Chapter Twenty-Three
Freya
I stared into the campfire to burn the tears I refused to shed. Mere feet away, my salvation slept. In and out, the chimera breathed steadily. She didn’t twist or turn but maintained her elegance even in slumber.
For a moment, I envied her. I had slept poorly since my mother died. Though I had hoped eliminating her killer would’ve provided me peace, it had only added another face to my endless nightmares.
Across the fire, Ryder growled.
“Dear Goddess,” I muttered, “if you’d been this possessive with me, I would’ve had you neutered.”
“I know you, Frey,” Ryder said in that rough, low voice. A hint of his wolf had crept into it upon finding its mate and refused to leave. “I know what you’re thinking, but I won’t let it happen.”
“You’d rather Walker die,” I said, “you’d rather let me and my coven and Cadence die all for a girl who hates you?”
“She’s my mate,” he said matter-of-factly.
“She’s tricking you,” I argued.
She must be.
Ryder snarled. “My wolf could never be tricked into misidentifying its mate.”
“Wolves also don’t mate outside their species,” I argued. “How do you explain that?”
“There’s a wolf in her,” Ryder insisted and shot the chimera a longing glance. “I know it.”
I stewed in anger and tried to come up with a way to ditch Ryder and contact the High Witch. Beside me, Walker choked on a snore but didn’t move from where he laid on the beach beside me. He slept as soundly, though not as gracefully, as the chimera. On his other side, Cady slumbered. Crickets chirped, and the ocean’s waves gently lapped against the sand. My eyelids grew heavier, but I refused to answer sleep’s call.
Ryder’s voice was hoarse. “Please, Frey. Just get some rest. We can make a group decision about what to do in the morning.”
“Coven Mothers don’t make group decisions,” I said. The words tasted wrong on my tongue.
“You’re not Coven Mother yet,” Ryder argued and said more quietly, “I don’t want to fight you. This-this is confusing for me too. You know I, of all people, have mixed feelings about the whole mate thing, but I can’t let you take her. Not tonight.”
Right. Ryder’s mother had left their pack upon finding her mate. She now had an entire new life built without her first son. Guilt gnawed at me for forgetting. Though he never spoke of her, her absence had always weighed heavily on his heart and on Kai’s.
“Okay,” I conceded and ignored the worry tightening my chest. “We’ll figure out what to do in the morning. I don’t want to fight you either.”
I laid my head on the life jacket that would serve as my pillow for the night, but I couldn’t quiet my thoughts.
“It sucks,” I mumbled. “In any other circumstance, I would be thrilled for you.”
“In any other circumstance,” he replied, “I would do anything to keep you safe. Same for the kid, too.”
I smiled and shut my eyes. “And Walker.”
“The cowboy’s all right,” he grumbled, “when he isn’t hitting on my mate.”
I chuckled. “Or your ex-girlfriend.”
“For real,” he agreed but sighed. “I was kind of coming around to that, though, until she screwed things up with him.”
I opened one eye to glare. “You know the rules. It can’t go anywhere.”
“You didn’t care about the rules when you risked everything to save him,” he argued, “and don’t try to bullshit me and tell me you regret it.”
“I don’t.” I closed my eyes again. The weight of so many lives pressed down on me. “But not all of us can make decisions based on love.”
Ryder whistled. “Love, huh?”
I didn’t feel like joking.
“Lust, love, affection,” I said, “whatever you want to call it, it’s not how witches operate. We make decisions for the good of the coven and for the good of our sisters. For the glory of the Goddess.”
“Sounds lonely,” Ryder said.
I swallowed. “Good night, Ryder.”
He sighed. “Good night, Frey.”
I cringed at the nickname, but Ryder didn’t notice. He was too infatuated with his so-called mate. I wasn’t sure how Elle had spelled him, but I knew that she had. There was no wolf in her to call to a mate. She had merely found what she thought was a lifeline in Ryder.
Her lifeline had cost her the lives of her parents.
Ryder had been the one to leave them behind to save the chimera, but she probably knew he would do so. Her grief was as staged as her mate bond to Ryder. I blocked out any thoughts that claimed otherwise, but as Ryder’s breaths grew steadier, guilt churned my stomach.
Depending on how intense the chimera’s spell was, Ryder might never believe Elle to be anything but his mate, and he would probably never forgive me for fulfilling the Blood Oath.
I remembered how Walker had begged me to find a way to spare Elle, but there was no other way. There was only the choice between everything I held dear and the chimera.
