CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE || DANIEL #2
“Wait. How do we know this isn’t a trick?” Lacey demanded, her gaze narrowing with suspicion. “How do we know you’re not just trying to get Daniel alone? That you’re not trying to separate him from the pack?”
My sister hesitated. That thought had obviously occurred to her as well. “You don’t,” she said, meeting my gaze and holding it. “You’re going to have to trust me. I wouldn’t do that to you, Daniel.”
Rowan was the only member of my family I’d ever felt connected to.
The only one I’d ever felt bad about leaving behind.
We’d grown up together and we’d shared everything.
She was the only one who’d ever treated me like a person, rather than a walking, talking, magical screw-up.
There was a point, once, when I would have trusted her with my life.
But could I trust her now?
If what she was saying was true—if Hunter and Lee were at my family’s mercy—about to be unmade by a spell I had written…
Lacey was right. I couldn’t let that happen.
It didn’t matter what else happened to me. I had to stop it. If that spell was ever going to be cast, it would be by me, with Lee and Hunter’s full and informed consent.
“Lacey, go get the rest of the pack. Use my scent to track me,” I said, shoving my fears aside and steeling myself for what I had to do. “I’m going to stop this. I’m going to fight.”
* * *
Rowan and I burst into a clearing just inside the tree line, less than a mile from the commune. And then I stopped dead.
The moon was already over the horizon, and the ritual had already begun.
My family had arranged glass-encased candles at the compass points of the circle they’d cast. Above them, at waist level, hovered basketball-sized spheres of raw elemental power.
My father was holding a wickedly sharp-looking curved blade—a sickle.
The spell I created called for mixing Hunter and Lee’s blood.
My mother held my journal, motes of pure blue-white magic from an illumination spell hovering above the pages, twisting her features into a strange mix of light and shadow.
Hunter and Lee were in the center of the circle, held in place with a spell Micah had cast on them.
I could tell, because both of my elder brother’s hands glowed with eerie green light.
My mates were standing side by side, their hands joined, blood dripping from between their interlaced fingers and hitting the ground in a steady stream of small droplets that looked black in the dim light.
They weren’t able to move, but I saw the muscles in their legs and arms trembling, as though they were straining against Micah’s spell.
“Stop!” I shouted.
Five pairs of eyes locked onto me.
Surprise flickered across my father’s features. “Daniel,” he said mildly, tilting his head to the side as he regarded me. “I honestly didn’t think you’d have the courage to face us. Perhaps you are a Henbane, after all.”
“Well done,” my mother said, her icy gaze locked on Rowan. Her lips curved into a thin smile. “You saved us the trouble of gathering him. Family works best when we all play our parts.”
Alarm and betrayal rocketed through me.
It was followed immediately by numb disbelief. I truly hadn’t thought Rowan would do this to me.
I’d trusted her.
And apparently, I was wrong. That was foolish of me.
But my sister took a step back, her expression going wide-eyed and stricken. She shot a horrified look at me. “No, I didn’t! I swear. Daniel, you know me. I wouldn’t—”
“Give us a break, Rowan.” Micah’s eyes narrowed as he regarded Rowan with open disdain. “When you took off, you didn’t think we knew exactly where you were going and why?” He rolled his eyes. “We let you go.”
Rowan let out a sharp, shocked breath.
Outrage swept through me. “This stops now!” I thundered. “This is my spell. You have no right to cast it!”
“Don’t be dramatic, dear,” my mother replied, never losing her smile. “We have every right. We’re your family. You’ve made a mistake.” She shot a bemused glance at Hunter and Lee before turning back to me. “A rather large one, I’m afraid—”
“Gee, if only someone could’ve seen something like this coming,” Micah cut in, sneering at me. “Oh, wait. We did.”
My mother’s expression tightened at that, but it was our father who shook his head at Micah, his jaw hard and his eyes cold. “Silence.”
“Daniel, we’re your family,” my mother continued, as if Micah hadn’t interrupted her. “You did the right thing in creating this spell. You knew what you did was wrong and you wanted to fix it. Of course we want to help you do that.”
“I don’t want your help!” Power started to crackle in the air around me, conjured by my fury. “This doesn’t concern you!”
