The silence stretched. Melody finally took a ragged breath.
“You have no idea,” she whispered.
Bo’s tail drooped. He shifted behind me. Even he could smell the scent radiating off the fae-witch.
Melody’s fear practically saturated the air.
“Then tell us,” I said carefully.
Melody’s hands began to shake. She gripped the mantelpiece to steady them.
“I wasn’t given a choice. None of us were. The Ashgrove witches, the three who joined my coven—they didn’t transfer willingly. They were placed there.” Her voice cracked. “To make sure I stayed in line.”
My wolf’s hackles rose.
Samuel’s jaw tightened. “Who placed them?”
Melody shook her head, her breath coming faster. “I can’t. You don’t understand what she?—”
She stopped dead, her last word hanging in the air like a live wire.
Samuel and I exchanged a sharp look.
Melody had caught her own slip. Her face crumpled with something between terror and despair.
“Melody,” I said, my tone steady despite my thumping heart. “Who is the witch threatening you and the Ashgrove coven?”
“I can’t say her name.” Her voice was barely audible. “It’s not that I won’t. I literally can’t. She made sure of that.”
Goosebumps peppered my skin. My white wolf powers surged defensively, rattling the lights and the ornaments on the mantelpiece.
Melody froze where she stood, the blood draining from her already pale face.
Bo whined and butted my leg gently. Samuel came up to me and placed a steadying hand on my shoulder.
Their touch grounded me. I blew out air and reined in the savage energy shaking my bones.
“What do you mean, she made sure?” Samuel repeated.
My alpha’s tone had dropped to something dangerously soft.
Melody lifted her eyes to meet ours. For a split second, something rippled across her gaze—a flicker of darkness that didn’t belong to her, like a shadow passing behind glass.
Coldness drenched the sitting room. My breath misted in front of my face.
Bo yelped and shot behind the settee. Samuel’s wolf growled, the sound resonating across the mate bond with the power of an alpha.
I gritted my teeth.
It was the same awful magic I’d sensed outside the Lincoln sisters’ clinic.
Then it was gone.
Melody sagged against the mantelpieceas the room temperature returned to normal and the air became breathable once more.
“It’s inside me,” she said hoarsely. “What she did. It’s like a hand around my throat that squeezes whenever I try to—” She broke off, wincing as if struck by sudden pain. Her hand flew to her temple. “Please. You have to stop asking.”
My heart slammed against my ribs. It was obvious how much the witch was suffering.