I had already risked my coven to save Walker.
Regardless of the marks it would leave on my soul to place the chimera at the High Witch’s mercy, I couldn’t risk them again. Though Walker, Ryder, and probably even Cadence would loathe me for it, at least fulfilling the Blood Oath would allow them to live long enough to loathe me.
Bearing their hatred would be easier than bearing their deaths.
With that thought, I snuck away from camp to do what I had to do.
???
The early streaks of dawn woke me. I leisurely sat up and wiped the gritty sand from my eyes. When they finally cleared, I realized Ryder was gone.
Did he see me—
Elle slept soundly beside me. My gaze shot to Walker or rather, where Walker should have been. Cadence snored and beside me, Arion stretched.
“Where did they go?” I asked him.
He laid back down and crossed his front paws. I sighed in frustration and shook Cady’s shoulder.
“Wake up,” I urged. “Your brother is gone.”
Her emerald eyes snapped open, and she sat up.
“For how long?” she asked and searched our surroundings. “Ryder’s missing too? Maybe they went to get breakfast.”
Though I hoped she was right, my gut told me something was wrong.
“They would’ve woken one of us to keep watch,” I argued.
Cadence blew out a breath and brushed a stray hair out of her face.
“Okay,” she said slowly. “What do we do?”
Find him, instinct urged, but I glanced at the chimera, who still, somehow, slept. The High Witch was not set to arrive until sundown, and I couldn’t risk letting Elle out of my sights before then. I didn’t trust her with Cadence, no matter how sweet she pretended to be. Elle could be conniving when she wanted to be.
I threw my life jacket at Elle, and she yelped, but sat up and rubbed her eyes.
“You could’ve just tapped my shoulder,” she grumbled.
Regardless of the creature’s feigned disdain for Ryder, Elle noted his absence immediately.
Of course, I thought. He’s her only path to safety.
“Where did he go?” she asked.
“That’s what we need to find out,” I said. “Walker is missing as well. We need to move. Now.”
As I stood, my thoughts raced. If the Sovereign had sent his wolves after the chimera, the other Leaders had probably sent their own teams too. They could’ve taken the guys as some kind of trap.
Magic emanated from the island itself—there was any number of creatures who could’ve attacked them.
I cast a magical net and searched for Walker’s familiar power. He wasn’t in the surrounding area. I spread it wider and found nothing. Panic thudded in my heart.
“I found him,” Cadence said. The girl’s eyes were squeezed shut. “His power is muted, but it’s there. Halfway across the island.”
I checked again, more slowly this time, and caught Walker’s flicker of power. What usually felt like a thunderstorm was reduced to a mere spark, but it called to my magic all the same.
I studied the forest. “The jungle is too thick for Arion to take us there. We’ll have to hike. Quickly.”
“What about…” Elle hesitated. “The other one?”
“You didn’t bother to learn his name?” I said. Elle just stared at me with eyes rounded by concern “ Ryder’s magic isn’t apparent, but if something diluted Walker’s, then wolf magic is probably impossible to detect. Hopefully, he’s with Walker.”
Elle looked like she wanted to say more but finally nodded.
At least she’s not crying.
She calmly gestured to the forest, but her dark eyes were round. “Shall we go after them, then?”
“We shall,” I snapped. “Let’s move.”
Elle’s politeness grated my nerves, as did the fact that she had tricked me before. Part of me respected her, though I wanted to hate her.
I needed to hate her.
Focus, I reminded myself. Walker could be in danger.
The three of us hurried into the woods with nothing but the clothes on our backs. The rest of our belongings had been lost in yesterday’s chaos. I was grateful for all the fish Ryder had been able to find and the berries I had scrounged for us. Despite this and the nerves churning my gut, my stomach rumbled with hunger.
Cadence cleared a path through the thick shrubs, vines, trees, and roots, and I hoped that advantage would help us reach the guys before something else did.
“What do you think they’re after?” Cadence wondered. Her breath was a bit ragged, but the girl didn’t complain about our pace. “I don’t sense anything chasing them.”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I don’t know what could’ve prompted them to leave us, but I don’t like it. Something…something unnatural could be influencing their actions.”
“I don’t sense any other magic,” Cady countered, “except for the magic in the island itself.”
“Some creatures are bound to places,” Elle mused. “Lives can be tied to locations, and beings can be cursed. Such things are harder to sense.”
Cadence opened her mouth to reply, but I interrupted. “How exactly do you know all of this?”
