It pours into Rad’s mind, and he falls to his knees, clutching his skull. I drive it further into his head, imagining it burning through him. Torturing him the way he tortured me.
“Wretched witch!” he howls. “You’ll pay for this!”
Images of his retaliation tear through his mind, flooding my thoughts with his vitriol, with the vengeance he’ll wreck on my body and mind.
Images of my blood, my tears, my broken body.
And then everything goes quiet. The images vanish, as if dragged out by the tide, and I slump in my bindings.
Rad staggers to his feet, a murderous expression on his face. “There! You saw it. The witch whore has an affinity.”
Willow looks over at the smoldering remains of the monitor, her expression cool. “The results are inconclusive, at best.”
“Look what that cunt did to me!”
“You think my sister did that to you? I think you pushed yourself too hard performing that spell.”
“I was hurt!Shehurt me. You saw it,” he raves.
Willow scoffs and shakes her head in disgust. “Clean yourself up. You look pathetic. Clearly, you weren’t up to the task of performing one simple spell. That’s the only conclusion I’m willing to draw from that little spectacle.” She pauses and cocks her head. “Well, that and that Radcliffe Industries tech isn’t all that you claimed it to be, if my weak, omega sister was able to reduce your monitor to slag and circuits.”
“I’ll tell your father about this!”
Willow quirks an elegant blond brow. “Do as you wish, Mr. Radcliffe. Good luck wrapping up your work. We’ll see you on Yule.”
She puts her back to him and loosens the restraints holding me to the operating table.
“Can you walk?”
She helps me from the table, and I immediately crash to the floor. Willow snaps her fingers, and a guard races forward, picking me up off the cold concrete.
Rad spits curses and dark promises, but Willow ignores him as she leads the guard forward.
And I? I welcome the dark, the quiet, the stillness that envelops me.
* * *
I wakeon our family’s private jet, bundled up in blankets on a seat Willow has reclined into a bed for me. My whole body feels weighed down, like my veins have been filled with heavy, shifting sand. I reach for my magic, something as automatic as breathing, but I’m utterly spent. Just like when I sent Rad to his knees after he tortured Simon, I have only a flicker of magic left in my body. It’ll take time for it to replenish.
Time I may not have.
Rad is due to arrive at Rose Manor in just two days.
I let out a whimper when I shift, pain lancing through my body.
Willow races to me and kneels at my side. “What is it, Juniper?”
I look up at her through teary eyes. “Hurts,” I whisper, my voice hoarse from screaming.
“Where?”
“Everywhere.”
She draws back the blankets and casts a pain-relief spell over my chest, her expression pinched with worry.
“Rad took it too far,” she says quietly.
“He always does.”
