Kat let out a sigh of relief. Hopefully that meant they were all merely caught in a binding spell like she was.
She looked around again, trying to find Jenna, craning her head around as much as she could in every direction. But Connor’s sister was nowhere to be seen. That scared the hell out of her. Had Marko and his people already gotten rid of her?
Not wanting to even think what that would do to Connor, she resolutely pushed the possibility aside and reached out for the magic she felt pulsing all around her, hoping she could use it to break free of the invisible cords encasing her body. But it was no use. While she could sense the power of life flooding the clearing, she couldn’t grasp it. Every time she reached for the magic, it slipped away.
Damn, it was frustrating.
“So, you’re finally awake,” a deep voice said from somewhere behind her, out of her line of sight. “And right on time, too. We were about to start the ritual without you.”
Kat tipped her head back as far as the binding would allow it to go, catching sight of Marko standing there in his black cloak, his face covered with a light sheen of sweat despite how cool it was tonight. He’d obviously been working a lot of magic already, setting up all the binding spells and starting the process of energizing the protective circle. Seeing him again in person brought back all the horrible memories of him killing her coven. Her heart started beating faster and it was suddenly hard to breathe. This was the man who’d taken everything from her, and now, he intended to take even more.
“And before you waste your time trying to use magic to free yourself, don’t,” Marko added. “Even though the circle isn’t completely closed yet, I’ve already cut you off from the flow of magic. You’re as helpless against me as any hapless mortal.”
“You’re an evil a-hole, you know that?” she said, locking eyes with him—as hard at that was to do when she was staring at him upside down like this. It was impossible to put into words how much she hated him. “You can’t possibly think you’ll get away with this.”
Marko chuckled and moved around to Kat’s right, stepping carefully over the circle his coven had dug into the soft earth. The circle started to glow soft green as it was slowly filled with magic. It wasn’t enough to keep him from moving back and forth across it yet, but it soon would be.
“I could argue that the termevilis merely a matter of perspective.” Crouching beside her, he reached out to run his hand over her hair. Kat couldn’t stop herself from jerking away. Not that she could move all that much. That only earned her a snort of derision. “But in this case, I won’t bother. You have something I want, and I’m going to take it. If that meets the definition of evil to you, I’m fine with that. Mostly because in a very short period of time, you won’t even have an opinion on the matter anymore.”
She opened her mouth to respond, but Marko pressed a finger to her lips before she could say anything. “And as far as getting away with this, of course I will. Who’s going to stop me—you? Or maybe you think your werewolf boyfriend and his pack of mutts will do it?”
Kat had to fight to contain the gasp of fear that threatened to slip out. She knew Marko was aware of her relationship with Connor but knowing that and hearing him say the words out loud were two completely different things. It only emphasized how much danger Connor and his pack mates were in.
“By the way,” Marko said, as if an errant thought had just occurred to him. “What’s with you and these mutts? Don’t tell me you purposely tracked down a pack of werewolves and threw yourself at one of them because you thought it would provide you some kind of protection? Honestly, I never thought that much of you to begin with, but I would have thought you’d look for help from a better source. I mean, you ran back and forth across the country for more than three years only to decide to settle down with a werewolf pack, of all things. You would have been better to go underground and find yourself a clan of ghouls. They might have eaten you, but at least I never would have found you.”
Kat ignored what he said, refusing to rise to the bait. Besides, she had some questions of her own. Even if Marko didn’t give her anything useful in the way of answers, it might drag out the start of the ritual so Connor and his pack mates could find them. Even now, members of the coven moved around the clearing, taking the blankets off the kids, and positioning them at specific points around the circle. They were getting closer.
Would Connor get here in time? Did she want him to, especially since Marko was clearly ready for him?
“Did you let me escape that protective circle four years ago?” she demanded.
Marko regarded her for so long, she thought he wouldn’t answer. Then he snorted again and shook his head as if the question was stupid. “You have no idea how close you were to dying at that moment, do you?”
She glared at him. “What do you mean?”
“You’re a powerful witch,” he said. “That’s why I chose you. But absorbing the channeling gift of all twelve members of your coven was more than your body could handle, even in the familiar form I trapped you in. You were seconds away from being turned into a burned-out husk. That was why I allowed you to smudge the circle. I let you run so your body could slowly get used to its new abilities, knowing I could track you anywhere you ran. Truthfully, I expected it to only take a few weeks at the most. It shocked the hell out of me when it took your body four years to adjust. It wasn’t until you got here to Dallas and stopped running that everything evened out. While it took longer than I expected, it was worth it in the end.”
It didn’t surprise Kat that her body had only started to strengthen after she’d found Connor. It was because he was her soul mate. She wondered for a moment if Marko knew anything about that bond and how it helped her recover her magic. Probably not. The warlock would never be able to imagine a power greater than the magic he lusted after. Something told her that if he knew, there was nothing in the world that would have kept him from crowing about it.
Marko turned to murmur something to one of the members of his coven that Kat couldn’t quite make out, but it almost certainly had to do with the ritual.
Things were moving too fast.
She needed to slow them down.
“What did you do with Jenna?” Kat asked.
Marko turned back to give her a frown. “Who?”
“The woman Tatum brought to Connor’s apartment to trick me into opening the door,” she snapped.
For a moment, it seemed like Marko didn’t have a clue who she was talking about, but then he smirked, and Kat knew she definitely wasn’t going to like whatever he had to say.
“Oh, her. Don’t worry about her,” he said. “She’s fine. But that’s only because I thought it might be good to have someone around after the ritual so I can test out how well it worked.”
“What the hell does that mean?” she demanded.
What if Marko knew exactly who Jenna was and intended to use that against Connor? But before he could answer, Tatum came over and leaned down to whisper something in his ear. Whatever it was, it made Marko grin.
