Chapter 37

 

 

Edison couldn’t heal Hugh and Dean with his magic, so blood kept trickling from their wounds, working my anger in a fever pitch. Power rumbled through my body, even more fighting to escape the well at my core.

“I don’t mean to alarm anyone,” Brannigan said, shifting his weight from foot to foot. “But I can sense something … wrong in the distance. It’s alive, but bloodless.”

Oh, what a jolly thought.

But I flashed Brannigan a razor-edged grin. It turned out an enemy was exactly what I needed.

My shy librarian blinked in surprise, a tentative smile crossing his dark face even as he eyed me worriedly.

“Give me an incantation,” I demanded of Edison, holding his black gaze until his mouth flicked into a savage smirk.

“Something dark and forbidden?” he offered, his eyes raking down my body. Less in a sexy way than a checking I was ready way. “And completely vicious?”

“ Yes ,” I replied, my heart pumping faster. I needed to draw blood immediately.

Edison moved closer, moulding his body to mine—and not reacting when Brannigan leapt into the air and transformed into a madly flapping bat for no conceivable reason. [139]

I gasped, watching him swoop through the sky, wondering what the hell he was up to.

Edison’s voice was low as he spoke in my ear, lips caressing the sensitive shell. “If this thing’s bloodless, it’s probably a witch experiment gone wrong.”

He scraped his teeth across my neck, and I went hot all over. I knew he was trying to distract me from my destructive fury but damn, it was working. “You can’t control their blood, which I know you’d love.”

“Fuck, yes,” I rasped, either to the blood control or his tongue dragging up my throat. Even I didn’t know which. But I kept my gaze narrowed on Brannigan’s bat form as he flapped through the sky.

If more vultures came, if they hurt him…

I shook hard, power detonating like thunder through my body, desperate for a way out, a way to destroy, to obliterate everything that stood between us and winning this trial.

“I have a spell you’ll enjoy.” Edi pressed his hips into my ass, his hardness evident. Ooooh, did my cruel witch get turned on by violence, too? See, I knew we were soulmates for a reason. “Bones to bind, bones to break, bones to crush and bend and quake.”

“Cute poem,” I remarked in a tone scarily close to Dean’s killer voice, not taking my eyes off my librarian bat and remembering the creak of nooses swinging in the wind. How would I help him if something happened up there?

Every part of my body tensed at the high pitched screech that cut through Edi’s reply, my soul going on high alert and my rage honed to a killer edge.

“Brannigan,” I breathed, sharing a panicked look with Edison.

Slasher raced past us in a blur of dark clothes and streaming hair, and my stomach dropped. If Slasher was running, it was bad.

Really fucking bad.

My boots pounded the jagged stone as I ran after him without a second thought, wincing when my muscles protested the sudden movement. I needed to work out more; I’d slacked off in the past few weeks, and I badly needed to get back in the gym. Another thing for my post-trial to-do list.

If we survived, obviously.

Magic thrummed in the air around me, urging me to take more into me, and my power-hungry heart practically salivated. I wanted to blow up this whole damn mountain range.

“ Slasher? ” I shouted, losing sight of him ahead of me and suddenly unable to breathe.

I threw my stare around me—Edison, Dean, Hugh running behind me, and wheeling through the sky in bat form: Brannigan. But Slasher…

I couldn’t see Slasher in front of me, but I could clearly picture him swinging from the gallows in my mind, his long, inky hair tangled around his gaunt face and his eyes hollow and bloody.

“They’re going to be fine,” Dean said calmly, sprinting alongside me and brushing up against my soul through our bond. “One’s an ancient vampire, and the other’s a psycho, they’ll be fine.”

“You don’t know what’s out there!” I snapped, my voice cracking as emotion forced through my cold rage.

We all faltered when Slasher screamed my name.

I didn’t give a shit that he was deadly and unhinged; he was my mate and nothing could hold me back when he screamed like that.

“Bones to bind, bones to break, bones to crush and bend and quake,” I murmured under my breath, gasping as magic exploded from me, so strong it lifted my ponytail off my shoulder.

Slasher screamed again, not even my name this time, and power rushed like an electric storm through my veins, the lid knocked off my well until magic filled every part of me.

“I’m coming, my ‘ccino,” I breathed, even though he couldn’t hear me. “I’m coming.”