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“Look at the little hunter dance,” a witch crooned.
The air stirred as the witch grappled with someone. They were so close, I could reach out and touch them, if only I could lift my arms or even an eyelid. I focused on the blood thrumming through my veins and the earth, strong beneath me. I guided that strength into my body and forced myself to have patience.
“Always so damn stubborn,” Josephine purred above me. Her skirt brushed my hand. “Just like your mother.”
Her warm hand cupped my forehead, as gently as a mother would to her child to check for a fever. The sensation only lasted a single breath.
Josephine attacked.
Magic—pure and violent and heavy like death—rattled my head. I screamed, but no sound passed through my lips. My very brain ached. I fought her spell, but I couldn’t stop it from spreading. She was done trapping me in cages and putting me to sleep.
“I won’t simply kill you, dearest,” she promised. I could barely hear her over the roar in my ears. “I’m only going to keep you with me another way.”
The aching spread through my limbs, into my heart, and, beyond that, to my well of magic. To the one sacred place I could always tap into in time of trouble—to the one place most witches would never dare trespass, even when faced with their greatest enemy.
Her spell pulled me apart from the inside and ripped my magic, my energy, my everything into her.
She Embraced me.
She whisked all the power I’d gathered from the earth away from me. Her hand—so horrifically gentle—sucked it through my body and into hers. I quickly grew cold, but I was too separated from myself to even shiver.
It was like a brain-freeze on steroids that seized my whole body. I scrambled and screamed and fought, but I didn’t twitch a muscle. I tried to conjure a defense spell, but I couldn’t grasp my magic. It slipped through my control like sand.
“Shh,” Josephine crooned. “Don’t fight it—it’ll only hurt worse.”
Distantly, I knew she was right. She was fighting with the strength of six witches. I was no match for her. It was far too late for a defensive spell, even if I could access my powers. My thoughts raced, too quickly for me to launch any of them into action, and the aching lessened.
This was it.
I was dying.
Chapter Thirty
Walker
The dark witch crept closer, while her duplicate held me in a headlock. The witch’s stare was icy as it bore into mine. Her mouth was set in a smug line. The other triplet put a hand on her shoulder, urging the witch to finish me off.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Josephine reach down to Freya. The blonde witch’s lips curled back in disgust, and her gaze shot to Josephine. Her duplicates’ concentration was broken too.
I slammed my foot down on the top of my captor’s foot, and she hissed in pain. Her grip loosened enough for me to slip free. I grabbed my sword, and its flames whooshed back to life. One of the witches clawed at my back, but she was too late. My sword swung for her head and thoroughly separated it from her shoulders.
That’s an image for future nightmares.
I swung at her sisters, but they dissipated into puddles of water.
And that’s going to be a question for Freya.
I looked up, and my eyes locked on her still form. Her skin’s usual creamy glow had become a sickly yellow. Her hair had lost its fire and framed her blank face in limp sheets. Arion whinnied like a maniac, but electrical currents, summoned by a small troupe of frantically chanting witches, corralled him.
All around us, her coven was blockaded from coming to her aid, but there were less witches fighting for the opposing team than there had been. Confusion and dread warred inside me.
Power, stronger than ever, hummed in the air. It rattled the breath in my lungs and the blood in my veins. And weirder, it felt familiar.
Horror annihilated my courage.
Josephine Embraced Freya.
Seeing a witch Embraced, rather than just hearingabout it, was anough to make even devil-worshippers pause.