Elle swallowed. “My parents taught me.”
“Please don’t start crying again,” I muttered.
“Freya!” Cady chided. “Not cool.”
Traitor, I thought and grimaced at my hypocrisy.
“Cursed,” I mused, intent on steering the conversation back to the problem at hand. My stomach dropped. “Sirens are cursed.”
“And they hide in convenient locations to summon fishermen to their deaths,” Elle realized. “The men are headed in the direction of the opposite coast—away from our protection.”
I bit my tongue to keep from asking what protection the most hunted magical creature on the planet with seemingly no powers could provide. I had already damned the girl. The least I could do was curb my hatefulness.
“Their song,” I said instead, “we must not be able to hear it because we’re not its target.”
“Like a dog whistle,” Cadence agreed. “It’s tuned to certain frequencies.”
“We need to hurry,” I insisted and picked up the pace.
For a while, we walked in silence, other than the constant shuffling of insects and the incessant raggedness of our breath. As the sun rose higher in the sky, more and more sweat poured down my spine. When I couldn’t take the heavy, humid heat, I summoned a breeze.
“Hell yeah,” Cady said. Her light brown hair danced past her face. “That’s what I’m talking about.”
“Your brother would not approve of your language,” I chastised, though I fought a smile.
“The breeze feels great,” Elle said. “I thought I might drown in my own sweat.”
“Aren’t you used to the humidity?” Cady asked before I could make an unkind remark. “You know, we found you right on the coast.”
“I’ve lived all over the world,” Elle said. From someone else’s mouth, it would’ve sounded like a boast, but she explained it like any other boring fact. “We were constantly on the move. I didn’t realize until I was older—until I had complained about it many times to my parents—that it was for my own protection.”
“How old are you?” Cady asked.
“Twenty,” Elle said.
“You could’ve ditched your parents,” I said. “Twenty is plenty old enough.”
I wasn’t sure why I said it. Most witches lived with their families all their lives, which was what I had planned to do.
“I could’ve,” Elle admitted. She grew quieter. “I should’ve. They would still be alive if it weren’t for me.”
Cady took Elle’s hand and squeezed it gently.
“Losing people never gets easier,” Cadence said. “My mom died when I was young, and my dad, well, it feels like I’ve lost him fifty times.”
The conversation stalled.
“Freya’s lost people too,” Cady added with a pointed look in my direction.
I scowled. I was not in the mood to swap sob stories with the chimera.
“You don’t have to tell me,” Elle promised.
“Oh, trust me.” I picked up the pace. “I won’t.”
“May I, however, ask,” Elle said, “why you’re here for me?”
“The High Witch and apparently all the Leaders want you in their custody,” I said dully.
“I know,” Elle said. “That’s not what I meant. Why did she send you? You and Walker and Cady and…and Ryder.”
“And Arion,” I added. My familiar rubbed against my leg.
“C’mon, Freya,” Cady said. “She deserves an answer.”
“I don’t think that’s really a norm for hostages,” I countered, but guilt took the bite out of my words.
No matter what I threw at Elle, she refused to be rude. Whether it was all a facade to worm her way under my skin or not, I had to admire her resolve. I sighed.
“I did something that displeased the High Witch,” I admitted. “In order to regain her good graces, I must apprehend you.”
“She saved my brother,” Cady clarified.
Elle nodded. “So you will do what she says or she’ll kill you and all those you love.”
I nodded. This was why I hadn’t wished to talk about this—it was such an ugly truth.
“My mother always put the coven first,” I continued. “I will do the same.”
“I don’t begrudge you for that,” Elle said. “Love is the greatest motivator of all.”
Though I would never admit to something so cheesy, I couldn’t argue with the sentiment, nor could I deny there was a certain strength in Elle’s vulnerability. Despite my best efforts to harden my heart, I found myself curious about her.
“Why does the High Witch want you?” I asked. I cleared my throat. “Your magic is not particularly impressive.”
Elle smiled softly. My rudeness only amused her. “My magic is on a lockdown of sorts. To try to keep me off the High Witch’s radar, my parents barricaded it from my use until my twenty-first birthday.”
Worry gnawed at my insides.
If her magic is on lockdown, how did she spell Ryder?
Elle was lying. It was the only thing that made sense. Otherwise, I had betrayed one of my dearest friends.
The High Witch would be here at sundown to apprehend the other half of his soul.
“Is there something else?” Cady asked gently.
