“Yes. Veyda wanted me to kill the victim as part of my induction. The woman was on a platform in the center of the room. I don’t know who she was or what I did. The mist keeps her cloaked. Maybe Veyda wanted it that way. I don’t know. The witches, the ones I killed, were doing something to her. The smell. It’s the poisoned paste, the one Veyda’s been using on Kiara. The woman was screaming in agony. But Veyda was trying to seduce me into murdering her. She kept talking about my potential and wanting to train me.” She shook her head back and forth. “She said we’d create a whole new Five Bridges, one worth living in. Braden, this woman can’t actually believe she’s doing good.”
“I think a witch like Veyda would say whatever she felt she needed to say in order to get what she wanted. What interests me is that she must have needed to persuade you to do something against your will. She couldn’t force you. I think she used every weapon in her arsenal to get you to comply, but she failed. Your character won out over her dark spells and potions.”
Maeve wasn’t convinced. There was still something horrible about that night she couldn’t remember. She might not know the details, yet, but something else had happened and it made her tremble.
He released her arms and cupped her face. “Look at me. You are stronger than you know. That’s why you survived that night. What you’ve told me is that Veyda had to work hard to convince you to do something that I’m persuaded you refused to do. Then your killing power kicked in. Big time. You have nothing to feel destressed or guilty about.”
She wanted to believe Braden. In her heart, she wasn’t a killer. Yet she knew she’d taken the lives of those two women. They were dead. The power she’d released from her killing hand had broken open their chests. She had committed murder. Maybe it was out of self-defense and maybe these women had deserved to die, but she’d become a murderer that night.
While she struggled with her emerging memory, something else began to come through. She gripped Braden’s arm. She thought maybe this was it and she would learn the rest of what had happened.
Instead, she felt Kiara’s presence as clearly as if she was in the room. She gasped. “Braden. It’s Kiara. She’s with me. I can feel her telepathic presence the way I felt yours earlier in my backyard.”
“Okay. Good. Focus on her. You can deal with your memories later. Because I’m sensing she’s in trouble.”
There it was again, how Braden was taking steps into her witch world in the same way she kept feeling wolf-howls form in her throat.
The potion felt like lightning in her veins now. She pictured the last time she’d seen Kiara and how she’d looked, the terrible poisoned wound on her neck. She forced her telepathy wide open.
At first, she didn’t understand what she was perceiving. Scattered words rolled through her mind.Pain. Can’t bear it. She’s coming. No. No.
The sudden screaming Maeve heard made her cover her ears. Braden held on tight, so she couldn’t move. She couldn’t escape the screams.
Then they stopped.I want to die. Please God, let me die. Now. Please. Please.
Maeve had almost caught her breath when the screaming started again.
Kiara was screaming and somehow it translated into a scream within Maeve’s mind.
She shook, head to toe. She opened her eyes and met Braden’s. His snout was longer, his cheekbones wider, fur had appeared low on his forehead and along his jaw. He looked fierce.
He growled. Sheba, now sitting on the sink counter once more, hissed, though not at Braden. She, too, must have understood the horrific nature of the situation.
Maeve nodded. “Kiara’s being tortured right now. We have to go to her. She won’t survive the night. Veyda plans on killing her.”
Sheba meowed her agreement, leaped from the counter then, as she’d done before, raced up the stairs.
As he released her arms, his wolfness diminished. “Let’s go, but I’m bringing our wolves with us.”
“Our wolves?” Now he’d said it, as though he already had a connection to the shifters.
“The Landing wolves. Let me contact Greg.” As he grew silent and no doubt used his telepathy, he piloted her toward the stone stairs.
She took his hint and flew up the spiral staircase in a whirl of levitation. When she reached the living room, she darted in the same way in front of the fireplace to the second stairwell.
Once at the spell boundary of her apartment, she crossed without taking Braden’s hand. She turned back to offer her hand, but he didn’t need it. He simply joined her at her side. “Did you see the spell this time?”
His brows rose. He glanced at his hand then hers. “I did. But you weren’t touching me, were you?”
“No.”
She wanted to explore how he’d done it, but the opposite doors across from the construction site opened. Greg and his six wolves entered the hall.
Again, Maeve felt a howl forming very wolf-like in her throat. The men looked ready for war. Each was armed with AR-15s slung over their shoulders, sidearms and knives hooked to their belts.
Braden moved to stand beside her as they waited for the wolves to levitate to them. She glanced up at him then back to her spelled line in front of her apartment. “How do you think you crossed the boundary?”
“I’m channeling your witchness.”
