“I should have gotten rid of you the moment I found out I was pregnant,” her mother said, and Bridget cut off her head. She was breathing heavily, her hands shaking. The corpse didn’t disintegrate. It just lay there, blood spurting from the neck wound.
“I have been welcomed to the family multiple times. The Greatdrakes want me, even if you didn’t. You should have loved me for who I was.” Bridget turned her back on it and continued through the maze. The Brollachan was going to have to try a lot harder than that.
Around the next corner of the maze stood her step-father. He opened his mouth to mock her, and Bridget drove the tip of her sword through it and out the back of his head. She wasn’t going to listen to any more mocking lies.
These kinds of mind games might have worked on the Brollachan’s other victims, but Bridget knew herself and had read the Emerald Tablet so many times that the ancient Hermetic lines of ‘As Above, so Below’ were etched on her bones. Her inner world was the core of her, and she knew herself inside out.
There was no monster hidden in her subconscious that the Brollachan could summon that she hadn’t already fought before.
“This is my space, you asshole. I’m not dying here,” Bridget snarled, when she hit another dead end. She turned to retrace her steps when she heard a voice calling to her.
“Bridget, I love you so much. I want to teach you magic, watch you grow into your power, and outshine us all.”
“Bas? Bas! I’m here!” Bridget said, racing back to the wall of the hedge.
“I never got the chance to tell you that you are my mate. My other half. The dragon knew within moments of meeting you. I thought it would frighten you because we haven’t known each other for long. I should have told you.”
“Damn right, you should have told me! What the fuck? When I get out of here, you are going to get the biggest lecture,” Bridget said and started hacking at the hedge with her saber.“Apollo said something about that the night you shifted, and I was too tired and worried about you to make any sense of it. You ass. Your dragon was all like,‘You’re mine,’and I didn’t even question it because I just wanted to be wanted that much.” Bridget hit the hedge with every word. “I was too spellbound by your dick. God, I’m such an idiot.”
“I need you to keep fighting your way back to me, Bridget. I can’t lose you. I know you’re going to be mad, but I’ll take that over you being gone,”Bas’s voice said through the greenery.
“Fuck this. I’m done playing your games,” Bridget growled and put down the saber and thread. She shut her eyes and thought of the sky. Her body bent and twisted, her wings and feathers burst free, and she was a hawk.
Bridget flapped her wings, winding higher into the sky. The hedge wall kept growing, but she was faster. She sped over the top of it and reached for Bas and her body with all her might.
“Bas! I’m still here! I’m trying to get out and back to my body! Help me!” she cried, hoping that he would hear her.
A thorned vine snatched her from the air, and she was back in her human form. She screamed as the vines tightened, and she was dragged back down towards the earth.
36
Bas had lost how much time he had been talking. The Brollachan had been glaring balefully out of Bridget’s eyes the whole time.
Bas contemplated going to bed and trying again in the morning, but he couldn’t do it. He wouldn’t leave his Bridget in a cell she didn’t deserve to be in.
“Please come back to me, little hawk,” he begged, his voice cracking.
The Brollachan thrashed, making Bas startle. The dead look in Bridget’s eyes vanished. “Bas! I’m still here! I’m trying to get out and back to my body! Help me!”
Bas didn’t hesitate. He grabbed her by the knees and plunged into her mind, caught the edge of her subconsciousness, and let it pull him after her.
They were falling through the sky, Bridget’s hands just out of reach. Bas shifted into a dragon and caught her in his talons before they hit the earth. They tumbled, Bas holding her close to his chest as he bore the weight of the impact.
“Oh fuck, oh shit,” Bridget was muttering when they stopped moving. “Bas! Oh god. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” he wheezed, placing her down on the rocky ground. He rolled on his feet, shook himself once, and shifted back into his human form. Bridget collided with him, her arms going tight around him.
“You found me,” she said, her face smooshed into his chest.
“The other way around. You got through to your body and I held on and was pulled in after you,” Bas replied. He tilted her face up and kissed it all over. “You scared the life out of me. The Brollachan is in your body, and it kept saying that it was feeding off you. We need to get you out of here.”
“I know, but the fucker keeps making prisons. I heard you through a wall in a maze,” she explained. There was no sign of a maze around them, but there were brambles. “This feels very ‘Sleeping Beauty’ right now.”
Bas took her hand and squeezed it. “It’s okay, baby. We will find our way out.”
“Ah, actually, we need to talk first,” Bridget said, pulling her hand free. She put her hands on her hips. “What the fuck were you saying about me being your mate?”
Bas cleared his throat awkwardly. “Don’t you think that we should maybe get out of here first?”
