Chapter 20
Blaze
Headstrong? Sure. Foolhardy? Yes. I knew my mate was an ‘act now, ask questions later’ type.
I didn’t realize she was a complete idiot.
She had cut me completely off; I could not sense her whatsoever.
My tattoo burned like a motherfucker. If I didn’t shift, my dragon was going to crawl his way out of my skin, leaving me behind in pieces.
I kept thinking I felt cracks of magic in the air, but I couldn’t explain them.
“Sammy?” Nothing. I hadn’t expected anything.
All I knew was that they felt wrong. It was time to get back to Anthony’s.
I was worried about Sammy, but I had no idea where she was, and the dragons had strength in numbers.
It wasn’t like I didn’t have a decent idea of what she was doing, I just didn’t know where. Shifting, I took to the air. Flying low over the trees, I headed back toward Anthony’s house. He should have had most of the clan gathered by now. We had to protect each other.
About halfway there, a sound like a tree limb breaking cracked over top of me, and I was hit by what felt like lightning.
I plummeted through the trees, almost hitting the ground before I corrected myself and landed.
Looking around to try to figure out what had happened, I spotted a young girl.
For a second, I thought it was Sammy, but she looked like a child, and she was bawling. “I don’t want to do this,” she yelled.
“You’ll do it!”
Joan. I knew her voice, though I’d never met her. Or had I?
“If you don’t, you’ll be useless to me. I’ll send you back to the foster home to live as a human. Don’t I treat you better than they did?”
The little girl, who had to be related to Sammy somehow, looked terrified. The shapes of their faces and their builds were too similar for them not to be related.
I was stronger as a dragon, so I didn’t shift back. This was a dangerous situation, and it was my best chance of defending myself.
The girl began to sob, and as she did, the earth rumbled below my feet. And then, the sound was cut off. All I could hear was the little girl. She looked up at me with big ice blue eyes. “I’m so sorry.”
A woman appeared behind the girl and it wasn’t hard to guess who she was, but if she was here, then where was Sammy? Had she hurt her? My rage overwhelmed me, and my dragon roared, loud enough to hurt Joan and the little girl, but Joan didn’t flinch. The child clapped her hands over her ears.
“I was surprised to learn you were still alive,” Joan said in a calm voice. “That will have to be remedied.” She took one step forward. “Shift.”
I roared at her again, sparks shooting out of my throat as my fire begged to be released. But if I did, I might hurt the girl, who was obviously a pawn.
Joan stepped back and put her hand on the girl’s arm. “Do it.”
Once again, her big blue eyes looked so sorry. She hated this.
Then pain washed over me. I roared, fire erupting from my maw but it didn’t get far. The little girl’s magic forced my shift. Seconds later, I was back in my human body, heaving. “What did you do to me?”
Joan shrugged. “I need you in this form, that’s all. I have to do what I have to do, after all.”
Somehow, I was anchored to the ground. Now I understood why Sammy had been worried. I was completely helpless, and the massive amount of rage bubbling inside me did me no good.
Joan walked forward and the closer she got, the more wrong she felt. She reminded me of the witch who took my parents’ lives. Her magic felt sick, wrong.
Reaching up, she gripped my face in an iron grasp, her nails digging into my skin. I smelled blood, my blood. It made her smile. “You’re going to make a wonderful sacrifice.”
The ground rumbled underneath us again. Joan staggered backwards, looking around in terror. Her wide eyes betrayed her fear. “It’s not possible,” she gasped.
Sammy appeared just outside the ward around us. She looked absolutely murderous. Pride replaced the fury inside me. My lady was a bad-ass. “You won’t take another breath if you lay one hand on him,” Sammy said in an even tone that somehow carried across the woods.
“How did you get out?” Joan yelled, spittle flying from her lips as she lost control. “How?”
Sammy just smiled and clasped her hands together, like an innocent little girl. “Magic.”
Sammy’s smile hardened as she placed her hand against the ward, which suddenly I could see. It was a sickly dark gray. Cracks formed in the barrier as Sammy’s expression changed and became even scarier.
Joan began to scream, and Sammy looked over to the girl behind Joan. The resemblance was too strong. They were first cousins, if not sisters. “Is this your fight?” she asked the girl.
“No, I just want to be safe again.”
Sammy nodded. “Okay. When the ward breaks, follow my magic to my cottage. There are others there who will keep you safe.”
“You’ll meet your death if you leave me.” Joan turned to grab the girl, but the ward broke then, and the mini-Sammy disappeared as Joan screamed.
I could move. Ahhh, this was better.
Joan seemed to be trying to do the same, poof out, but she couldn’t. Sammy curled her fingers at the woman and smiled again. So much power and anger in that smile.
It was hot, really.
Joan’s eyes moved wildly around as Sammy walked over to me. Her power felt different somehow. She kept her gaze on the former high priestess, but she asked me, “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” My face was already healing, thanks to my dragon, but Sammy looked over at me and got even angrier. I felt my cheek and sure enough, there was blood. That’s what had pissed her off.
Joan yelled out in pain, no doubt a reaction to Sammy’s anger. “Joan, I sentence you to death for the crimes of the murders, or ordering the murders, of the Grove Holler coven, my parents, Blaze’s parents, and who knows how many others. I am your judge, jury, and executioner.”
I couldn’t have been more enraptured by her and her passion, even in the midst of Sammy about to execute a dark witch. She was magnificent. And though my chest ached when she mentioned my parents, nothing was righter than the fact that Joan had to die.
“You’re nothing,” Joan spat. “That’s why your parents gave you up.”
It was just enough of a jab to make Sammy recoil and it was enough for Joan to break free.
“Get back!” Sammy yelled. “This isn’t going to be pretty.”
“I won’t leave you alone.” I stayed just behind her as she faced Joan. I didn’t want to get in her way, but I also needed to be here to be her backup.
“I’m not alone,” she said in a soft voice.
And just then, I felt them. Witches walked forward out of the trees, enough to form a circle around us and Joan.
Joan lowered her hands and looked around in stunned silence.
Her panic was glaringly obvious. “Please,” she whispered. “Please spare me. Be merciful.”
Too little, too late. The witches walked forward and around me.
Sammy merged with their circle, and they all joined hands.
The best I could tell, they stripped Joan of her magic.
Right in front of my eyes, she began to age, like going from a forty-year-old woman to a ninety-year-old woman in the span of a minute.
And as she continued aging—good grief, how old was this woman?
—she became not much more than a skeleton and skin. But then it stopped.
Sammy leaned forward. “I changed my mind. I’m not going to kill you.
I think it much crueler to leave you like this, a mortal, knowing that for the rest of your numbered days, you will live without magic.
You will not have a coven.” Sammy slashed her hand in front of Joan, and the shell of a woman cried out in pain.
“And I just took the last of your magic.”
“Your curses are done,” Sammy whispered. She waved her hand one more time, and Joan disappeared.
Sammy turned to me looking utterly exhausted. She sighed and began to fall. I lurched forward and caught her before she hit the ground in a faint.