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There was no denying the incredibly strong pull I had to him. Against all my better judgment, I wanted him. I wanted to be close to him.

It was fucked up, wrong, illogical.

I paced to the other side of my room and back. Draven and I couldn’t be more unsuited.

I looked down. My hands were shaking. Brody’s hated face filled my mind again, as it did so often, and I shook my head, forcing the image away. He’d love this. Watching me squirm. And he’d love that I was scared out of my mind. Terrified of what this all meant.

Brody used to say he liked when I was scared because it gave him an excuse to hold me. But that wasn’t it. No, he just liked me scared. Period. It turned him on, made him feel powerful.

What if Draven was right? Could we truly be mates? The answer echoed through my mind, and I grabbed for the doorframe.

My thigh tingled, the markings the mother gave me suddenly making themselves heard.

I closed my eyes. Not again. Not now.

But that feeling was there once more, and this time even stronger. I had no choice but to let it guide me. As much as I would rather stay in bed and pretend the last forty-eight hours hadn’t happened, I had to go with this feeling. I needed to pass this goddamn task.

I looked down at my thigh. The markings were closer now than they’d been earlier today.

Time was running out.

Nia followed me out the door and down the stairs. I slid my feet into my boots, pulled on my coat, and walked out into the night. The moon was full and the air crisp. I almost expected to find Draven still here, but there was no sign of him, and I didn’t feel him either.

The thought stopped me in my tracks. That wasn’t freaking normal. Before he’d shown up, I hadn’t gone around just sensing people willy-nilly.

He was right, wasn’t he?

I’d tried to ignore the feeling building inside me, but I couldn’t anymore.

We were…shit. We were mates.

I shoved it away.

Now was not the time to panic.

The tingling across my thigh increased, and I let it guide me. Nia and I rushed along the path toward our cemetery. I was being called back to the same place I’d found Charity, wasn’t I? The feeling of urgency was overwhelming. Bram and Art had removed the tree, but the hole beside the path was still there. I walked around it, the feeling that this was where I needed to be reaching fever pitch. There was a small wooded area on either side of the path, and I moved deeper into it.

What felt like an alarm wailed in my head as my boots sank into soil that should be hard-packed like everywhere else but wasn’t.

“Nia, stay on the path, keep watch.”

Nia protect Iris. Nia keep watch.

“Good girl.” I shone my phone’s flashlight at the ground. The earth had recently been turned over. I crouched and propped my phone against a rock on the ground, then brushed away the dead leaves. My gut churned as I scraped some of the soil away. More. Until I was digging frantically with my bare hands. My stitches pulled, and my arms ached, but I didn’t stop.

I touched something. Canvas?

I scraped away more dirt, exposing the corner of the heavy fabric, and pulled it back. The stench hit me before I saw her face.

I stumbled back, gasping for air.

But I knew this was what I’d find, hadn’t I? As soon as I felt that soft soil, I knew another body was here. God, it was unrecognizable. Maggots had cleaned away most of the flesh on their face, but they were wearing woman’s clothes. And these weren’t old bones this time. Whoever this was hadn’t been here that long.

I couldn’t hide this. This was too big. It may be my task, but I needed to tell my family, and I needed to call the council. A witch had been murdered and somehow placed on our property without us knowing.

Hours later, the body had been removed by Ren’s parents, who were both morticians, and identified through dental records. Imogen Lewis. One of the missing witches.

What the hell was going on? And why had she been buried on our property? A cold knot formed in my stomach. The mother had tasked me to find these girls, and I’d failed, I’d failed Imogen. I was failing everyone.