Chapter 4 Hannah
Hannah
Summoning every drop of bravery I have, I run past Julia and launch myself between her and the door, blocking her with my arms crossed. “You are not going to murder anyone tonight.”
A flash of surprise crosses her face, but she regains her composure quickly and opens her arms. “Then by what means do you propose I restore my magic?”
“You don’t. As long as we’re bound or whatever, I’m not letting you kill anyone. You can find some other way to refill your magic—or lose your power. I don’t care.”
She laughs, loud and unrestrained, tipping her head back to expose her elegant jawline and throat.
The sound ripples up my spine. “Never mind the fact that we’ll need magic in order to locate my coven and break the binding spell…
Magic will keep us both alive. Don’t you feel it? This weakening energy?”
I furrow my brow. When I focus on something other than trying to put distance between us, there it is: the ache in my temple and a swelling pain behind my ribs. Each pump of my heart sends a jolt down my left arm, like it’s struggling to keep beating.
My breath catches. This spell really is going to take me down with her.
Julia looks even worse than I feel. There’s a sheen of sweat on her forehead and chest. Her skin is paler than before, and her breathing is labored.
Her hands have a subtle tremor, and she keeps clenching and unclenching her fists like she’s fighting off pain.
She reminds me of someone in the grip of a fever—or withdrawal.
And between the desperation in her eyes and her wild hair spilling over her shoulders, she looks borderline rabid.
Still. This witch will not be murdering anyone on my watch.
“Every month? And you don’t feel guilty?” I snap.
“Lions don’t feel guilty about gazelles.”
“People aren’t gazelles!”
She raises an eyebrow. “Shall we discuss the value of life while we both waste away?”
I roll my eyes. “You’re doing a great job of getting me to like you.”
The way she smiles, with that curve in her lips and the gleam in her eyes, makes my stomach flip.
Yeah, fine, she’s attractive. Whatever. That doesn’t mean I like her.
“You’re too innocent to understand that power requires sacrifice,” Julia says.
“And you’re too out-of-touch to understand how wrong you are.”
She scoffs. “In my day, young women showed proper respect to their elders.”
“In my day, we don’t let murderers lecture us about manners.”
She rubs her forehead as if this conversation is becoming exhausting.
Finally, she drops her hand. “Miss Schmidt,” she says slowly, like she’s tasting my name. “If you won’t let me feed, we’re going to be bound forever.”
Both options are terrible, but I stay put.
She waves her hand, and a cold draft hits my back as the door flies open.
I close my fingers over her wrist to stop her from passing. “Julia, don’t.”
A pleasant sensation rushes up my arm when I touch her, so intense that my breath hitches.
It’s a shadow of whatever happened when her fingers were on my scalp, but it’s enough to make heat stir in my belly.
For a moment, I forget why I’m trying to stop her.
I just let this feeling trickle into every gap in my soul.
Her nostrils flare as she glares down at me. She’s so close that I catch her scent—something warm and intoxicating, like woodsmoke and apple cinnamon tea.
I release her, ignoring the tingling in my hand.
She inclines her head, peering down at my face like she’s searching for something.
“If you’re done being noble,” she says at last, “let’s stop wasting time.”
She shoves me aside hard.
I stumble and hit the wall, pain erupting in my shoulder. “Ow! Hey! Julia, wait!”
She strides into the darkness as if she didn’t hear me. I sprint after her in my bare feet, the cold slamming into me.
She stalks around the side of the house, and as we reach the front yard, I cut over to block her from going to the Walshes’ house—but her attention is elsewhere. Headlights illuminate the street as a car approaches.
Julia jerks back, shielding her eyes from the lights. “What manner of beast…”
“It’s a car!” I cry. “Like—a horseless carriage? Now would you please come back inside and—”
“Just what I need.” She raises both hands, and the sedan screeches to a halt as if hitting an invisible wall, its tires smoking against the asphalt. The engine roars in protest.
“No!” I change course back to her, slipping on the wet grass.
Dammit, why didn’t I tell her the car was a flaming hellhound that would kill us unless we turned around and went back inside?
Julia is panting, her breaths rasping as she forces the car to stay still. She takes labored steps closer, as if using magic is draining the life out of her.
With another sweep of her arm, the driver’s side window explodes in a shower of glass. The man inside cries out in fear.
No, no, no…
Julia reaches through the shattered window and hauls him out with a grunt of effort. His body hits the pavement hard.
Oh God, it’s Nick from three houses down! He looks younger suddenly, just a twentysomething college graduate who welcomed a daughter into the world last year.
A cold sweat breaks out beneath my hoodie. What have I unleashed?
“What the hell—” Nick’s words cut off as Julia’s hand closes around his throat.
“Julia, stop!” I slam into her and seize her cloak, afraid to touch her skin in case the contact unleashes whatever effect she seems to have on me.
She keeps squeezing, and before my eyes, her fingers blacken as if consumed by shadows. Her eyes, too, darken at the edges like bruises.
My throat constricts. I gulp down air, dizzy.
Though I pull hard, trying to pry her away, she doesn’t move. Nick’s eyes bulge and redden, his body convulsing.
Throwing caution aside, I claw at Julia’s arm. “Let him go!”
