The door flew open. “I’ve found two of them,” an unfamiliar voice called.
I guess we’re not winning.
Terror gripped me. I froze. Rough hands reached inside the priest's hole and grabbed my arms, dragging me out into the light. Rowan’s arm was wrenched from mine. He howled and thrashed like a wild animal as they tore him from me.
After being in the dark for so long, the bright light from the library’s chandelier made my eyes water. I blinked, waiting for the white welts to disappear so I could get a look at my attackers. Beside me, Rowan thrashed about, knocking one of them in the teeth so she fell back in pain. I copied him, kicking out with my feet, pooling my terror into fighting against whoever held me.
“Restrain them!” A familiar voice barked. I was pushed to the ground, and my hands were yanked behind my back andtied with something coarse and rough. A knee jammed into the small of my back, keeping me in place. Beside me, Rowan was getting the same treatment. His eyes had gone dark, feral, and he bucked and thrashed and even made a run for the door before they jumped on him and got his hands tied, too.
The vicar stood over us, his robes torn and filthy. The light of righteous justice glowed in his eyes.
“We got ourselves a couple of witches,” he snarled.
“Better a witch than a murderer,” I shot back. “Isn’t that one of the Ten Commandments?”
“Silence, witch!” He kicked me in the side. I gasped as my breath left me. “Take them to the meadow with the others. It’s time for them to face God’s final judgement.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
THIRTY-TWO: ROWAN
They marched me and Maeve downstairs and out the main doors. People swarmed through the castle, taking axes to the beautiful wooden mouldings and smashing the ancient furniture. As we were dragged across the courtyard, someone tossed an end table from one of the upstairs windows, where it smashed against the cobbles with a sickening crack. Panic rose in my chest, settling on me like a familiar weight.
They’re destroying our home.
Everything I’d loved in my life was tied to this house. For all of us, Briarwood was more than stones and wood and windows. It was the place where we’d uncovered our true selves. Corbin had taken five broken people and given them the magic of Briarwood, and this castle wormed its way into all our hearts. I loved it the same way I loved Maeve, and the guys, and Corbin.
Corbin…where is he?I twisted my head around, trying to see him on the ramparts, fighting amongst the crowd.If they found us, did that mean...
And the others, where were they? Was this it – the end of Briarwood coven?
I’m glad I let Obelix go back on the roof.I hoped like hell the little rascal had the sense to hide up there somewhere, and that he’d escape unscathed. At least one of us would.
“You can’t do this,” Maeve yelled at the men dragging us down the narrow path toward the meadow. “This is illegal. It’s vandalism and assault and you’ll go to jail for a very long time.”
One of them – I think it was the one named Gus who Flynn fought at the pub – snorted. “That’s unlikely, witch.” He pointed to a figure standing beside the door. I recognised the female officer who’d spoken to us at the church, the one who lost her colleague to the fae. She caught me watching her and made a slicing motion across her throat.
My body jerked as the panic crashed over me. My ears rang. Heat surged through my body, followed by a sharp, stinging pain along my right arm, so intense that tears sprung in my eyes and I looked down to make sure the limb was still there, still attached to my body. It felt like someone had hacked it off. The pain seared down my leg, carrying with it a paralysing fear that everyone and everything I loved was about to be murdered in front of me.
My weight slumped against my captor. He yelled at me to move, but my body wouldn’t obey. Two other men ran over and they dragged me out the side gate and into the meadow, where an even bigger crowd waited. Torches flickered over the faces, so many faces I recognised from the village. So many people who wanted me dead. They must be right about something.
It looked like the movie set of some hillbilly horror film, only it was sickeningly real.
“I had to knock this one out.” someone called. They dragged Arthur’s body beside mine. Blood pissed from a cut on his head. As they threw him down beside me I noticed his stomach rising and falling. He was breathing. But for how much longer?
“No!” Maeve reached for Arthur, but her captors tore her away. I lurched toward her, but rough hands pulled me back. Someone threw a black hood over my head and tripped me so I slammed into the earth. The pain from the fall became one with the pain in my arm and leg, surging through my body and driving my panic to the brink. My whole body spasmed. I lost control of my motor function. I was a trembling, sobbing ball of uselessness.
Corbin…
The thought pricked through my ruined mind.Where’s Corbin?
“Did you get the fire out?” Blake called to Flynn.
“Aye…but they started another one and I—” Flynn’s voice dissolved into a scream that curdled what was left of my mind.
They’re going to kill us all. They’re going to torture Maeve, Corbin, and the others in front of you, and it’s all your fault.
The fear completely paralysed me. Wild, wretched noises fell on my ears, and it took me several moments to realise I was the one making those horrid, inhuman sounds.
