Chapter 15
My power hummed, and I had to get away from Raffe before I lost control. If I hurt him, I wouldn’t survive or ever be able to forgive myself.
Protect him, I linked to the others as I darted to the door.
“Wait!” Octavia shouted, but I blew past her. If they kept pushing their magic inside, they could hurt my mate worse.
Dammit, Sky, Keith snarled, sounding so damn much like Raffe that my heart fractured more. Raffe is out, and if something happens to you, all our asses will be dead when he wakes up.
I didn’t slow as I ran out of the garage door and came face to face with twenty-one coven members.
An older lady stood in the center, her face lined with thick wrinkles and her long gray hair blowing behind her. Despite her age, her eyes were the shade of evergreen needles. Four women of varying ages flanked her with tall men on either edge. Behind them stood another nine women with a man in the center.
They all had their hands lifted. Lightning crashed in the distance, and rain suddenly poured over us.
“Leave now, or you’ll force us to attack,” the older woman’s voice boomed around me, the magic chafing my skin. “Your kind isn’t welcome here.”
Keith’s scent became stronger, and I sensed him behind me just as my power thrummed harder and pulsed outward. In moments, havoc would begin, but I wasn’t sure I could take on twenty-one witches by myself.
“My kind? Aren’t we all supernaturals?” I asked bitterly. What was up with all these people thinking that because we had different abilities, we didn’t have anything in common? That attitude in humans had always perturbed me as a child.
“Yes, we are, but wolf shifters like you think they deserve to make the rules for everyone, and that doesn’t work for me.” She lifted her chin. “Nor does attacking an innocent family that wants to be left alone, the same as my coven here.” She lifted a hand.
My power pulsed out, shaking the ground underneath them.
The older woman tilted her head back when Octavia came racing out.
“Priestess Caroline, stop.” Octavia huffed and clenched her hands at her sides. “This is Divinity. She brought me back, and this boy came with her … pack.”
Who the fuck is Divinity? Keith linked.
I think that’s … the name they gave me. Even saying the words via the pack link knotted my stomach. I didn’t like the idea of them giving me a name. It made it harder to distance myself from them … like they might not have wanted to give me up.
“Wait.” Priestess Caroline lowered her hands. “How is that possible? You and Dru are human. She has power, and I can feel a strong wolf presence within her. I thought I was mistaken that she was the arcane-born until the ground shook underneath us.”
The other coven members lowered their arms, and the middle-aged woman to the priestess’s right tilted her head. She had the same eye color and sharp cheekbones, making me wonder if she was the priestess’s sister or daughter.
With the coven’s magic easing around me, my power calmed to a high fizz, and my anger flamed without risking the ground imploding. “She can speak for herself, and I was a human with power until Raffe and I completed our fated-mate bond. Then I somehow became a shifter too.” I shrugged, not understanding it myself, let alone how to explain it to anyone else.
“The rumors are true.” The younger girl beside Priestess Caroline clasped her hands over her chest. She had to be a teenager, but those eyes were the same color as the priestess’s.
I scanned the others, wondering if they all had the same eye color. Thankfully, they didn’t, or this would’ve been a lot creepier.
The girl giggled. “The arcane-born is the wolf shifter prince’s fated mate. And he chose her! How romantic.”
Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to be giddy with her. I stepped forward, and the two men on either end stepped forward too.
Keith growled in warning.
I lifted my head. “A coven member stabbed my mate, and he can’t stop bleeding despite his shifter healing. We thought maybe you could help.”
Priestess Caroline’s face turned to stone. Any sense of alarm was replaced with more wrinkles as her expression twisted with worry. “They attacked you.” Her jaw clenched. “Of course. Olwyn won’t allow you to live if you don’t side with them.”
“You’re not telling us anything we don’t know,” Keith snapped.
I wanted to smack him. Now wasn’t the time to give them attitude. I needed them to help Raffe if they could.
The two warlocks at the end scowled at Keith.
Great, I couldn’t get away from the constant pissing matches between all these alpha men.
Pushing away my annoyance, I clasped my hands together, trying like hell not to come off as threatening or demanding. “Can you help him?” I bit my bottom lip, about to drop to my knees and beg them to do something.
“I’ll need to confirm if it’s what I think it is.” Priestess Caroline walked to me, her long, earthy-brown gown skimming the gravel. “If it is, we don’t have time to waste. Avalon and Faith, go back to the house and bring me the blood fern concoction immediately.”