She shoves me back without looking. I stumble off-balance and fall, hitting the asphalt hard. Pain explodes in my hip, and the ground scrapes my palms.
I prop myself up, wheezing, my palms stinging. I can’t move, terror locking my muscles. What the hell am I supposed to do?
As she murmurs the incantation and her fingers and eyes darken, an energy I don’t understand fills the air. Her hair lifts, and her open cloak billows in the wind. Nick struggles, but she holds him easily by the throat.
A sick fascination freezes me in place. The way she stopped a car, shattered the glass, and pulled a grown man through the window… The sight of her standing before me with power radiating from her whole body… She’s as magnificent as she is terrible. How much power does she really have?
Then Nick makes an awful choking sound, jolting me back to reality. His body is going limp, and his eyes are bulging grotesquely.
I have to stop this.
I scramble back to my feet and throw myself at Julia again, grabbing her arm with both hands. “Feed on me instead!”
Julia releases Nick, who drops to the ground with a sickening thud, gasping and coughing.
She spins to face me, and I barely recognize her behind the feral look in her eyes.
My heart jumps as the offer hangs between us. For a moment, I want to take it back. But no. I meant what I said. I have the power to prevent this woman from killing people, and this is how I wield it.
Her brow furrows. “We established I can’t do that.”
“We established you can’t kill me. But as long as you don’t drain me completely, I can sustain you.”
As the implication registers, a cold sensation crashes through me. This is my worst nightmare. As if being bound to a witch wasn’t dangerous enough, now I’m offering to let her feed on my essence over and over, making myself so vulnerable that she could kill me if she goes too far.
Julia cocks an eyebrow. “You would let me feed on you to stop me from killing someone else?”
When she puts it like that, the choice is obvious. I won’t let others die because I’m too afraid.
I nod firmly.
Her eyes flick down my body, and I clench my fists so she doesn’t see my hands shaking.
Nick seizes the chance to heave himself back into his car, wheezing and coughing. Julia sweeps a hand toward him, her fingers moving as if etching symbols in the air. She murmurs words I don’t understand.
I open my mouth to tell her to stop whatever she’s doing, but she whispers, “Memory charm.”
I bite my lip.
Nick’s eyes glaze over as he sits in the driver’s seat, his expression going blank.
Julia drops her hand, still studying me with her brow pinched. Standing this close to her, I can barely breathe.
Then she grabs me by the wrist with enough force to make me gasp and drags me back toward the house. I follow her on clumsy feet, fear gripping my throat so hard I can’t make a sound.
Back inside, it’s suffocatingly quiet except for the crackling fireplace. Julia lets go and steps back to study me. The shadows staining her fingers have faded, and her eyes are back to normal, piercing and wintry.
“A partial feeding won’t be enough to fill my magic,” she says. “I will have to feed on you frequently.”
I hesitate. Letting her repeatedly siphon my life force sounds like a slow death. “There’s no other option? No spell or meditation or…crystal ritual that you can do?”
Julia’s laugh is sharp and cold. “I’m not some amateur practitioner who sells rocks to superstitious commoners, Miss Schmidt.”
“Right.” I shift, wracking my brain for other possibilities. “And you can’t feed on something other than a human? A bug or whatever?”
Her nose wrinkles. “No.”
“And we can’t, like, go to a blood bank?”
“Blood? What do you think I am, a vampire?” she snarls.
I put my hands out to calm her. “Okay, okay. Fine. So the repeated feedings won’t kill me?”
“Not in the short term.”
Good enough, I guess, if we’re going to break this spell by morning.
I nod. “Then do whatever you want to me.”
Her gaze sweeps up and down me, and if this were any other scenario, I would swear she was checking me out.
Which is probably why my body reacts the way it does, a flutter sweeping through me and heat erupting in my face.
It’s completely at odds with the terror pumping through my veins, making me even more disoriented.
She shifts, and I tense. A tremor runs through me. I can’t believe this woman is in my kitchen. Again.
She backs up, holding my gaze with a blazing intensity until she reaches the wood-burning fireplace. There, she sinks to her knees and extends her hands to me, palms up.
“Right now?” My voice comes out as a squeak.
She sighs. “Would you rather have a nap first? Yes, a slow start to finding my coven is a lovely idea. We have all the way until sunrise, after all.”
I clench my fists, my heart pounding. Am I ready to do this again?
“Fine. But if I’m going to be your personal battery, it’s going to be on my terms. You ask when you want to feed on me. You only take what you need. You stop if I tell you to stop.”
A pause.
“Very well,” she says.
The knowing look in her eyes makes my cheeks burn. Is she aware of how good it feels to be fed on? Does she sense my shameful fascination with it?
She’s sitting elegantly on her knees, her thighs parted. The fire crackles in the silence. Its warm light flickers across her face, illuminating the sweat and ash, casting moving shadows under her eyes.
I break our gaze, unwilling to let her see the conflicting feelings inside me.
Her outstretched hands hover, waiting for me to take them.
I can do this. It’s the first step to leaving this mess behind and getting on with my life.
I walk over on unsteady legs.
“Brave girl,” she says.
“You’re insufferable,” I grumble.
“And you’re stuck with me, sweetheart.”
I kneel in front of her, trying not to think about how I’m offering my life force to a murderous witch.
Time to feed the monster I’ve unleashed.