister had come here to do. Though, honestly, she didn’t need clairvoyance to figure it out. Lilith had known the rules before she’d broken them. No utilizing powers for personal gain. First her mother and then her aunt Marion had tried for years to drill the concept into her brain. But Lilith couldn’t understand why, if she had to live with all the crap that accompanied being a living, breathing witch of the higher realm, she couldn’t also have a few of the finer things in life to make the sacrifices worthwhile.

“The Council does not fear you,” Regina said, her mouth twitching.

She was lying. Oh, Regina herself wasn’t afraid of Lilith. As Guardian, Regina had no reason to fear anyone except the occasional witch hunter or warlock or demon. She and Lilith had broken in their wands sparring together, even after Regina’s powers had grown so that she no longer needed carved teak to focus her magic. Lilith had long ago accepted that she’d never wield the type of magic Regina could, even after her psychic powers had come into their own. And that was fine by her. She’d seen her sister’s future. Picnics were not on the schedule.

“The Council has lived apart from mundanes too long,” Lilith countered. “They don’t remember what life in the normal world is like. We’re sisters, Reg. The bond we share runs deeper than rules and regulations, even those carved into stone tablets shortly after the dawn of humanity.”

Regina’s expression softened, but the Council was another story. The twin towers of old-world thought that stood one to each side of her sister swirled with auras white with fear and admonition. Everyone in the witching world feared Lilith, reviled her even—had her whole life—though Lilith could never quite understand why. Sure, she had a habit of losing her temper and hurling epithets with more precision than a major league pitcher. Her psychic prophecies had sometimes caused distress here and there. But in the long run she was just a sassy pain in the ass. Her powers were nothing compared to her sister’s. It’s not as though she could blow anybody up.

“I need my powers, Reg,” Lilith whispered.

“You no longer deserve them,” Regina countered, her gaze glittering purple like the stone of rank she wore around her neck.

“Do you hear how you sound like a complete hypocrite?”

Regina sucked in a breath. For a split second Lilith felt guilty.

Then she got over it.

Four years older, Regina had been barely a teenager when she’d been tapped as Guardian following their mother’s brutal murder at the hands of a warlock. But unlike most witches attacked by the thieving race of witch killers, their mother had transferred her powers to her older daughter before she died. From that moment, Regina possessed a wide range of powers that included being able to shimmer from one place to another and the ability to form and hurl energy bursts that could blast a demon or warlock to kingdom come—an act Regina had executed only seconds after their mother had taken her last breath.

Baptism by fire, literally. There might not have been as many demons and warlocks in the world as a certain popular television show about witches might lead one to believe, but when one popped up, the burst had come in damn handy. And for this everyone loved Regina.

All Lilith could do was read minds and predict the future. And even then, sometimes her predictions came too late.

As it had for her mother.

She swallowed the lump in her throat and stood firm.

“What about all the good I do with my powers?” Lilith argued. “My work with the cops?”

Regina arched a brow. “You abruptly stopped working with the police three months ago.”

Lilith had the insatiable need to stick her tongue out. “I can’t help it if they don’t call me anymore.”

A smile twitched Regina’s generous lips—a family trait. St. Lyon women never needed collagen.

“Can’t you?” she asked knowingly. “And, besides, can you honestly tell us that you have gained nothing personally from your association with the police?”

Not without lying.

Lilith had gained plenty—first and foremost, major bedroom action with chief of detectives, Mac Mancusi. But that was over. Had been since he’d figured out that she was a real psychic and not simply an ultra-intuitive woman, as he’d rationalized. Oh, and that she’d been using her powers to manipulate him into falling head over heels in love with her. Yeah, that had pretty much sealed him kicking her ass to the curb.

“My benefits were short-lived and not without repercussions,” Lilith said, jabbing her hand through her spiky short hair. “I’m on my own again. Just me and all the bad guys I help the cops catch whenever they come to me. I could clean up Chicago once and for all.”

“And disrupt the balance of good and evil?” Regina asked, her voice hitching higher than her normal sultry tone. “Jeez, Lilith, are there no rules you won’t break?”

Lilith stamped her foot, crunching down on a large, serrated glass triangle. “The only rules I won’t break are the ones I make for myself.”

“Like?”

Lilith scowled. She wasn’t a big rule maker. She definitely ascribed to a live-and-let-live philosophy. “I do no harm, Regina.”

“What do you call the aftermath experienced by your clients once you’ve bilked them for a peek at their futures?”

“It’s not bilking if what I tell them is true,” she countered. “If they can’t handle the truth, that’s their problem.”

The two elders on either side of Regina whispered simultaneously in her sister’s ear.

Once again, her smart mouth wasn’t helping. Nothing would. No amount of pouting or manipulating was going to get her out of this one. She did a quick probe of their minds. They wanted her powers. The future of order in the witching world depended on Lilith’s punishment. Blah, blah, blah.

Regina nodded to the elders, then with a swish of her hand, shimmered them out of the room.

Lilith took a hopeful step forward.

“What just happened?”

“I don’t need them to witness what must be done.”

Betrayal cut a slash through her heart. “Reggie, you can’t.”

Her sister’s eyes glossed with emotion. “You’ve given me no choice, Lilith. Please take the punishment the Council has chosen. Use this time as a mundane to prove to them you are capable of selfless good, and maybe you can earn your powers back.”

Instinctively Lilith squared her shoulders and lifted her chin. “The Council can kiss my ass.”

Regina quirked a quick half grin before she placed her hands gently on Lilith—one hand on her forehead and the other on her heart.

She made short work of the incantation, a spell as old as time itself. Lilith planted her feet solidly on the ground, refusing to yield as her psychic energy was sucked out of her. She loved her sister, but if she’d had the strength at that moment, she would have coldcocked her as soon as the spell was complete.

Instead she drifted to the floor, unconscious and unaware of how deeply her life had just been irrevocably changed.