“But Mother,” the woman on the right gasped. “He’s the wolf prince, and that’s the last bit we have of the—”
Priestess Caroline glared. “Avalon, if the prince dies, Divinity will likely die too. You know what happened in the past. Is that what you want?”
My lungs stopped working. I hadn’t been getting as exhausted and struggling like before Raffe and I connected. Even before turning into a wolf, once I’d been with him, physical things had been easier, and his touch always calmed me. “Please help … me.” My voice cracked. I hoped that asking for myself would mean more than asking for Raffe.
“Fine.” Avalon huffed and gestured toward the gravel path. “Faith, let’s go.”
“Yes, Mother.” Faith glanced at me one last time before following.
“Everyone else, secure the perimeter since they broke through it.” Priestess Caroline hurried to the garage and looked inside.
For someone so old, she moved agilely … more so than I ever had as a human.
She made a beeline for my mate. Lucy and Adam tensed but didn’t say anything, likely because they couldn’t hear everything outside.
I could see him struggling for breath. The walls closed in on me as I realized how close to losing him I was. The metallic stench of his blood hung in the air, overtaking his normal scent that I loved.
“I need to keep pressure on the wound. He’s losing too much blood.” Dru shook his head.
“If we want him to have a chance to live, then move. Now. This may be magic at work, which means your human doctoring skills could kill him.”
Dru stepped back. “Fine, but if it’s not magic, I need to stop the bleeding. I’ve never seen anything like this. Let me get you some glo—”
Before he could finish, the priestess had removed the gauze with her bare hands, and the fated-mate connection cooled.
“Can anyone here give him blood?” I couldn’t stand here and watch him die. I had to do something. “Lucy, you’re family.”
“But on his mother’s side.” Lucy bit her lip. “It would need to be …” Her eyes widened. “Sky, you could do it. You’re a wolf shifter and his fated mate. Normally, fated mates are forged of the same soul and thus have the same blood. It’s part of the mate bond.”
My heart galloped, and my chest warmed. “Then there’s no reason to wait.”
Dru’s lips mashed together as he came to me with a needle and tubes. I pulled up my sleeve, extending my arm so he could prick me, but he hesitated.
“Dad, what are you doing?” My brother joined us, standing next to Lucy. He glanced at me then at Dru again. “She wants to save him.”
“But I can’t monitor the amount of blood she’s giving.” Dru rubbed his hands together.
He didn’t get to act like a concerned father. “Do it now, or I’ll do it myself. I know enough from my pre-vet studies to get the job done.” Though I’d probably wind up stabbing myself several times. I’d never done an IV on a human, but it couldn’t be that hard. Surely.
“Do it.” Octavia sighed from behind me. “She’s an adult and loves him.”
“Fine.” He prepped a needle. “But I don’t know if you can give him all he needs. Got it?”
“As long as he survives.” I planned on giving Raffe as much of my blood as I could before they forced me to stop, but no one needed to know that.
Priestess Caroline dug her fingers into his wound. She lifted a bloody hand to her nose. “A spell is keeping the blood from clotting, but the magical properties of the blood fern Faith and Avalon are getting will counter it, so there’s no cause for alarm as long as he stays alive until they get here.”
“Hook me up.” My vision blurred as tears of relief filled them. There was hope, and I wouldn’t let my mate die, not like this.
Dru hooked up Raffe to the other end of the tubing and came to me. He pricked my arm, and when my blood trickled down the line, I had to believe everything would be okay.
“Here, sit down,” Dru said, bringing over a chair next to Raffe.
I shook my head. Instead, I leaned on the uninjured side of Raffe’s chest, needing to feel his skin. Even though the buzz was faint, it was there, which meant he wasn’t gone.
“I’m surprised they used magic that would be so easy to counter.” Adam’s voice sounded rough even for him.
“Oh, Supreme Priestess Olwyn doesn’t realize there’s an antidote. She believes she has all the existing Books of Twilight, but my coven hid the one with the remedy—along with other things.” Priestess Caroline laughed. “She doesn’t even know it exists since this book was written before her family took over the supreme role.”
I turned my head so I could see everyone, but I kept an ear on Raffe’s chest, listening to his steady heartbeat. It might have been wishful thinking, but I swore it was already steadier.
