Calma snorted. “Because poor Joel here had to earn back our respect. Didn’t you, Joel.”
“Yes,” he replied, his tone so devoid of emotion, I felt like I was staring at a complete stranger. Where was the man we’d laughed with? Shared a home with?
I’d never felt more betrayed in my life. He’d listened in on all our conversations, because we trusted him. He knew how much his coven had hurt us, but still he betrayed us.
“Why even do all of this?!” I asked, gesturing around us. “Why did you take my sister, why do you kill innocent people? What’s your goal in all of this?!” I was tired of waiting around for them to casuallyinform us of why they were destroying lives. Tired of wondering why. Why. Why. Why.
Theodore snarled at me. “We don’t owe you any explanation. You came into our territory and from the crystals you carry, you did so with the intent of war. So,youwere the ones declaring war, not us. But fret not. We will make this quick.”
A flash filled the sky and I was too late to realize what it was.A signal. The hooded witches all pulled off their hoods, and in unison, they threw crystals at us.
They’d made the first move. But it still felt weird to fight back when we had no idea if the witches fighting us were forced to fight or not. Knowing we could die here if we didn’t fight back, was enough to swallow the guilt as I touched my necklace, feeling the roughened edge of the crystal I needed right now. All of this took seconds, but it felt like an eternity before a ward snapped in place in front of us. The other witches had done the same as me, just like we’d agreed to, releasing a personal ward around us, and with it, we’d closed our alliesin, too. With the ward in place, their crystals broke on impact, the ward crushing anything that came close.
We weren’t trained to fight, not like they were, and a chilling realization hit me, that they’d already killed hundreds of supernatural species, meaning they had experience killingus.
Theodore stepped forward, sneering at our see-through blue domed ward. They hadn’t expected us to react fast enough to protect ourselves, that was obvious.
I blinked and then a figure stood behind Theodore, a vampire from the looks of it, his hand holding a knife to Theodore’s throat. It all happened so fast. He was there in an instant, cutting into Theodore’s throat, and then he was gone again.
“Did you see that?!” Peter whispered in surprise. I hummed, not able to look away from where Theodore lay slumped on the ground, his neck bleeding out, his eyes vacant. He was clearly dead.
The Silver Lock Coven finally realized what had just happened. Lirissa and Calma screamed in outrage, and with their reactions, came violence. They acted on impulse, throwing crystals around frantically, like they hoped to hit whoever it was that killed Theodore, but they only managed to hurt their own in their blind fury. Witches fell all around them. Thescreaming. It was something I would never forget.
I felt a presence behind us, like a gentle wind. I shivered, afraid to turn, to see what horrors would wait for me when I did. “Hey, Severin?” a voice whispered.
Sev stiffened. “Alec?” he whispered back, his tone filled with surprise and disbelief.
“The one and only,” the man, Alec, said.
There wasn’t time for pleasantries, because Lirissa and Calma were seething at us now, screaming for their coven to fight us. It was pure chaos looking out from the safety of our ward. So many witches were laying around bleeding out. Their remaining two leaders acting carelessly and with too much emotion. That had cost them coven members, and precious crystals. It was our plan to protect ourselves so they would waste crystals fighting the ward. It was also the reason we’d spent so much time and magic on making it that much stronger.
Our plan was working; they’d wasted enough and soon we would fight back. And with Alec here, a vampire who could somehow turn invisible, it seemed we were changing the game. I just hoped it would be enough to win this thing.
Just when I’d started thinking we might have a shot at winning, the ward around us started to crack. It was like glass, slowly the crackswould become too much and it would crash and disappear around us. We huddled together, almost like we knew our time was up, soon we would have to fight. We would have to kill. I couldn’t think about that right now, I would deal with the horror of taking a life if I survived.
A loud snap reverberated around us, and then, the ward was gone.
Chapter 34
Severin
It was pure and utter chaos.
The ward keeping us safe was gone, and now the Silver Lock Coven was moving in, trying to force us closer together, as they fought us from all sides. I could only use my strength to maim and kill those that came close, but most just threw crystals that I dodged while keeping Felix safe. The werewolves had all shifted,their wolf forms gliding around the Silver Lock witches, making the witches miss their targets with their crystals.
Calma’s body was shaking with anger as she stomped closer to us, her gaze locked on Dina, for some weird reason. “Can’t yousee?!What don’t you understand?! You fight for the wrong side!”
Joel was right behind Calma, his expression a calm mask of indifference. Like a robot. It was unnerving.
“You dare tell me I’m in the wrong!” Dina yelled back, their words muffled by the screams surrounding us. “You kill for nothing but your own twisted goals! You’re sick!”
Calma did not like that.“Sick?!”she screeched. “You work for vampires! Like a peasant! Don’t think we don’t know everything already!” She threw a crystal at Dina, but I used a big crystal that Felix had made for me, to bat it away from us, hoping it would hit one of their own witches.
Cole was behind us in his wolf form, pacing, waiting for his perfect opportunity. But he was soon attacked by three of the Silver Lock witches, almost as if they wanted to fight Dina’s protectors. Felix was dodging and throwing crystals beside me, his body heat a comfort in this stressful fight.
“At least I am not a murderer,” Dina replied, her tone firm,proud.
Calma screamed, her hand ready to strike Dina’s chest with a glowing crystal, but before I could step in and push Dina out of the way, Joel was there.
