SNEAK PEEK: Allegiance (Blood Moon Covenant #2)
Chapter 1
McKenzie
Raindrops fell from the early September sky. Perfect for a funeral. I watched as they disappeared into the soil that covered Wes’s casket. Sniffles and whispers echoed around me and soon it would be my turn to speak.
Guilt flooded me. What could I say? Sorry I let him help the wolves and get shot? He wasn’t the first of us to die so brutally and he definitely wouldn’t be the last.
I glanced around the gloomy cemetery and shuddered. So many new stones among the ancient ones. Rain splattered against them and struck the overgrown plants and weeds that had sprang up everywhere.
No one had time for weeding the graveyard when we were worried about who’d be joining it next.
Tear-streaked faces and angry scowls surrounded me. I didn’t blame them. I was angry too. The world had grown crueler—even more screwed up than before.
My eyes met Kohl’s. He looked away, face as stoic as ever.
His snub was well deserved, but it still stung. I missed him. Missed us.
“Queen?” Deepa’s voice brought my head around.
She looked at me, expectantly.
I sighed. They were all looking at me now.
Drawing my shoulders back, I addressed them. “Wes will be remembered for his bravery and selflessness. This death will not go unpunished. As part of the new covenant, I will confiscate all the guns and weapons. This damned curse is enough for us to worry about. No more violence. No more death.”
Heads nodded, voices murmuring their agreement. Anger lit in some of their eyes while the others stared blankly at the gravestones. Some of us still had life in us, but I didn’t blame those who’d become hollow.
It was their way of surviving this new world.
Thunder rumbled in the distance and the rain fell harder, the sound swallowing up the silence. I shifted my stance, heels sinking into the wet soil.
My dress was getting dirty and soaked and if it weren’t for everyone’s judgey stares, I would have ended the memorial already so I could go back inside where it was dry.
Mel’s scolding voice filled my mind. One of our witches was dead and I was bitching about my hair and clothes?
After an appropriate amount of grieving time, I finally gave the signal to the others.
Willow, puffy-eyed, set Wes’s coven ring atop the flat rock face that marked his grave. Someone else left a pair of faded boots beside it.
Was that all that was left of him for us to remember? What would they place on my grave?
I pushed away the dark thought and looked around at the witches. Strangers, all of them. None of them really knew me—I’d never given them the chance. Years of separating myself from the coven, planning my great escape to college, thinking I was better then them and now I was paying the price.
How was I supposed to lead them when they hated me?
My eyes met Kohl’s.
He turned on his heel, following the others inside. Pain flared in my chest at his abrupt departure. I started toward the door, but paused to take one last look back at the cemetery. Mel was buried in the back along with the others we’d lost. I hadn’t visited her stone since her memorial. What did it matter? She was gone.
Without her and Kohl, I was completely alone. Surrounded by witches that doubted me.
It should have been me to go first, Mel. We need you. How am I supposed to do this without you?
……………….
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