“Her family has always been at the head of all the covens,” Dave said as he and Josie joined us at Raffe’s bedside.
“Here I believed I’d seen it all with Divinity and the prince completing their bond despite the odds, and now there’s a vampire in the prince’s midst as well.” Priestess Caroline smirked. “Maybe the cycle has been broken.” She snatched up fresh gauze and packed Raffe’s wound again. Before anyone could ask her what she meant by that, she continued, “Olwyn wants everyone to believe that her family has always been in power, but that isn’t the case. In fact, she took power after the supreme priestess who was in charge of training Foster, whose family had always reigned. The position changed to Olwyn’s coven shortly after the witches fell from power and the wolf shifters took their place.”
My brows lifted, but I couldn’t concentrate on more than that. I had more important things at hand. “I don’t care what happened as long as your coven members get back with the concoction in time.” I focused on the rise and fall of Raffe’s chest.
When I cracked my eyes open, I noticed Lucy’s and my brother’s gazes lingering on each other. She wrapped her arms around her waist, and he tugged at his ears, causing his hair, which was a shade lighter than mine, to fall into his face. He was perhaps a year or two older than me, and his complexion was a shade darker than mine. We had similar cheekbones, and he had several inches on me, coming in at around six feet.
Josie rocked on her feet. “How much longer until the witches come back?” Her worried gaze landed on Raffe.
My breathing turned rapid, but I forced myself to take the deep, calming breaths that all my years of therapy had forever lodged into my mind. Just like all the other times, it didn’t do a damn thing. The worry and hysteria still dug their sharp claws into my chest.
“They’ll be here soon.” Priestess Caroline exhaled. “We don’t live far.”
Hurried footsteps sounded from outside, and I lifted my head.
We’ll go check it out, Adam linked, and he and Keith headed back outside.
“Be strong.” Priestess Caroline lifted a gray brow. “He needs you to, for him. As long as you are, he’ll remain the same.”
Some of the weight on my shoulders eased. Not much, but enough not to feel crushed underneath the pressure like before. If my strength helped Raffe, then I’d be strong for him. Even if it was silly, having a task made me feel better, as if I had some control over the situation.
It’s the witches, Keith linked. Nothing to be worried about.
Words I never thought I’d hear Raffe or one of his friends say. Whether they liked it or not, we were at this coven’s mercy. We couldn’t get Raffe to stop bleeding without them.
“How do we do this?” I needed to know what to expect.
“We pour the liquid into his wound so it can hit the magic stored there.” Priestess Caroline wiped her bloody hands on her gown, leaving her handprints on it.
“Are we sure this is safe? This will definitely work on him?” Lucy wrung her hands. “Like, nothing bad will happen to him?”
Priestess Caroline lifted her hands. “I can’t make any promises. I only remember the description of a spell like that being used on us once when Olwyn’s ancestors tried to kill our coven. My coven worked together to find a solution, and as we were close to death, they found these rare petals that, when mixed with herbs, eliminated the effects. Based on everything I know, this is the only antidote. But Olwyn could have modified the poison in some way. We have no way of knowing until we use the antidote on him.”
All my relief faded away, and the world spun slightly around me. This might not save him after all.
Faith ran into the garage with Keith and Adam on her heels. She held a clear bottle with a putrid smell and black sludge inside.
Sludge that looked gross and like something I wouldn’t want to touch me.
Ever.
“Uh … is that still good?” Keith’s nose wrinkled. “Because I’m not so sure.”
“I’m with him.” Dave gagged. “And this is a problem, seeing as I just got full.”
“Here, let’s unpack him. We need to get the IV out of Skylar. She’s probably given him enough of her blood.” Dru moved to take the IV out.
I dodged him and shook my head, gritting my teeth. “Not until he’s fixed and the bleeding has stopped.”
Priestess Caroline unpacked the gauze, and this time, he was bleeding worse than before … probably because they kept messing with it. She held out her hand. “Here.”
Faith handed the bottle to her and took several steps back, blinking as Avalon hurried in. Avalon huffed out a breath but didn’t say a word as Priestess Caroline tipped the bottle over Raffe’s wound.
With bated breath, I watched as the sludge inched out of the bottle. The smell became worse the closer to the opening it came. Then, the material gathered at the tip, thickening until it fell into the wound.
Then something exploded.