Evara giggles. “The puppies are mad.”
“This is how this is going to work, ladies,” the leader of the terrible trio announces, ignoring her crazed sister’s commentary. “Those four—yes, you too, Blondie—are going with my sisters. Evara needs to keep her pets close, and, frankly, I don’t trust mama bear to behave if she’s kept anywhere near her cub. Mothers are usually much more cooperative when their child’s safety is kept just uncertain enough to make them sweat.We keep them just close enough to hope, but far enough to fear.” She bounces Ivey on her hip for emphasis. “But don’t worry your pretty head too much. Noa’s coming with me. She’ll keep an eye on the brat, won’t you?” She doesn’t give me a chance to answer. Not that it was a real question anyway.“Everyone will then be reunited—albeit briefly—at our meeting spot. From there, we’ll decide where you’ll all best serve us. Whether it’s at a club or the auction block.”
Over my shoulder, she nods at Zephira who’s busy pouring out the contents of a second smaller bottle of alcohol that she must have found. The glass amber bottle explodes as she drops it carelessly to the polished concrete floor, the sound making me jerk in place.
Wordlessly, Zephira moves around me and stalks to the back wall of the sanctuary. I know what she’s going to do before she lifts her hands. Just like the cinder block wall in the manor’s cellar, the portion of smooth stone wall she stands before shivers as the Ashvale Coven’s illusionist Vardis’s spell begins to falter. It fights back against this unknown witch, the protective magic woven within the glamour sensing the foulness coming from her. Her pale hands ball into fists as she shoves more of her own magic into it. It’s as the illusion covering the emergency exit fails, revealing the steep and narrow stone steps leading up to a hatch in the ceiling, that I confirm my suspicions. Like Vardis, the third triplet, Zephira, is an illusionist. A powerful one if she’s not only able to sense another witch’s glamour, but dismantle it.
Now it makes sense. They didn’t stumble their way in. They knew. Planned with battle-like precision. Every one of them had a role to play, and their abilities only made the strike cleaner. We were outmaneuvered before we even knew we were being hunted. If Mom had been here, maybe the playing field would have been a little more even, but without her weavings, we are at a serious disadvantage.
Zephira leads Rhosyn, Edie, Siggy, and Seren up the stairs. Evara, bouncing on her toes with chaotic energy, follows close behind, boxing my girls in between them. The look on Seren’s face as she turns her head back to where I stand is one of pure helplessness. Her mama heart is breaking before my eyes asshe’s torn away from her child. I try to tell her with my own eyes that I won’t let anything happen to Ivey, that I will stand between her and whatever other dangers are waiting for us, but Evara shoves her forward, making her stumble slightly on the shallow step.
With a silent jerk of her sharp chin, the witch holding Ivey motions for me to move from the place I’ve been standing like stone since she revealed herself. She waits for me to stiffly meet her at the base of the staircase.
My wolf’s hackles rise, teeth bared, when Malvina takes a break from twiddling the serrated knife near Ivey’s throat to pull a Zippo lighter from her pocket. One flick and something in my soul cracks as the flame soars in a perfect arc through the air. It lands on the soaked couch. The fire takes instantly, a roar of orange and heat, before slithering from the cushions to the floor. The trails Zephira left behind catch one by one, serpents of flame racing through the sanctuary with lethal grace. My tears are inescapable as the fire makes its way toward Lowri’s supine body. I want to keep my eyes on her, to witness it, to give the Alpha this final defiant honor, but at the last second, the instinct to shield myself from that kind of horror takes over, and my head jerks away before the flames engulf her.
“Let’s go, crossborn, we don’t have time to roast marshmallows,” Malvina snarks, knife back and gesturing at me to climb the stairs before her. My body fights the order, rebelling at the idea of leaving my home.
It’s the rising smoke and Ivey’s young lungs that ultimately have my feet moving.
The hatch opens into a corner of the sprawling backyard. It’s heavily sheltered with trees, the foliage and mossy trunks a shield from any onlookers. Or that was the intention, anyway. Through the branches overhead, the sunlight streams though. A cruel thing after my time stuck in the clinging darknessbelow ground. My eyes squint and burn from the sudden glare, but there’s no time to adjust. Not with the sound of fighting bleeding in from town.Feral snarls. Screams of pain. Rallying cries. They’re only a few streets over, near the heart of Ashvale. I can’t tell who’s winning. I don’t know if Amara’s coven and the Craddock Pack are working together to hold the line or if they’re the ones being cut down by the terrible trio’s associates.
