She laughs, loud and unrestrained, tipping her head back to expose her elegant jawline and throat. The sound ripples up my spine. “Never mind the fact that we’llneedmagic in order to locate my coven and break the binding spell… Magic will keep us both alive. Don’t you feel it? This weakening energy?”
I furrow my brow. When I focus on something other than trying to put distance between us, there it is: the ache in my temple and a swelling pain behind my ribs. Each pump of my heart sends a jolt down my left arm, like it’s struggling to keep beating.
My breath catches. This spell really is going to take me down with her.
Julia looks even worse than I feel. There’s a sheen of sweat on her forehead and chest. Her skin is paler than before, and her breathing is labored. Her hands have a subtle tremor, and she keeps clenching and unclenching her fists like she’s fighting off pain. She reminds me of someone in the grip of a fever—or withdrawal. And between the desperation in her eyes and her wild hair spilling over her shoulders, she looks borderline rabid.
Still. This witch willnotbe murdering anyone on my watch.
“Every month? And you don’t feel guilty?” I snap.
“Lions don’t feel guilty about gazelles.”
“People aren’t gazelles!”
She raises an eyebrow. “Shall we discuss the value of life while we both waste away?”
I roll my eyes. “You’re doing a great job of getting me to like you.”
The way she smiles, with that curve in her lips and the gleam in her eyes, makes my stomach flip.
Yeah, fine, she’s attractive. Whatever. That doesn’t mean I like her.
“You’re too innocent to understand that power requires sacrifice,” Julia says.
“And you’re too out-of-touch to understand how wrong you are.”
She scoffs. “In my day, young women showed proper respect to their elders.”
“In my day, we don’t let murderers lecture us about manners.”
She rubs her forehead as if this conversation is becoming exhausting.
Finally, she drops her hand. “Miss Schmidt,” she says slowly, like she’s tasting my name. “If you won’t let me feed, we’re going to be bound forever.”
Both options are terrible, but I stay put.
She waves her hand, and a cold draft hits my back as the door flies open.
I close my fingers over her wrist to stop her from passing. “Julia, don’t.”
A pleasant sensation rushes up my arm when I touch her, so intense that my breath hitches. It’s a shadow of whatever happened when her fingers were on my scalp, but it’s enough to make heat stir in my belly. For a moment, I forget why I’m trying to stop her. I just let this feeling trickle into every gap in my soul.
Her nostrils flare as she glares down at me. She’s so close that I catch her scent—something warm and intoxicating, like woodsmoke and apple cinnamon tea.
I release her, ignoring the tingling in my hand.
She inclines her head, peering down at my face like she’s searching for something.
“If you’re done being noble,” she says at last, “let’s stop wasting time.”
She shoves me aside hard.
I stumble and hit the wall, pain erupting in my shoulder. “Ow! Hey! Julia, wait!”
She strides into the darkness as if she didn’t hear me. I sprint after her in my bare feet, the cold slamming into me.
She stalks around the side of the house, and as we reach the front yard, I cut over to block her from going to the Walshes’ house—but her attention is elsewhere. Headlights illuminate the street as a car approaches.