Elle sighed. “I suppose there’s no harm in telling you. The High Witch wasn’t the only reason for the lockdown. I remember being a little girl and…hearing something. Someone.”
Cadence and I exchanged glances and waited for Elle to continue.
“I don’t think I am necessarily what the High Witch wants,” the chimera said. “I think I’m a link to something else—something worse.”
“Something worse?” I prompted.
“I had dreams,” Elle explained. “A woman would whisper to me of all the great things we could accomplish. She sounded like me, but not. She looked like me, but not.”
A bloody grin flashed in my mind.
“My parents said shutting down my magic would silence her.” Elle swallowed. “I wanted the dreams to stop, so I agreed.”
I clenched my hands into fists, so Elle wouldn’t notice how they shook.
No one would be so foolish as to share that ominous secret and not expect to be handed over to the highest witch official on the planet.
Elle was a liar.
She had to be.
???
“There they are,” I said. “They’re heading toward the shore.”
We stood on a cliff on the edge of a forest, overlooking the rocky shores beneath. Movement caught my eye.
“What are they doing?” Cadence asked.
Ryder and Walker carefully climbed down the clusters of huge, black rocks, toward the raging water below. I eyed the waves and shook my head.
“Those will crush them against the rocks,” I said.
“We need to stop them,” Elle agreed.
I glared at her. “Aren’t we your kidnappers? Shouldn’t you want us dead?”
Please do something unforgiveable, I thought. Do something to show me you’re really a monster.
“I have seen enough death,” Elle replied and faced me. “I do not wish to see more.”
Unable to bear the sorrow in her eyes, I turned back toward Ryder and Walker and cupped my hands around my mouth.
“Walker! Ryder!” I yelled. “Stop!”
Neither of them reacted.
“Walker!” Cady shouted. “Ryder!”
When both of them climbed farther, I muttered an amplification spell and tried again.
“Walker!” I boomed. “Ryder! Stop!”
As they got closer and closer to the crushing waves, fear spiked my heartrate.
“They’re enthralled,” Elle realized. Worry furrowed her brow. “We need to get down to the rocks. Now.”
Walker slipped. As he tumbled toward the churning, crashing water, a scream built in my throat, but the rock changed shape. It flattened and caught the cowboy, then grew tall once more. Magic emanated from Cadence, but I didn’t have time to congratulate her before Ryder leaped off his rock, toward the deadly waves.
Elle shrieked, but I caught Ryder on a breeze that blew away even the most violent of water and lifted him higher, away from the churning sea. He wobbled, but I didn’t let him fall.
“You have Walker?” I asked.
“Yes,” Cadence answered breathlessly.
“Good,” I said. “Bring him to us.”
As I carried Ryder closer with my wind, he thrashed against my hold and nearly plummeted. Elle gasped, and I cursed. I had never tried to carry a resistant passenger. Finally, Ryder crested the cliff, and I pulled him toward us. He landed in a heap at our feet but immediately rose to get back to the water. I blocked him with a wall of fire.
“No!” Elle exclaimed.
Ryder did not balk at the flames. He charged directly toward them, and I did my best to dissipate them, but he was so close—
Elle grabbed his hand, and he paused. I replaced the fire with wind and exhaled in relief. Elle gripped Ryder’s hand like a lifeline.
If she hadn’t stopped him, Ryder would be dead.
Cadence grunted, and Walker appeared on a towering rock. Vines strapped his thrashing form to it, like some kind of earthy gurney.
“Good work, kid,” I praised.
Ryder now tugged against Elle’s hold, but he couldn’t get past the wind blockade in his path. He turned to the woods, but vines crawled up his body and trapped him in place. Cadence approached her brother with round eyes.
“Aren’t you always telling me,” she said, “that just because your friend jumps off a cliff, it doesn’t mean you should too?”
Grumbling incoherently, Walker struggled against his confinement. I brushed a wet strand of hair from his forehead. For a heartbeat, he stilled under my touch, but his thrashing resumed, and I wondered if I had imagined the reprieve.
I glanced at Ryder. As he stared at Elle with glassy eyes, his face was a mask of confusion. Guilt, heavier than anything I had ever burdened, threatened to suffocate me.
One problem at a time.
“Whatever they’re hearing,” I said to Elle and nodded at Ryder, “I think you can pull him out of it.”
Elle looked at me, and Ryder flailed once again.
“How?” she asked. “My magic…it shouldn’t be able to help him.”
“Because,” I said and swallowed, “you’re his goddessdamned mate.”