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I needed to stop them, now. But attacking Clayton and Cora with my powers wasn’t an option, not when I was using almost everything I had maintaining the ward.

The wind whipped more fiercely, and the trees beside Clayton shuddered, a dark hole opening in the wide trunk, something awful moving in the darkness.

Azel.

Gripping the edge, his ghostly form struggled. He dug black claws into the trunk, wind whipping and biting at him as he tried to claw his way out of Hell. Clayton’s eyes filled with excitement as he continued to chant.

Oh god, Azel was going to free himself.

His head, torso, and hips were out.

Clayton turned to him and raised his arms in the air, calling with everything he had, face red, veins bulging.

“Azel won’t help you get your family back, Cora, he’ll kill you,” I yelled.

“You’re lying!” she screamed. “We made a deal. He made a deal.”

“Azel doesn’t give a fuck about your deal.”

She shook her head frantically. “This is your fault. If you’d handed yourself over to us, we wouldn’t have needed him. You did this.” Hatred filled her eyes. “I curse you and your entire family.”

Azel turned to me and grinned, then his spirit began to fragment, being sucked into Clayton.

He was coming, and he was going to kill us all.

Fear took hold, and my magic faltered, the ward almost dropping. I cried out in defiance, in anger. “No!”

No, I would not let them do this.

There was only one way to counter that kind of darkness—with light.

So tilting my head back, I screamed words I had never said before in my life but had read many times in Else’s library. “I invoke coven Thornheart, mothers, daughters, sisters past. I call on Betsie Thornheart, Lilly and Rosemary.”

“I call on Selene and Elizabeth,” Else called.

“I call on Agnes and Morag,” Mom added.

Iris squeezed my fingers. “I call on Delilah and Elsbeth.”

“I call on Prudence and Daisy,” Mags finished.

The ward shimmered, strengthening as the ghostly figures of our ancestors appeared around us, including our beloved grandmother. One by one, they raised their hands and aimed them at the ward, at Clayton and the yawning portal in the side of the tree, at Azel almost completely free, his spirit being slowly dragged into Clayton.

The hole started narrowing, and Azel’s spirit twisted and writhed in place.

Warmth bathed us, power surging all around us. Light danced around the thick trunk and the portal kept narrowing.

Azel was suddenly sucked back, pulled from Clayton completely, and dragged back to Hell. Clayton screamed in outrage.

A howl rang through the night. Closer this time.

Then a hound, my hound, exploded from the trees, knocking Clayton to the ground, and tore him to pieces.

The tree closed immediately. The darkness, now drowned in light, lifted.

Then Warrick shifted, standing naked and covered in Clayton’s blood. He turned to Cora, who was backing up in terror, but Ren strode forward, blocking her. He was dirty and naked, and even in his human form, he was all animal. My Ren was still gone from his eyes as he bared his teeth, stopping her in her tracks.

Warrick snarled, lifted a hand, and crooked a finger at me. “Get the fuck over here, dove.”