Cool fingers draped over her forehead, and another presence stood behind the air elemental. She couldn’t see who it was, but she caught the scent of moss and freshly tilled soil, and she knew. Eli.
He whispered something to Caitlin she couldn’t hear, then rested his hand over Sameen’s heart. The power that flowed into her from his touch was almost as strong as the fire, water, and air that wanted to tear her apart.
Or…stronger.
Relief loosened her frozen muscles, let her breathe easier, and she blinked up at Peter, finding his gaze locked on her as he continued to rub her back.
“What…did you do?” she whispered when Eli rose and backed away with Caitlin at his side.
“I’m not sure.” His huff might have been a laugh. “For all we don’t know about you, Sameen, there’s just as much if not more you don’t know about the rest of us.”
“We have a book. A practitioner’s book,” Caitlin said. “When the Thirteen originally broke off from the Inverness Coven, they weren’t completely evil. Some of them wanted to use the Spirit element for good. But before long, they realized they were outnumbered, and four of them attempted to leave. Two were killed, and two others escaped. For a time, at least. One of those practitioners was Eli’s father, and another was a woman named Diedre. She gave us a book with sigils and drawings that she said would help us fight the Thirteen and protect Mara.”
Tierney snorted. “She didn’t bother to tell us we’d need Eli to read the feckin’ thing.”
“Read?” Eli asked. “I didn’t read anything. The book...” He unbuttoned his shirt, and Sameen squinted at his chest. She couldn’t understand what she was seeing.
“Are those...tattoos?”
“No. When I touched the book—certain pages of it at least—I absorbed the magic and the symbols just…appeared on my skin. I still don’t know how. Bloody painful. But it’s what let me cast the protection spell that’s hiding you from the Thirteen, and just now, one of the symbols started to come alive.”
Symbols coming alive? Magic from a former member of the Thirteen helpingeaseher pain? It was all too much. Sameen fumbled for Peter’s hand, needing something real to hold onto. Peter was real.
“You don’t know what you did to her?” Peter asked.
“No. Not entirely, mate. Whatever magic the book gave me, sometimes, it knows what to do. But Sameen? You don’t just have three elements trapped inside you. I sensed Air, Fire, and Water. But multiple fragments of each one. Like echoes.”
She didn’t want to remember. Her own screams filled her head, and she squeezed Peter’s hand even tighter. “Every few months,” she began, “they’d come for me. At first, I fought them. There was this brief moment...maybe a minute...where I’d be free from their control after they dropped the spell that held me prisoner in my own body. But they had apprentices—or other prisoners, I never knew—who’d overpower me until they could order me to obey. Eventually, they just chained me to the wall.”
Her voice was starting to weaken, and Caitlin offered her a fresh cup of tea.
“When they’d come, they’d bring me to their ritual space—where they branded me—and tie me down on an altar next to an elemental. Fire, Air, and Water. Never Earth. I don’t know why. It took three of them to work the spell. It cleaved a person’s element into pieces, and they’d send those pieces into me.”
A violent shudder ran through her, and she set the tea down before she spilled yet another cup.
“It always felt so...wrong. And I don’t think it worked like Celia wanted it to. I lost consciousness every time, and I’d come to with the whole coven throwing spell after spell at me.”
“Why?” Peter asked as he pressed his thigh to hers. The panic and fear ebbed. Not completely, but enough for her to draw an easy breath.
“Punishment, I think. Or maybe they were trying to activate the element they’d just put into me? They never explained. But it felt like they were tearing me apart.”
“Fuckin’ bastards,” Liam spat. “We’re goin’ to end them. We just need to find Mara first. Is there anythin’ else ya’ can tell us about where they had ya’ or where they might have taken Mara? Were ya’ at the compound we destroyed the whole time?”
“I don’t know. I’m sorry. I wish I did.” Tears burned her eyes, and she hunched her shoulders as she wiped them away. She’d give anything to be able to help. Both because they’d protected her and because Sameen thought they were the only ones who might be powerful enough to put an end to the Thirteen forever.
Her brand started to ache, then burn, and she stifled a whimper and pressed her fingers to her side.
Across the room, Farren sucked in a sharp breath. “Sameen? What are ya’ feelin’ right now?”
“The brand. It hurts. But it’s not like before. They aren’t calling for me or trying to control me. It’s like…I’m feeling what they’re doing to someone else.”
“Liam?” Farren turned to the beta wolf. “Do ya’ feel it too?”
“Aye. Just an itch.”
Sameen didn’t understand what was going on. Why would Liam feel the pain from her brand? Or Farren?
The female alpha snorted. “I think all the marks are connected. Ever since Fergus tried to carve me up, I’ve felt the feckin’ thing burn now and again. Never understood why.”
