Page 100 of The Witch’s Daughter

Thank the… Maybe we’ll start thanking Science like Mom to be on the safe side.

Fresh air came through the open doorway and I took my first full untainted breath in hours. Sarah stood just outside the cage, nervously backing away.

“Thank you!” I gushed, scrambling to crawl out with Calla right on my heels.

“Wait,” Calla said as Sarah moved to the opening of the utility tent we’d been placed in, right between the crates and unused equipment, because apparently that’s where discarded witches belonged. “Why are you helping us?

“This isn’t right.” Sarah shook her head. Her eyes were blown wide with fear as she peeked outside. “He said we had a choice. None of them are choosing. Hurry and get out of here. I’m going to find my Alpha.”

“You heard her,” Calla said as Sarah ran. “Let’s go.”

“Hang on… She said, ‘None of them.’” I paused outside the tent, turning to the direction we’d been dragged. A warlock on patrol walked down the path, and I pulled Calla back to hide us both.

“No.” Calla stomped her foot. “I don’t want to play hero like some cocksure alpha wolf today. I’ve already been tied up, cut, and caged.”

“It’s fine.” I took a deep breath, feeling my power surge through my veins again.

We can do this. My wolf nodded.

“Go tell Jaxon to find my mom and aunt Kera and tell them all what’s going on,” I said.

“And abandon you so you can hold it over my head for the next decade?” Calla asked. “Screw that.”

I eyed her warily as the guard passed. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

She shrugged. “I’ve had visions where we’re both a little older than this, so I’m assuming we don’t die today.”

That was… oddly comforting. “Speaking of visions, did you end up remembering what yours was from yesterday?”

“Lots of blood and damnation. Something about the old gods descending and not completing the ritual,” she said.

“Makes sense.” I nodded, recalling how foggy Gram said visions could be. “Sounds like it’s about to come to pass. But we’ll stop it. Ready? On three. One… Two…”

“Let’s just get this over with.” Calla pushed past me.

We jogged down the path and ended up back where we’d started, at the rear entrance to the religious tent.

“That blood wasn’t there this morning, right?” Calla pointed at the dirt path mixed with blood and stomped over with boots.

I sniffed. Some of it was ours, and some clearly wasn’t. The intuition I’d tapped into the past few days was screaming at me to hurry up.

It was good to have her back.

We ducked back into the tent with the ceremony, sneaking in behind the female statue of Aphrodite with her loving hands ready to cradle the evil before her.

The warlocks in black that had helped Vincent during the trials now stood as guards keeping the remaining congregation in their seats, while others paraded a group of six or so witches I’d seen on the field down the center. Glassy-eyed and moving slow, the witches were led to the stage.

Vincent stood on the dais with blood running in a river down the trough, chanting as he held the golden knife aloft. Quick as lightning, the blade slashed a witch’s throat, and her body toppled upon the pile growing at Vincent’s feet.

“I’m going to be sick,” Calla hissed, pausing for a moment as we hid behind the statue of some saintly-looking monk I’d never seen before. “He can’t actually think he’ll get away with this. They’re going to find out.”

But it didn’t matter what Alphas or powerful witches were just outside his gates. In here, he was getting away with it and someone needed to stop him.

We’ve got this.

Magic thrummed through my veins as a feminine anger unlike any I’d ever known burned within me. I might not have known these witches, and I may have been cut off from my true nature for years, but every one of them was my sister.

I rounded the next statue—Hecate smiled down at me—and grabbed the warlock who came through the flap of the tent.