Chapter 20 #2
“I wasn’t sure about you,” he says to me. “Even after we took that Null out of your bag, I wasn’t sure if this would work on you.” He glances at Davina. Something passes between them. “See, babe? You figured it out.”
Davina smirks. “I told you I could make them all our little puppets.”
Ramsey grins and turns back to me. “Isn’t she something?”
“Mm,” I say.
I don’t trust myself with more syllables than that.
He stops a few feet away. Close enough that I can feel the weight of his wolf pushing at the edges of the space between us; all that manufactured dominance spilling out around the seams.
“Davina has been busy,” Ramsey says, pleased with himself. “Franco’s wards were impressive. Paranoid. Layered. Designed to keep threats out and useful people in.”
Davina’s mouth curves, but there’s no humor in it. In fact, there’s only haunted darkness in that smile as she says, “They were designed by men who thought magic was something they could own if they locked it in a cage long enough.”
Ramsey glances at her, indulgent. “And no one knows cages quite like you, do they, darling?”
Something passes through Davina’s expression. Not pain exactly. Something older and harder. Something merciless.
I keep my face empty.
Inside, every instinct I have goes still.
We’ve underestimated this hex witch. Chalked her up to some kind of coerced or na?ve errand girl for Ramsey’s delusional plans. But the feral witch before me now is clearly nurturing her own nefarious plans. And her own brand of hate driving them.
Davina looks toward the house, toward the place where Grey and Lexi stood, and says, “Franco kept me locked in that lab like a fucking slave. Years of draining my magic into his labs. Years of making me strengthen his protections, hide his secrets, patch the holes in his kingdom whenever another one of his wolves got greedy or stupid enough to tear something open.”
Her gaze flicks to me.
I don’t react.
“He called it a debt,” she says. “Like one favor owed could justify a lifetime in chains.”
Ramsey’s smile sharpens. “And now she’s been dismantling those chains. Ward by ward. Thread by thread. Every weak point your scouts found? Every boundary line that failed?” He gestures lazily toward Davina. “That was her.”
Davina lifts one shoulder. “Some cages deserve to collapse.”
“Isn’t she incredible?” Ramsey asks, eyes lit like a kid on Christmas as he looks at her.
“Impressive,” I say, because that seems like something a good little puppet would say.
Ramsey looks delighted.
Davina looks less convinced.
Before she can study me too closely, movement draws her attention toward the side garden. I follow her gaze just as Violet steps onto the lawn.
For one stupid second, my brain refuses to accept what I’m seeing.
Violet, barefoot in the damp grass, sweater sleeves pulled over her hands, strawberry-blonde hair loose around a face gone white with fear.
She isn’t moving like the others. No slack expression.
No vacant obedience. No spell-glazed calm.
She is completely herself.
And in her hands, peeking out of a dark cloth, is a blade.
Grey’s hex blade.
My stomach drops.
Violet stops a few feet from Ramsey. Her eyes dart once toward the terrace doors, toward the house, toward the place Lexi was standing before she ran.
“I brought it,” she says. Her voice shakes. “Like you asked.”
Ramsey’s expression turns almost gentle. “Good girl.”
The words make my wolf bare her teeth inside me.
Davina takes a step forward, eyes on the blade.
Violet flinches and twists away. “You said if I helped you, Lexi would be safe.”
“She was safe,” Ramsey says. “Until she ran.”
“That’s not what you promised.”
“Violet,” he says, like she’s being unreasonable. Like this is a private misunderstanding instead of a betrayal spilling out in front of half a compelled pack. “We talked about this.”
Her eyes fill. “You said you only needed the patrol notes. Then the meeting times. Then the coordinates.” Her fingers tighten around the wrapped blade. “You said if I helped, you wouldn’t hurt her.”
There it is.
The leak.
Not Donahue. Not Camila. Not one of the core wolves in that meeting room.
Violet.
Sweet, bright, breakable Violet, who looked at Lexi like she hung the moon and then handed Ramsey the sky because he threatened to tear it down.
I keep my face still.
I force myself to keep breathing.
And I do my best to keep pretending there isn’t a scream clawing its way up my throat.
Ramsey sighs. “I said I wouldn’t hurt her if she stopped being a problem.”
Violet shakes her head. “No.”
The word is small, but it lands.
Davina’s attention sharpens.
Ramsey’s does too.
“No?” he asks softly.
Violet takes one step back, clutching the half-wrapped blade to her chest. “I won’t give it to you. Not if you’re still going to kill her.”
Ramsey’s smile fades.
Davina moves first. One second, the hex witch is beside him. The next, she’s in front of Violet, her hand locked around Violet’s wrist with enough force that Violet gasps and drops to one knee.
“Careful,” Davina says. “You have no idea what kind of power you’re holding. And you’re certainly not powerful enough to use it against me.”
I stand there in my counterfeit obedience and let my face stay blank while my wolf hurls herself against the inside of my skin.
Davina peels Violet’s fingers open one by one. The last one, she peels farther back than it needs to go. There’s a soft pop.
Violet makes a broken sound, but she somehow manages to keep hold of the blade. “Please. Don’t. Lexi—”
“Pleading doesn’t open cages,” Davina says.
Dark magic flashes at her fingertips.
Violet’s eyes roll back. She crumples into the grass.
The blade drops, but Davina catches it before it can hit the ground. She unwraps it slowly, reverently, until the metal catches the morning light and hums with a potent old magic that makes my wolf want to bow in reverence.
Ramsey exhales like every piece has finally clicked into place.
“There,” he says. “See? I told you I’d get your prize, darling. Now we can begin.”
He looks at Nash and then back at me, something calculating moving behind his eyes.
“You two are going to be useful,” he says.
In my peripheral vision, Nash doesn’t react, even with Violet unconscious in the grass twenty feet away. His eyes have tracked to Ramsey with easy attention, cooperative and unconcerned.
Somewhere beyond the eastern gate, I can hear the distant sound of the chase: paws on earth, predators crashing through underbrush, and I know Grey and Lexi are fast and smart and buying me as much time as they can. Their sacrifice isn’t something I want to waste.
I keep my eyes on Ramsey, and I breathe, and I wait.