My father’s eyes widened and he even looked vaguely impressed, his gaze lingering on the halo of power around me, drinking it in hungrily.
“Well, now. You’ve become far more capable in your absence, haven’t you?
” A small smile curved across his lips. “Yes, I do believe you’re a true Henbane, after all. ”
“We all understand if your emotions are clouding your judgment,” my mother said.
From the way her eyes danced with delight, she looked every bit as pleased as her husband by this new development.
“It happens to the very best of us. But this boy deserves a normal life. You took that away from him. We’re going to help you correct your mistakes. ”
“And then you’re going to use your power in service of our goals,” my father added. He gestured at the trees we’d emerged from, in the direction of the commune. “Not these… abominations of nature you’ve been living with.”
“No. This should be their choice. Have you even asked them what they want?” I demanded.
My gaze traveled to Hunter and Lee. They were both watching me intently.
I expected to see anger or horror in their expressions. After all, they had every right to be angry and even more right to be horrified by what was happening.
But what I saw instead caused conviction to settle deep within me, driving away the last of my self-doubt: trust. Complete and total trust in me, their mate.
“They can’t choose. They’re broken. They’re two halves of one person,” my father said disdainfully, shaking his head. “What they want is inconsequential.”
“No. I won’t let you do this.”
My mother and father traded a dark look.
“That’s… very unfortunate,” my mother said sadly. And then, without any further warning than that, she began to speak the spell I had written.
My father joined in effortlessly, his voice and power blending with hers. And then Micah, too.
Horror swept through me.
I couldn’t counter their spell—I was just me.
And I was alone.
But I understood the spell I’d written way better than they did. They needed power from the elements they’d conjured at the cardinal points. And, even more importantly, the power they were drawing upon from the light of the moon overhead.
No one witch or warlock could cast a spell of this magnitude without first channeling the powers of nature. Not even a full circle could, not without burning themselves out. And definitely not even my family, powerful though they were.
Crackling streams of raw magic began to flow out of the elements they’d conjured, flowing into Hunter and Lee.
Both of my mates’ eyes went wide with shock.
Hunter’s mouth opened and he let out a cry of pain. Lee sucked in a gasp, his eyes locked on mine. And even now, I could feel, through the bond, how much he trusted me to stop this. How much they both did. Even Hunter.
Summoning every bit of magical power I had in my possession, I turned my attention to the sky above, lifting my hands up. The moon and stars were shining against the rapidly growing darkness and wispy clouds like gray smudges were smeared across the horizon.
Praying my pronunciation was in the ballpark, I spoke a weather-working charm in archaic Gaelic.
I’d never used it before, but I’d come across it in the pack’s journals.
It had originally been invented by a Celtic witch to call up a tempest. She’d used it to sink enemy ships and protect her homeland from Rome’s first attempts to invade the land that would eventually be called Britain.
Wind kicked up in the clearing and the temperature plummeted, the air turning ice-cold in a matter of moments.
The sharp tang of ozone filled the air and power crackled around my hands.
The clouds overhead began to roil and thicken, turning black and dense, caught by the power of my spell, mine to command.
And then I slid my hands over the moon and the storm obeyed immediately, mirroring my movement.
I let out a sharp sigh of relief as the last of the magic summoned by my spell left me and the silver light of the moon vanished from the clearing, concealed by the storm I had conjured.
Rain began to pelt down. Lightning, shockingly bright and close, snaked across the sky, striking a tree in the distance. Thunder boomed an instant later.
The elemental power abruptly stopped flowing into my mates.
Micah must’ve relaxed his binding spell, because Hunter and Lee both collapsed to the ground, on their hands and knees and panting, their fingers biting into the ground, relief sweeping across their features.
My mother and father continued their chant, but their gazes were both locked onto me. While my father looked vaguely impressed, my mother’s expression went grim and wooden. She cast a meaningful look at Micah.
My brother stopped his chanting, glaring at me furiously for a long moment, his jaw working, as if turning over options in his head.
Then triumph swept across his face, and he launched into a spell I didn’t recognize.
It sounded like it might’ve been Old English.
It was a single line that he chanted over and over.
And then he threw his hands up into the sky, power rocketing outward from him.
The storm I had conjured broke down the center, pushed apart by his spell.
The clearing filled with silver light again.