Cougar by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub

Chapter Eight

"They say your sire and dame are dead," Keezia demanded through a statement.

Well, there was no running now. "Yes." I gulped down a choking lump before my rising scream crammed it into my skull.

"I will speak to you, Sierra. And you will show me the respect I am due." Keezia pounded her cane on the ground. "Since when have you cowered before me? Step forward and face me with the dignity of a sister of the Rites of the Goddess."

Demon's jaw dropped.

My heart stopped beating.

What mask had Jackal donned?

Did they all suddenly think I somehow jinxed the Christian encampment? Normal superstitions might be the biggest threat for my survival from here on out. Tornado couldn't send me away. I was mated now.

Now, to deal with the priestess. Maybe Keezia wouldn't ask too many questions. I handed the cup off to Jackal, looking at nothing but his knuckles, knuckles that had defended me at the trading outpost, and took the two steps to claim a spot before the old crone's form, towering over the woman by a good four inches.

Keezia's blind cataracts anchored on mine. Her eyes squared in suspicion. "What happened to The Black?"

Well, so much for secrecy. I tried not to exhale my last breath. But now everyone knew who I was. Damn the old bat. "Dead."

The light in Keezia's persona seemed to fade a bit. "So the rumors are true. And your dame?"

"Dead."

Keezia pounded the cane against the floor again. "You will show me the respect I am due." She spun her back to me and took one step away from me, only to face me again. "I can't believe I spent ten years instructing you. Coddling your spirit. And you snap like a spoiled child at me. Is that what life has done to you? Twisted your soul?"

How dare she begin to lecture me on life. "You have no idea what I have seen or where your damned Goddess laid the path I have followed-"

"Silence!" Keezia thrust her free hand at me, pointing a set of crooked arthritic fingers.

Something gripped me.

A White Priestess' invisible power.

The force grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and shoved me toward the floor, pressing my cheek into the cold hard earth, forcing me to bow at her frazzled brown hemline even though I shoved up with all my might against the energy. For what it was worth. Futilely. I couldn't move. I sucked in a breath full of sharp choking dust as she made me assume the position of a lesser-ranking sister being reprimanded.

"How dare you utter such sacrilege in my presence," Keezia slowly cooed. "You've been gone too long."

Or not long enough. Apparently it was only safe to return from the wilderness after the elders like Keezia died. "I never wanted to be a priestess," I ground out. "Father told you that."

The force yanked my head upward, bending my neck backward, to where I looked into her milky cataracts.

"You will answer my questions, little mongoose. And when I am finished with you, I just might let you crawl back into Jackal's bed.

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