The boy was holding a hand up almost in supplication toward Sinthy. Tears brimmed his eyes as he continued to shake his head. “I didn’t ask for it. This isn’t my fault.”
Sinthy screamed an inarticulate sound of rage, sorrow, and pain. She lunged, yanking the boy toward her by his robe.
“I will turn you to dust. I’ll make your mind live a million years in a simulated hell. I will boil you with the blood of your own body. I will. Unless you tell me how you have my mother’s magic inside you.”
125
MADDY
Isat up so fast, my vision blurred. Something was seriously wrong. Even dead asleep, in the depths of unconsciousness, I’d sensed it. Nico was worried, almost panicked. Some kind of danger, but I couldn’t pinpoint it. Then, there’d been a weird pressure shift, almost like when your ears pop going up a really tall elevator. It ripped me from sleep, and I was out the bedroom door as soon as the grogginess of sleep had washed away in a current of fear.
I sprinted downstairs, only to be greeted by an empty house. I could still get a sense of Nico’s worry and terror. Our connection was so deep that I could feel his tension even from afar. He was west of the house, deep in the forest. That was all I knew.
Before my feet even touched the ground outside the front door, I was shifted into my wolf and rocketed across the pack lands. The scenery rushed past me in a green-and-brown blur. Something was horribly wrong, and it had something to do with Sinthy’s protection spells. The air around the pack lands felt… more open somehow. Everything seemed less closed in, less protected.
Barreling into the forest, I let my wolf take over, dodging and weaving through the trees and shrubbery without ever decreasing in speed. It was probably dangerous and reckless, but I had to get to Nico—I had to find out what was happening.
Their scents hit me not long after I entered the forest. Nico, Sinthy, Felipe, Sebastian, Luis, and… something else. I pushed myself to go faster, the fresh, unfamiliar scent making my heart hammer in my chest.
Sinthy’s screams of rage battered against my ears, and I almost skidded to a stop. I’d never heard her sound like that. Knowing I was getting close, I hurried on. Finally, I burst into a clearing to find the group standing around a youngish man in a hooded robe. Sinthy had him by the collar and was screaming something about how he had her mother’s magic inside him.
I shifted back and ran forward. “Sinthy?”
Nico spun in place. The second his eyes landed on me, the look of fear grew larger. Terror blazed inside him. He turned and grabbed Sinthy’s shoulder.
“Maddy’s here, and the wards are down!”
Sinthy glanced over her shoulder and saw me, her face softening. Apparently, I was in some kind of imminent danger, though I was still unsure what was happening. Without letting go of the man, she swept her hand back toward me, and a shimmer of magic enveloped my body where I stood.
“Stay still, Maddy,” she called out. “If you don’t move, you’ll be fine.”
She’d cast some kind of miniature ward around only me, but that meant Nico and all my friends were out in the open. Nico had said the wards were down. How had that happened?
In the distance, through a copse of trees, two more shadowy figures emerged.
Nico pointed at them and called back to the others. “Luis, there they are. Where are the guys?” He then looked at the newarrivals. “Stay right fucking there. Don’t you fucking move. You hear me?”
Felipe leaped forward, shifting mid-stride, and stalked slowly toward the two men. Sinthy’s magic radiated off her, fueled by some kind of manic hatred or sadness. It was like nothing I’d ever experienced before. She lifted a hand toward the approaching intruders and clasped them in some kind of spell similar to my protection ward. They stood, rooted to the spot, apparently unable to move. They were still so far away that I couldn’t even make out if they were men or women. Felipe, seeing they were now frozen, ran forward and circled them, and I could hear his growls and snarls all the way where I was.
Sinthy jerked the man’s collar, making his head loll around like a doll. “Tell me what I want to know. Otherwise, I’ll start by fileting you like a fish. I’ll start with the skin, then I’ll do the fingernails, then the eyes, then the?— ”
“I’m sorry.” His voice sounded so tortured and broken. The horror at Sinthy’s threats sending him into a frenzy. “I’m a witch, okay, I’m a witch.” Then he shook his head and closed his eyes. “Wait, that’s not exactly right?— ”
“Enough. The truth or you’re done. Five… four… three…”
“My father,” he shouted in panic. “It’s him. His line descended from witches. I carry the blood in my veins.”
His words struck home with me, almost like an icy knife hitting me in the chest. Almost exactly like me, but instead of shifters, it was witches.
Sinthy shook him again. “That doesn’t explain what you’re doing here or why you have my mother’s magic inside you.”
The man—boy, really—was shaking like a leaf, absolutely frantic with dread. Nico must have seen it. He reached forward and touched Sinthy’s arm.
“Calm down. He’s too scared to tell us anything. Let him go. He’s not getting away,” he said.
Sinthy jerked her head around and glared at Nico. For the barest moment, I was afraid she might lash out at him. Thankfully, she didn’t. She shoved the boy away, and he sprawled in the dirt at Nico’s feet.
Nico knelt and, playing the good cop to Sinthy’s bad, said, “Okay, son. What the hell is going on?”