All I can do is send a silent prayer to the Goddess begging for my people’s protection and hope she’s feeling generous. After how things have progressed thus far today, I’ll admit it’s hard to have any faith in the deity at this particular moment. You could tell me she’s abandoned us completely and the blood staining my clothes and fire burning below my feet would have me believing you.
Malvina doesn’t give me long. The tip of her blade nudges between my shoulder blades, firm enough to make her point but not enough to rip the fabric of Rennick’s ruined hoodie or draw blood. I stagger toward the ornate iron gate, half hidden by winding ivy that’s tucked into the back fence line, along with the hatch. Mom installed it for this very reason. As a last resort escape route that connects to the shaded path that leads straight into the woods that run along the right side of the house. There’s no sign of the others, but the open gate says enough. They’ve already been marched through. Taken. In what direction, I have no idea, my dulled senses once again failing me.
I pause at the threshold, digging my heels into the dirt. “Where are they?”
Malvina sighs, bored. “Taking another route.We’re headed upriver. There’s a section shallow enough for us to cross relatively safely. Ride’s waiting on the other side. As long as you stay in line, you’ll be reunited with your flock soon enough. I don’t care if your new owner is waiting for me to deliver you, tryanything clever and I’ll hold you underwater and wait for you to stop making bubbles.”
My new owner.
There’s no time to process this particular string of words. She shoves my spine with more bite this time, and I stumble through the gate. The urge to turn and look back at the house that gave me purpose claws at me, but I force myself to keep walking.
Each step is sluggish and reluctant as we follow the slim trail winding alongside the river’s cut bank. The water flows about six feet below, the depth higher this time of year because of the snow starting to fall this far north. My heart pounds against my sternum like a drum and I don’t notice I’ve stopped breathing until my vision wavers slightly, my chest on fire.
She said there’s a getaway car waiting.
My wolf lashes out, frenzied and wild, racking her claws against the inside of my ribs as if she can tear her way free. She understands what I do. Knows what we’re walking toward. If I step into that vehicle, I might never make it back here. I’ll lose this place and the people within it—my friends. I’ll lose…him.
I sink my teeth into the soft flesh of my cheek until I taste copper to keep from screaming his name.Aloudthis time. I shouldn’t be thinking about Rennick. Not now.Not when I’m walking a baby toward a trap with no way out. I need to think clearly. But the ache’s already seeping in, coiling around me like thorned vines. My soul reaches for Rennick like it still believes he’ll come. Like it still believes I’m his to save.
He promised you just this morning he wasn’t giving you up, that he was going to fight for you,the irrational voice, the one still blindly clinging to hope, reminds me against my better judgement.
The toe of my shoe catches on an exposed tree root and I stumble forward.
Malvina snorts with amusement behind me. “And here I thought wolves were supposed to be agile.”
“I’ve never been much of a wolf,” I mutter. “Or a witch. Guess I’m not much of a crossborn either.”
“A shame,” she says, distracted now, her irritation evident in her tone. From the sound of it, Ivey is beginning to squirm harder in her arms, fussing with more volume now. Both unmistakable warning signs that a full-blown meltdown is imminent. This witch doesn’t recognize them for what they are. “About the magic part, anyway. Even if your mother was a crossborn, power like Thalassa’s is rare. It’s nearly unheard of for it not to be passed down in some compacity.”
I could correct her and tell her that I do have power. It’s new, finicky, and unreliable, but a gift nonetheless. One that’s been acting up more and more since my reunion with Rennick. But giving this bitch more ammunition to use against me or use to up my “price tag” seems unwise, so I lock my jaw and focus on something else—the familiarity in which Malvina says Mom’s name.
I glance back, my attention split between the witch and the increasingly agitated five-month-old in her arms. “Did you know my mother?”
“You really didn’t know your mother at all, did you, dear?” It’s a rhetorical question, one that leaves me glaring at her. “Enough chitchat. Keep moving.”
We make it no more than ten feet before Ivey’s emotional clock runs out. Her wail slices through the trees. Somewhere to our left, a bird flutters out from a fern, startled by the sound. I stop in my tracks and spin toward them, ignoring the order to keep moving.
